page_title: Tohunga
section_title: Callings and practices
hierarchical_section_title: Tohunga / Callings and practices
caption_attribution_description: English: Matapo, the oldest of his people
context_page_description: In the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, a tohunga is an expert practitioner of any skill or art, either religious or otherwise. Tohunga include expert priests, healers, navigators, carvers, builders, teachers and advisors. "A tohunga may have also been the head of a whanau but quite often was also a rangatira and an ariki". The equivalent and cognate in Hawaiian culture is kahuna.
context_section_description: There are many classes of tohunga (Best 1924:166) including:
  Tohunga ahurewa: highest class of priest
  Tohunga matakite: foretellers of the future
  Tohunga whakairo: expert carvers
  Tohunga tātai arorangi: experts at reading the stars
  Tohunga kōkōrangi: expert in the study of celestial bodies (astronomer)
  Tohunga tārai waka: expert canoe builders
  Tohunga wetereo: expert in the language (linguist)
  Tohunga tā moko: expert in tā moko (tattooist)
  Tohunga mahi toi: expert artist
  Tohunga tikanga tangata: expert in the study of humans (anthropologist)
  Tohunga o Tumatauenga: expert in weapons or war party chaplain
  Tohunga kiato: lowest class of priest
  Each tohunga was a gifted spiritual leader and possessed the natural ability of communicating between the spiritual and temporal realms through karakia (prayers), pātere (chants) or performing waiata (songs) that had been passed down to them by tohunga before them. However, their rites were mainly in the specific fields in which they practiced, as outlined above.
caption: "Matapo, a blind tohunga" in Te Tohunga by Wilhelm Dittmer, 1907
exif: {}