MNOG Chronicle – Chapter VI – The Culture and Meaning of Tohunga and Turaga

Before the 2004 storyline

Matoran into Toa, Toa into Turaga, Turaga into Legend. This model of understanding the way of the Bionicle was taught to us in our childhood, when the grass was greener, Miramax was still alive and the trilogy was but a duology. Vakama uttered the now sacred words "You are not the first Toa" at the end of 2003, leading us into the 2004 – 2005 prequel storyline about Metru Nui and the Toa Metru, the original forms of the current Turaga. However, according to the words of Alastair Swinnerton, this twist was a later addition and was missing from the original story bible when it was first written in 1999. So, the entire system of Matoran (back then Tohunga) becoming Toa and the Toa becoming Turaga wasn't part of the canon at the time. Those three were actually different species. The idea of making the Turaga former Toa came to be during 2003, when the next year's story was being developed.

But let's return to the actual canon. The whole 2004 retcon is based upon the notion that the Turaga have lied to us the whole time about what really happened before 2001. And if we consider the fact that this is a later addition, a question is raised — what were the Tohunga and the Turaga during 2001 – 2003, what was their role in the general functioning of the GSR and where did the latter get all their deep knowledge about the Makuta, Mata Nui, Bohrok, Toa Kaita, the Seventh Toa and all those other prophecies?

Curators of the Great Rescue

We already touched upon the original, pre-2004, backstory of the Biological Chronicle in other articles but I'll need to refer back to it every now and then, seeing how most of the themes discussed on this blog — whether it be the Kaita or the Rahi — are heavily reliant upon it and its logic in regards to worldbuilding. Today we are discussing the culture of the Tohunga in its entirety, but we will start from the original Turaga and work our way towards the introduction of the Toa Metru. In order to do that we will have to understand what role they played in the GSR according to Mr. Swinnerton when the major plot revolved around the colonization of a new world by the GB's and not rebuilding their old one, like in 2009 – 2010:

“The backstory of the Mata Nui robot was detailed by Alastair Swinnerton in the first few Bionicle story bibles. It bears some similarities to the Shattering backstory we got in 2009, but some elements were removed or retrofitted amidst story changes after Mr. Swinnerton’s departure — most notably Makuta’s original backstory, which will be detailed in a later section.

The original concept for the Bionicle universe began with the destruction of a planet. The Great Beings planned to colonize a new world and to this end they created a biomechanical evacuation ship called Mata Nui to transport their civilization, which was held in suspended animation, to a safe haven elsewhere in the universe. Throughout the journey the ship was crewed by the Tohunga, who worked with Rahi to maintain the ship and its systems. The Toa served as security officers. Another part of Mata Nui’s systems was the Bohrok, whose job was to clean the debris from the robot’s exterior once it arrived. Upon reaching the destination world Mata Nui was meant to lay the groundwork for the civilization to thrive once again.”

This is a great and complete answer — the Turaga command the small Tohunga workers and watch over the successful completion of Mata Nui's purpose.

Turaga's amnesia and Kini's knowledge

As we know from the 2004 – 2010 canon, the Matoran and the Toa lost all their memories in their respective capsules and were forced to build their island life basically from scratch—while the Turaga remembered everything and tried their best to watch over their respective tribes. However, in 2001 – 2003 the reason for the mass amnesia wasn't the canisters, but the Great Cataclysm itself, provoked by Makuta's virus. Moreover, the amnesia did touch the Turaga as well, which only increases the difference in their behavior in 2001 – 2003, when they basically shared everything they knew and 2004 – 2010 when they often lied and obfuscated the truth for the greater good.

“However, something went wrong during the voyage. An entity known as The Makuta sabotaged the mission, infecting the ship with a virus which caused Mata Nui to crash land on the planet with only its head, knees and feet emerging from the ocean. The cataclysm scrambled the memories of the crew, who, sans the Toa, disembarked onto the island of Mata Nui, completely ignorant of their true purpose. Claiming the island as his own, Makuta spread his dark infection from the robot’s interior onto the land, weakening the islanders’ abilities and enslaving the Rahi beasts that now roamed wild. Meanwhile the original inhabitants remained in stasis deep inside the robot, forgotten by all.”

This is also what Turaga Nokama tells us in MNOG when we ask her who we are:

“The Tohunga have forgotten their civilization. Even the Turaga do not have record of all that has come before.”

However, despite the Turaga's Great Cataclysm-induced amnesia, they still had some vague memories about everyone’s true purpose. They were able to advise the Toa on their adventures, knew about the true purpose of the Bohrok, and told the Matoran about Mata Nui and Makuta. But how do they know so much? A hint is given to us by the glossaries of the Legend of Mata Nui from 2001:

“Great temples where the Turaga go to think the great thoughts. They are centers of wisdom and learning and usually have an Amaja.”

