From the heart of the land, to the depths of the sea; repositories of knowledge abound.
"Huutia te rito o te harakeke, kei hea te koomako e ko? Kii mai ki ahau: He aha te mea nui o te ao? Maaku e kii atu: He tangata he tangata!"
'If you pluck out the heart of the flax bush, how can the bell bird sing? You ask me: What is the greatest reality of the universe? I reply: The human person!'
These are strong words, placing the human person above every other being in the sense of being responsible to correct ...to restore ...to resolve ...in imbalances should they occur in the Great Weave of Life. This whakatauki is heard frequently as the opening words in speeches. Yet with their reference to the singing of the bell bird they also express our intrinsic inter dependence on All our Relations thus humbling the human as kin with all of creation.
A Maori way of expressing this worth of the human person is to speak of a person's mana or power. We have already seen that mana and tapu are closely linked. Where tapu is the potentiality for power, mana is the actual power, the power itself.
The mana which is the actualization, the realization, of the tapu of the person, is threefold, mana tangata, power from people, mana whenua, power from the land and mana atua, power from our link with the spiritual powers. Each person has this threefold mana.
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~dominic/mana.html
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