The Love of My Liver

 

The Maori artifacts in the Auckland War Memorial Museum were covered in patterns, whether carved, painted, or woven.  A box, a puppet, a storage building, an oar, even a rifle bought from the English.  All but the smooth stone flax-pounders seemed to place the ornamental above the practical.  Except that these designs, while not geared toward efficiency, are not quite impractical.  Wouldn’t you paddle harder given an oar tooled meticulously and thoughtfully by hand?

Unlike pure decoration designs, the designs are composed of motifs with given meanings.  A hook shape on the hull of a ship and tattooed on our guide’s arm signifies speed, as it echoes the way water swirls when paddled quickly.  (Also see the red and black section of the above picture).  A woven staircase design in the sacred house, or marae, signifies education.  (See picture.)  It’s almost like a doubly secret code: first secret in that outsiders don’t know what the symbols mean, and then secret in that the symbols might be mistaken for meaningless flourish.  Of course, when there were only Maori in Aotearoa (the native name for New Zealand), everyone would know the patterns contained symbols.  Only nowadays are there people who will encounter these objects and just think, “Oh, how pretty.”

I think we all have a spiritual need for depth.  We look at something and want there to be significance beneath the surface, an answer to “But what does it mean?”  Language is so alluring to me because it is both a sound entity and a meaning entity.  Only speakers of the language can access the meaning, and so have the special satisfaction of knowing what is beyond the sound.  In Victorian England, a so-called “language of flowers” emerged to express sentiments that would be inappropriate to express directly.  Imagine the dual experience of a suitor receiving a japan rose, aware superficially that his beloved has finally given him a flower, but aware also that this particular flower means “beauty is your only attraction.”  Hearts, peace signs, and Chinese characters might be so popular in America because there is a meaning behind them, even if it’s trite or out of context.

Yet these deeper meanings are not inherent in the objects, sounds, or shapes; they are assigned by cultures.  Looking for a deeper meaning in language or music or the natural world, I find only arbitrary human associations.  Maybe this is why so many see language and nature as a higher power’s creation.  It gives these things another level of significance, the sacred, which we claim is not something we thought up.  When we make art, we are trying to reach something beyond ourselves—beyond humanity even—something universal.  Please, is there not, we ask, something besides ourselves?  Surrounded by these Maori objects rich with meaning, though, I felt a part of a system of understanding.  I sensed something great and profound and comforting, even if I knew it was derived by people.

There is a saying in Maori, “you are the love of my liver.”  Rather than the heart, the liver is considered the emotional epicenter.  When I think about it, there are many emotions that seem to occur in the liver, though I won’t deny I’ve had heart-emotions, stomach-emotions, and scalp-emotions as well.  At first, the English translation of this phrase struck me as humorous, a play on “love of my life,” but of course that pun was not there originally.  I guess it goes to show that, no matter how much I try to be open to another world of understanding, I will experience it through my own personal/cultural lens.  In translation, if you will.