The Manaia is a mythological creature in

Māori culture Māori culture () is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Polynesians, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of Cul ...

, and is a common motif in Māori

carving Carving is the act of using tools to shape something from a material by scraping away portions of that material. The technique can be applied to any material that is solid enough to hold a form even when pieces have been removed from it, and ...

and

jewellery Jewellery ( UK) or jewelry (U.S.) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes. From a wester ...

. The Manaia is usually depicted as having the head of a bird and the tail of a fish and the body of a man, though it is sometimes depicted as a bird, a serpent, or a human figure in profile. Other interpretations include a seahorse and a lizard. The word ''manaia'' is cognate with the founding Samoan term ''fa'amanaia'', and relevant to the Niuean ''fakamanaia'', both meaning to make a decoration or embellishment.www.maori.info Manaia page
/ref> The Manaia is traditionally believed to be the messenger between the earthly world of mortals and the domain of the spirits, and its symbol is used as a guardian against evil.
/ref> In this form, it is usually represented in a figure-of-eight shape, the upper half culminating in a bird-like beak. This form was also widely used in designs of door and window lintels and other architectural features, as well as in ceremonial hafts of weapons.

Te Rangi Hiroa Sir Peter Henry Buck ( October 18771 December 1951), also known as Te Rangi Hīroa or Te Rangihīroa, was a New Zealand doctor and a prominent anthropologist who served many roles through his life. Buck was accomplished in many fields includin ...

(1950) ''The Coming of the Maori'' a
The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre
/ref> A study of Māori carving suggests that every naturalistic figure there is an equivalent Manaia form which can be seen as a distorted profile-face version of the equivalent full-face figure. It may be that the Manaia represents some spiritual or inner facet of the full face figure. Related Manaia-like symbols are also found in other

Polynesia Polynesia () "many" and νῆσος () "island"), to, Polinisia; mi, Porinihia; haw, Polenekia; fj, Polinisia; sm, Polenisia; rar, Porinetia; ty, Pōrīnetia; tvl, Polenisia; tkl, Polenihia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of ...

n cultures, such as in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

and

Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...

. The manaia is a useful motif in carving, as it can be distorted to fit any shape and blended into many different designs. As such, it can be used to fill the empty spaces in wood carving, and in many compositions the background between the main figures is filled in with Manaia. It is a very common form in Maori jewellery (possibly only less common than the

hei-tiki The hei-tiki () is an ornamental pendant of the Māori of New Zealand. Hei-tiki are usually made of pounamu ( greenstone), and are considered a taonga (treasure) by Māori. They are commonly called ''tiki'' by New Zealanders, a term that origin ...

and

hei matau A ''hei matau'' is a bone or greenstone carving in the shape of a highly stylised fish hook. They represent good luck and safe travel across water. Meaning The fish-hook shape of the ''hei matau'' means to know, which holds that the North Island ...

), and is often found worn as a pendant carved from

bone A bone is a Stiffness, rigid Organ (biology), organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red blood cell, red and white blood cells, store minerals, provid ...

or greenstone. Manaia designs vary subtly in form between

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

, though they are often depicted as three-fingered, with these digits representing the trinity of birth, life, and death. A fourth finger, representing the circular rhythms of the life cycle and the afterlife, is also sometimes shown.

References

{{reflist
Modern Examples of Manaia Carvings
Māori art Māori words and phrases Māori legendary creatures

See also

References