Takatāpui

Takatāpui (also spelled takataapui) is the Māori word meaning a devoted partner of the same sex. In modern terminology, a person who identifies as takatāpui is a Māori individual who is queer, in other words gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or transsexual (LGBT).Takatāpui is used nowadays in response to the Western construction of "sexuality, gender, and corresponding identity expressions." (gender identity and sexual identity). The term encompasses not only aspects of sexuality but also cultural identity.Takatāpui incorporates both a sense of indigenous identity and communicates sexual orientation; it has become an umbrella term to build solidarity among sexuality and gender minorities within Māori communities.

Takatāpui is not a new term, but the application of it is recent. The Dictionary of the Māori Language—first compiled by missionary Herbert Williams in 1832—notes the definition as "intimate companion of the same sex". After a long period of disuse there has been a resurgence since the 1980s for a label to describe an individual who is both Māori and non-heterosexual. The word takatāpui was found to have existed in pre-colonial New Zealand to describe relationships between people of the same sex. The existence of this word repudiates the conservative Māori argument that homosexuality did not exist in Māori society prior to the arrival of Europeans.

The classic and earliest full account of the origins of gods and the first human beings is contained in a manuscript entitled Nga Tama a Rangi (The Sons of Heaven), written in 1849 by Wī Maihi Te Rangikāheke, of the Ngāti Rangiwewehi tribe of Rotorua. The manuscript "gives a clear and systematic account of Māori religious beliefs and beliefs about the origin of many natural phenomena, the creation of woman, the origin of death, and the fishing up of lands. No other version of this myth is presented in such a connected and systematic way, but all early accounts, from whatever area or tribe, confirm the general validity of the Rangikāheke version. It begins as follows: 'My friends, listen to me. The Māori people stem from only one source, namely the Great-heaven-which-stands-above, and the Earth-which-lies-below. According to Europeans, God made heaven and earth and all things. According to the Māori, Heaven (Rangi) and Earth (Papa) are themselves the source'" (Biggs 1966:448).

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