I cannot gloss over the fact that the sentence about submerging themselves into Great Thoughts can be heard in the Mask of Light movie, which tells us that this was actually written down in the bible. Many of us didn't understand how Gali was suddenly able to levitate while meditating. And her mask suddenly was all glowy. But if we consider that the Kini were supposed to be data banks and gave their users knowledge about the inner workings of the GSR, then Gali's meditations and the Turaga's knowledge about, well, everything has a nice and clean plot explanation. But if we follow the 2004 – 2010 canon these structures have no plot relevance beyond being beautiful structures for the Toa.

Also, in the article talking about the Kaita we learned that Kini-Nui is the place where later on the Turaga will learn how to create a Turaga Nui, which only reinforces the notion that Kini-Nui is a data bank. Now, let's talk a little about the mystery of the Turaga. In 2003 Greg Farshtey was asked the following question:

“Why do the Turaga speak in riddles? Did the Makuta's mind-wipe muddle their memories?”

“Actually, I just discussed this with the story bible writer the other day [apparently he means Alastair Swinnerton]. He says that after several thousand years, the Turaga's memories have just naturally gotten jumbled with prophecies to the point where they cannot always keep things straight.”

This way all the legends and the prophecies of the Turaga are literally just that and were acquired during special meditations in their temples.

About Tohunga as a species, their culture and their society

As we all know, the Bionicle setting in 2001 consisted of a large collection of religious and cultural elements, taken from various cultures (mostly, of course, the Maori). And in this section, I would like to take the time to go deeper into this rather sensitive topic.

Let's try and look at the conception of the Mata Nui tribes both in a vacuum and in the context of their source material. Let's start with how originally, in the mind of Bob Thompson, there were six tribes on the island, each containing about 12 Tohunga. This differs greatly from the massive Kolhii crowds and gatherings seen in the MoL movie, but still — before the retcon the island was very sparsely populated, which was quite unique. This limit makes the Tohunga society more tightly connected. In this kind of society everyone knows everyone else by name and has good relations with each other — similar to a pre-modern era village. In this kind of society, everybody is involved in the community to ensure effective survival, and everybody has their role to play — carrying out tasks that would ensure the future survival of the tribe. And this we saw quite often during 2001 – 2003. I think that the only exception from these rules would be Takua and even then, Vakama exiles him from his tribe, since his Kolhii-headedness only disturbed the tribe and annoyed the other, ever-busy, Ta-Korans, he made everyone else's jobs in the tribe harder. It is interesting to note that in MNOG II we indeed only see 12 Matoran a tribe — the two exceptions being Ta-Koro (where Takua is 13th, which only further adds to his outcast status) and Le-Koro (we only meet six Matoran NPCs there, but others are mentioned in passing through dialogue. Presumably, this chapter was a little rushed in comparison to the others).

While talking about the distribution of roles within Tohunga society, we cannot gloss over the Maori culture. As we all know, using concepts and words from Maori, especially the word Tohunga itself, was very offensive towards the Maori back in 2001 since it has great importance in their culture and wasn't fit for buildable rock'em sock'em robots. Tohunga was a name for highly specialized workers: healers, holy men, language experts and people with other unique roles in the community. In order to understand the real meaning behind tohunga, we will have just to open Wikipedia: 

“In the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, a tohunga (tōhuka in Southern Māori dialect) is an expert practitioner of any skill or art, either religious or otherwise. Tohunga include expert priests, healers, navigators, carvers, builders, teachers and advisors.”

“There are many classes of tohunga (Best 1924:166) including:
Tohunga ahurewa: highest class of priest
Tohunga matakite: foretellers of the future
Tohunga whakairo: expert carvers
Tohunga tātai arorangi: experts at reading the stars
Tohunga kōkōrangi: expert in the study of celestial bodies (astronomer)
Tohunga tārai waka: expert canoe builders
Tohunga wetereo: expert in the language (linguist)
Tohunga tā moko: expert in tā moko (tattooist)
Tohunga mahi toi: expert artist
Tohunga tikanga tangata: expert in the study of humans (anthropologist)
Tohunga o Tumatauenga: expert in weapons or war party chaplain
Tohunga kiato: lowest class of priest” 

According to what we've heard from Alastair Swinnerton, the whole idea of taking inspiration from Polynesian culture for the Bionicle universe (as well as borrowing words from their languages like Maori) was his idea. But then we need to consider which logic he was using while giving characters their names. It is obvious that Mata Nui is "great face," Pohatu is "stone" and Toa is "hero." The words were clearly not chosen randomly. But that raises the question — why did Swinnerton opt to call these simple villagers "Tohunga?" I believe that the answer lies in our inaccurate comprehension of these characters, which was further exacerbated by later changes to the canon. In the current iteration of the storyline (the one you'll find detailed on BioSector01), Matoran are nothing but the most simple inhabitants that live in huge numbers in this giant universe on a gigantic amount of islands. Theirs is the most universally accepted species of inhabitants — simple folks living their simple lives.

