tūāhu
1. (noun) sacred place for ritual practices by a tohunga, consisting of an enclosure containing a mound (ahu) and marked by the erection of rods (toko) which were used for divination and other mystic rites.
Ka taki te wahine, ka mauria e te tohuka kā mōrehu ki te tūāhu (MT 2011:53). / The woman wept and the survivors were taken by the tohunga to the sacred place for ritual practices.
Kātahi ka titiro ki ngā toko o te tūāhu, ko tā Te Arawa, he mata ngā toko o tana tūāhu, ko tā Tainui, i tunua ki te ahi kia hohoro ai te maroke (NM 1928:64). / Then they looked at the tūāhu (sacred place for ritual practices) and that of Te Arawa, its rods were fresh and green, whereas that of Tainui, theirs had been roasted in the fire in order to speed up the drying process.
Ka mahia he tūāhu ki reira, he mea hāpai tētehi kōhatu ki runga i tētehi kōhatu hoki, ka ingoatia ko Kōhatu-whakairi. He wāhi tapu i te wā i ngā tūpuna (NIT 1995:39). / They made a tūāhu (sacred place for ritual practices) there by placing one stone on another, naming it Kōhatu-whakairi. It was a sacred place in the times of the ancestors.
He maha ngā āhua tūāhu: he tūāhu anō te tūāhu tapatai, he tūāhu anō te ahupuke, he tūāhu anō te tōrino, he tūāhu anō te ahurewa - tēnei tūāhu ka taea te hiki, he tūāhu pai tēnei - me te tūāhu ahurangi he whakaora tangata. Ka taea te hamumu e te tohunga ko tōna ringa tonu he tūāhu mō ōna karakia (JPS 1894:207). / There are many types of tūāhu: the tapatai is one, the ahupuke another, the tōrino another, the ahurewa another - this kind is movable, it is a good one - and there is the tūāhu ahurangi that restores a person to good health. The earth can be removed by the tohunga with his own hands for a tūāhu for reciting his karakia.
