Special vessels for new mothers

Rena Star (left) and Leonie Sharp coat the inside of the handmade ipu whenua with beeswax, ahead of them being gifted to Wanganui Hospital this week. Photo/Bevan Conley

New mothers at Wanganui Hospital will soon be offered a specially crafted vessel for holding their babies' placenta.

About 30 ipu whenua will be blessed and gifted to the hospital this week.

The unfired clay containers were made by members of the public at a Puanga-Matariki workshop last month.

The ipu whenua are on display in the window of Gallery On Guyton. They must be completely dried and coated with beeswax before they can be used.

Workshop co-organiser Leonie 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.

Wanganui Hospital's practice is to offer the placenta to each mother and, if they want to keep it, put it in two plastic bags and a brown paper bag.

Ms Sharp said she was delighted by the number of people who turned up for the workshop.

"I thought I might have been sitting there on my own, but we had a steady stream of people. We had a potter turn up, who helped out, but other than that it was a real mixture of people."

The ipu whenua are beautifully simple vessels. One has "made with love" written on the lid, another says "aroha" on the side, and most have decorations of feathers or clay patterns.

A few ipu taonga will also be gifted to the hospital. These are much smaller vessels, used when a woman has had a miscarriage.

Rena Star from Gallery On Guyton said the blessing and gifting would be held on August 22.

"We're going to invite the makers, members of the Puanga committee and museum staff to the gallery for a blessing, then we will give them to the hospital," Ms Star said.

The ipu whenua were a Puanga gift to the hospital.

"We do have some people who are interested in continuing the project on a regular basis, and we really hope that happens," she said.