tohunga

British  

/ ˈtɒhʊŋə, tɒˈhʊŋə /

noun

1. a Māori priest, the repository of traditional lore

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Example Sentences

Thoughts of a Tohunga was painted nine years before Goldie died in 1947, with art critics believing it was his best work.

From BBC

“It’s pretty special what Jacinda is able to do; she really blends that leadership quality you need with being relatable, kind and down to earth. She’s relatable for common people,” says Tohunga Riwai, 21, a politics major.

From The Guardian

Nobody breathed during the screening, they were very moved, there were a lot of tears, and at the end, in their rituals there is a tohunga, the most sacred man, and he got up and talked about the film, saying it was the first time they had seen their own history on screen.

From New York Times

If the transgression was involuntary, the chief, or a priest, or tohunga, could, by a certain mystical ceremony, prevent or remit the doleful and mysterious part of the punishment if he chose, but the civil action, or the robbery by law of muru, would most likely have to take its course, though possibly in a mitigated form, according to the circumstances.

From Project Gutenberg

I must, however, notice that these instances were only evasions of the tapu of the ordinary kind, what I have called the personal tapu, not the more dangerous and dreadful kind connected with the mystic doings of the tohunga, or that other form of tapu connected with the handling of the dead.

From Project Gutenberg