refers to the traditional

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

medicinal practices in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. Rongoā was one of the Māori cultural practices targeted by the

Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 The Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 was an Act of the New Zealand Parliament aimed at replacing tohunga as traditional Māori healers with western medicine. It was introduced by James Carroll who expressed impatience with what he considered regr ...

, until lifted by the Maori Welfare Act 1962. In the later part of the 20th century there was renewed interest in Rongoā as part of a broader

Māori renaissance The Māori renaissance is the revival in fortunes of the Māori of New Zealand beginning in the 1970s. Until 1914, and possibly later, the perception of the Māori race, although dying out, was capable and worthy of saving, but only within a Europ ...

. Rongoā can involve spiritual, herbal and physical components. Herbal aspects used plants such as

harakeke ''Phormium tenax'' (called flax in New Zealand English; in Māori; New Zealand flax outside New Zealand; and New Zealand hemp in historical nautical contexts) is an evergreen perennial plant native to New Zealand and Norfolk Island that is an i ...

, kawakawa, rātā, koromiko,

kōwhai Kōwhai ( or ) are small woody legume trees within the genus ''Sophora'' in the family Fabaceae that are native to New Zealand. There are eight species, with ''Sophora microphylla'' and '' S. tetraptera'' being the most recognised as large trees. ...

, kūmarahou, mānuka, tētēaweka and

rimu ''Dacrydium cupressinum'', commonly known as rimu, is a large evergreen coniferous tree endemic to the forests of New Zealand. It is a member of the southern conifer group, the podocarps. The Māori name ''rimu'' comes from the Polynesian ...

.Franchelle Ofsoske-Wyber. The Sacred Plant Medicine of Aotearoa.

References

Further reading