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Polynesians possess oral traditions that reveal sophisticated understand- ings of the world and of their place in it. These typically take the form of an elaborate cosmogony beginning with the origin of the universe and the primal parents, then continuing to trace the descent of living and nonliv- ing, material and immaterial phenomena, including humans. Among New Zealand Mäori, such knowledge is encoded and recorded in a mental construct called whakapapa (having an underlying meaning, "to place in layers" (Williams 1975, 259)). In a commonly applied form, that of recording human descent lines and relationships, whakapapa functions as a genealogical table or family pedigree in which the lineages connect each papa or layer (a metaphorical reference to each generation of a family). The extent to which this underlying theoretical rationale for human whakapapa applies to the nonhuman has hitherto remained unexplored, at least in the published literature. To understand the meaning of plant and animal whakapapa requires knowledge of not only plant and animal names but also their accompanying narratives. Typically, these take an allegorical form in which explanatory theories as well as moral principles are explicated. In its totality, Mäori use of whakapapa and narrative cre- ates a "metaphysical gestalt" or whole, integrated pattern, for the oral communication of knowledge (Hohepa, pers comm, 1996). Renewed interest in whakapapa in New Zealand arises directly from recent worldwide controversy over the genetic modification (gm) of plants and animals, and, in particular, of transgenic modifications involving the

Whakapapa as a Maori Mental Construct: Some Implications for the Debate over Genetic Modification of Organisms