Cultural containers to carry placentas

SACRED VESSEL: Artist Leonie Sharp with examples of ipuwhenua, or clay vessels for holding placenta. Photo/Stuart Munro

New parents who want to take home their baby's placenta will soon have a specially crafted vessel instead of the plastic and brown paper bags usually offered.

Wanganui people are being invited to take part in a Puanga-Matariki workshop in making ipuwhenua - a vessel for holding the placenta.

At the Whanganui Regional Museum, artist Leonie Sharp will lead workshops next week in making the ipuwhenua to give to people at Wanganui Hospital and elsewhere. "They're very simple and made of unfired clay, so they can easily disintegrate in the ground," she said.

Ms Sharp said each ipuwhenua would take about an hour to make. Everyone was welcome to take part, and no previous experience in working with clay was needed.

The completed ipuwhenua will be donated to the Whanganui District Health Board as a Puanga gift.

Ms Sharp said burying the whenua (placenta) in a vessel was a customary Maori practice, based on the belief human beings were first made from earth.

A person was said to be bound to a piece of land if their placenta had been buried there.

"Placentas were placed in hollowed out gourds, wooden containers, flax containers, or uku (clay), which were anything from simple and functional to highly decorated or carved."

Although the practice nearly died out, it went through a revival in the 1980s, and was now supported by Maori midwives and some hospitals, she said.

Whanganui District Health Board's director of Maori health, Rowena Kui, said she anticipated the gifted ipuwhenua would be popular with women and their families. She said current practice was for hospital staff to ask a mother if she wanted to keep the placenta.

"If they do wish to keep it, the placenta is double-bagged in plastic and then placed into a brown paper bag and labelled. If women do not wish to keep the placenta it is disposed of appropriately by the hospital."

Mrs Kui said the ipuwhenua would be offered to all women giving birth, no matter what their cultural background.

Two other Puanga workshops will also be held next week.

On Tuesday at 1pm Rena Star will be teaching a drawing and cardboard print workshop, and on Wednesday at 1pm a mixed media craft workshop will be taught by Carmen Simmonds, Deanna Randell and Laurelle Lomas.

Ipuwhenua workshops will be held at the Whanganui Regional Museum from 1pm, July 18 and 19. All welcome.