Aotearoa's best-known Māori funeral director and TV star Francis Tipene has some reservations about the precedent set by Gisborne District Council this week.
The council voted in a new bylaw that stops the discharge of mortuary waste from being pumped directly into the Tūranganui ā Kiwa River, which is seen as culturally inappropriate by local Māori.
Mortuary waste will be returned to Papatūānuku, rather than sending it out to sea, which is being celebrated as a "significant step" in Gisborne.
According to Tipene, mortuary waste contains more material than people think.
"Sometimes there are bits of cancerous things, bits and pieces that fall off the body. You know some of us have hakihaki, some of us have wounds that have been opened up so we get in there and properly clean them. There is mimi, there is tiko".
In Gisborne all mortuary waste is to be deposited at Taruheru cemetery and, while this bylaw only applies to the Gisborne area, Tipene believes this will ultimately become a national issue.
"This is a model that has opened up for other councils possibly to follow. We just want to get in there to see the workings of it, what the detail looks like."
Tipene Funeral Home is one of the biggest Māori-run funeral homes in the country, and Tipene said there were some difficulties that funeral directors would encounter.
"Organising a big tank at the back of your funeral home, filling it up with the remains of 60 bodies of tūpāpapku that we take care of. Families know that Mum and Dad's remains are in this big tank waiting to be emptied into the cemetery."
"Obviously, I'm not from there so I know the local Māori will be saying "Ea, shut up, you're all the way up in Auckland" so kei te pai tēnā, because I have a feeling at some point in time it will come here to Auckland. So the dialogue needs to happen."
Although some will say it is better to have these remains left within a cemetery, Tipene said Māori had always had customs for these types of issues, such as karakia to lift the tapu.
"There is a lot of whānau now who are asking to have the little bit of toto of their mum or their dad or loved one to be given back to them, so that's a practice that has been going on for a long time."
"At the end of the day we are here for the tūpāpaku and what covers everything is karakia, that is the most important thing, ko te tuku i te wairua."
