Te riri o Tangaroa

Tangaroa is the sea, and everything living in it. But the story that explains the sea's temper is a story about brothers falling out.

When Tāwhirimātea came down from the sky to punish his siblings for separating their parents, he came for Tangaroa with everything he had. Wind on open water. Tangaroa's children were terrified, and they split.

Some of them fled inland — Tū-te-wehiwehi, in one telling, took his descendants up the rivers and into the bush, and they became the ngārara, the lizards and the reptiles and the crawling things. The others — Ikatere and his line — went deeper into the sea, and they became the fish.

So the tuatara (ancient reptile of Aotearoa) on a warm rock and the snapper on your line are cousins. That is not a metaphor. That is whakapapa, and it is why a fisherman's tikanga and a bushman's tikanga rhyme.

But Tangaroa did not forgive the ones who ran inland. In his eyes they abandoned him mid-fight. And when Tāne — the brother of the forest — gave them shelter, that put Tāne on the wrong side of it too.

That is why the sea eats the land. Every tide that pulls at a beach, every cliff that comes down, every dune that goes: that is Tangaroa taking Tāne's country back, a handful at a time, for taking in his deserters. And in return, people cut Tāne's trees and shape them into waka (canoe) and hooks and nets, and go out onto Tangaroa's back to take his children. The two of them have been at it for a very long time, and we are in the middle of it every time we launch a boat.

This is why you do not go to sea casually. Karakia before a launch is not decoration; you are entering a relative's house during an ongoing argument. The first fish caught was returned to him. You did not take more than you could use. You did not eat on the water in some traditions, you did not boast, and you did not name your catch before you had it.

And then there is rāhui (temporary prohibition on gathering).

A rāhui is a temporary prohibition — a stretch of coast closed to gathering. It goes up when a bed of pipi (small shellfish) is thinning, or after a drowning, and it is marked and it is announced and it holds. People who do not know the culture sometimes hear that as superstition. It is not. It is fisheries management with a spiritual seal on it, and it worked for centuries because breaking it did not just risk a fine — it cost you your standing, and it endangered everyone.

Look at what is happening to kaimoana (seafood) now, in places where rāhui is not respected and quota is set somewhere else, and ask which system was actually managing the resource.

Tangaroa's breathing is the tide. That is how it is spoken of — the sea inhaling and exhaling twice a day, on the moon's timing, not the clock's. It is why the maramataka (Māori lunar calendar) governs fishing: certain nights the fish move, certain nights they do not, and a person who knows the calendar eats better than a person who knows the weekend.

So, one thing to do. Next time you drink a glass of water, drink it slowly and treat it as given rather than bought. All fresh water is heading back to him. And if you take kaimoana — take less than you are allowed to, put the small ones back, and leave the beach so the next person cannot tell you were there.