Each person has this threefold mana. The persons we stand one with are not only the living, but even more so the ancestors, those members of the family who have already gone before us. So basic to being a person and to being Maori is to be whaanau, family, not just with the living, but also with the dead. The importance of people is also seen in the Maori writing of history. This is centred on people rather than places, and on my people, rather than some other people.
Time is also people centred.
In the story of Ngaati Whaatua, written down by Paora Tuhaere, the time is grandfather's time, or grandfather's grandfather's time, just as the stories are grandfather's stories, or grandfather's grandfather's stories. The stories are still grandfather's stories. We still see the grandparents travelling around and going to hui, meetings, with their mokopuna, grandchildren, and telling them the stories their grandparents told them. In this way he identifies himself not just with the Ngaati Whaatua people who are living, but also, and especially, with the Ngaati Whaatua people of the past with all their history. In Maori ritual the identifying with the ancestors goes right back to the beginning.