Who knew that Maori astrology, horoscopes and quackery could solve your mental health issues? I certainly didn’t until Newshub ran a deadly serious article explaining that such mumbo-jumbo and hocus-pocus can indeed solve a multitude of health problems.
Maori are well known for using the stars and the moon to navigate across the ocean in their waka.
Not so well known to non-Maori is their tradition of using the moon and stars to help treat mental health issues.
It’s called maramataka and will be incorporated into treatment by the new Maori Health Authority.
Newshub
This will work just as well as Maori using the stars for “navigation”. If they could navigate all over the place, then why do they have no idea how to find Hawaiki, and how come they could never go back to get more crops other than just kumara or to re-learn the art of pottery that they somehow “forgot”? They forgot Hawaiki, they forgot pottery, but they fastidiously mapped out the whole of the Pacific Ocean, but still couldn’t find any of the places that they mapped (without having knowledge of maps)?
But hey, the proof is in the pudding. How are those Maori mental health stats, they must be well above those for non-Maori then, right? Right?
Rereata Makiha is on a mission to share ancestral knowledge with the next generation.
He’s an expert on maramataka Maori, or the Maori lunar calendar, and forecasting based on the moon cycles, star systems, tides, and the environment.
“The maramataka helps you, helps us to predict when things are going to happen, to tell us when the fish are going to run, when the eels are going to run – all those sorts of things,” he said.
“When you understand it a lot it’s a brilliant guide on when you should be doing certain things.”
Rikki Solomon teaches at-risk rangatahi and whanau how to use maramataka for improving mental health and knowing when to spend time doing certain activities in nature or around whanau.
“If we find that a whanau has had a low time or they may feel low, what we use is the maramataka to identify their cycles, their highs, and their lows,” Solomon said.
“What we observe in those low areas is what are some rituals at that time. And what I mean about rituals is what is the environment that they can connect to, because our environment is our biggest healer.”
Maori have the highest suicide rates of all ethnic groups in New Zealand. Mental distress among Maori is almost 50 percent higher than non-Maori and 30 percent are more likely to be left undiagnosed.
In 2018, Solomon and Makiha correlated a decade of coronial suicide data with a Maori lunar calendar and found that many suicides occurred on the new moon and the full moon – 35 percent on the new moon and 16 percent on the full moon.
“When someone is going through conflict at that time, we have to observe them and teach whanau that we have to be mindful and observe when there has been conflict and that we are watching them in the next few days and after. And we can use this in many areas,” Solomon said.
Newshub
Gee, happens around the new moon, eh? Now, where have I heard of that before? Oh that’s right, quacks in the past thought that the moon caused epilepsy, bipolar disorder and madness…and the sufferers of such illnesses were called lunatics. We’ve moved on since then, you know, through science. This is just a return to good old-fashioned quackery.
And have a guess how much it is going to cost us all?
The new Maori Health Authority has a budget of half a billion dollars and CEO Riana Manuel has allocated $100 million of that to support centuries-old treatments.
“Connecting people back to those spaces and places that have been long forgotten is certainly something that will be investing in,” Manuel said.
Just like they do with Matariki, Maori use maramataka as a way of reading the cosmos to prepare for what’s coming.
“It’s a way of rebuilding the body, your wairua, and rebuilding your energy and getting prepared for the high energy days ahead,” Makiha said.
“So it goes in waves like that and if people understand it and go back to that rather than rush, rush, rush every day, I think that’s what drives a lot of the ill-health.”
Newshub
So it appears that you can be cured of your mental health issues with Maori horoscopes, astrology and magic words, all based on the moon cycles. All paid for by your colonialist tax dollars.
This is not only stupid but dangerous. Suicide prevention by the stars. Yeah right. How long before they fund witch doctors to just point the bone? Are they going to use the moon and stars to deal with their horrific child abuse statistics?
Naturally, the Newshub article was funded as part of $55 million Public Interest Journalism.
Imagine the outcry if the local astrologer in Takapuna was being funded by the Government for palm readings, and seances…it’s that batshit crazy, but because it is Maori it not only gets funded it also gets taken seriously. Anything Maori is to be accepted without question and as superior to the racist colonial white man.
Of course, they happily take those colonialist dollars to fund it all.
The lunatics really are running the asylum.
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