But 2001 paints a whole different picture. Tohunga are a species that resides in only six (or possibly seven) small villages. They are the only workers that we know of that lived inside the robot. Their mission is sacred and comes above all; they were not intended as a civilization unto themselves, but were merely the automated crew of a giant ship on a mission to transport their makers, the Great Beings, and their people to a new paradise where they can flourish.

Also, if we follow the excerpts from one of the oldest story bibles that was quoted in the QftM booklet then we will find some really interesting and unique descriptions of the daily life of a Tohunga. Here are some examples:

“The Ko-Koro villagers serve to protect the whole of Mata Nui, ensuring that Gali’s waters remain pure and that frost will not creep down and damage the jungles and plains below.”

“Onua’s village is a labyrinth of caves and tunnels surrounding the Papa Niho Reef. Here Whenua and the rest of his tribe toil to quarry the great rocks that will eventually be carved by the Pohatu Tohunga.”

As we can see, the work of a Tohunga is of great importance to the island and the other tribes on it. They work together, and each Tohunga serves as a cog within this giant mechanism. Another example of this is seen in the MNOG II game:

"Farming lava is one way we keep Mata Nui green and healthy. When lava cools, it makes the best soil. With our farming, Le-Koro grows green, Ga-Koro's waters bountiful, and Onu-Koro's mines rich. But like the two brothers, the fire of the Mangai is both a force of creation, and a force of destruction. To farm lava takes great Courage."

Even when we just open the list of known professions on Mata Nui we can easily make the parallel towards the classes of Maori Tohunga. Even with Metru Nui there's still a lot of differentiation in Matoran jobs and work that helps other parts of the city, like Le-Metru workers maintaining the chutes that transport people and goods around the city, and Ga-Metru teachers training Ga-Matoran and Matoran from other Metru. It's no longer a pre-modern village setting of course, but I think it is worth mentioning here.

So, we can see that the Tohunga seen in 2001 have quite a few differences from the characters they became later on. The Tohunga are really a group of great specialists, masters of their craft, builders that keep Mata Nui the island paradise that it is. We can also add the harmony with the Rahi that the Matoran were trying to achieve to this, something I talked about in an earlier chapter.

Priest, Protectors and Legend Keepers

If we consider, with the explanation of the way of the Tohunga, that everything becomes a bit clearer, we still don't know about the role and the general nature of the Turaga. If the dictionary definition of the word "tohunga" is followed we learn that it originally entailed the word "priest." And the 2001 media, in contrast to the other years, clearly give this role to the Turaga. This we can learn pretty much everywhere, be it the Nestlé CD, the Power Pack CD (lots of CDs back in the day!) or even the trade catalog (of course, in 2002 all this was deleted from the descriptions of Turaga due to Lego's aversion to excessive religiosity). Judging by these descriptions, the role of Turaga has several clear descriptions that constantly list:

- Priest
- Village leader
- Keeper of Legends

Let's talk some more etymology. "Turaga" is a word originally taken from the Fiji language. The meaning seems simple enough — "man." But that's far from the whole story:

“The Turaga-ni-Koro is a title for the head of a village (Koro), who is usually elected or appointed by the villagers. As kind of city administrator or mayor, he plays a key role in the modern Fijian government structure and is paid a small government allowance.

Similarly, the chief of a Mataqali (clan) is known as the Turaga-ni-mataqali. The exact historical status of the Turaga played an important role in conflicts regarding common landownership.”

Now, the word Turaga has a logical and defined explanation. Here we have the word Koro, retaining its original meaning, and the already commonly used and accepted role of wise man, lifted into the setting with practically no change whatsoever.

Regardless there is still one very important element I need to discuss — the true age of the Turaga. Starting with Mask of Light in 2003, our collective consciousness has retained this idea of slow-moving, elderly beings relying on their staffs for locomotion. It is of course clear that the Turaga were meant to be characters that are much wiser than the Tohunga, and older than them. This is made evident by this post from the Templar Games team, where they defined the age of their main Tohunga cast while creating MNOG:

“But sometime toward the end, we realized that’s exactly what our audience was: the small, the powerless. Those whose stories are yet to be written. Kids.

And not just kids - Bionicle kids. So we pushed it further. The Toa were heroes - Takua was not, and nor were his friends. They were small and powerless, just like the kids playing. And maybe they weren’t even the popular kids. So the band of Matoran you assemble isn’t even the best and brightest (well, except Maku). It’s not the Turagas’ right-hands, it’s their lefts: the misfits, the weirdos. A Le-Koran who can’t fly. A Po-Koran no one likes. A Ko-Koran that can’t talk.” 

Of course, when we discuss their age, we mean their psychological age and not their physical one, considering all the characters were born at pretty much the same time and were all part of one big project by the Great Beings.

But even then, I have my ideas about how a theoretical human version of Vakama should have a black beard and not a grey one. It all depends on their participation in the 2001 storyline.

Normally we mostly saw the Turaga during MNOG. And they, as all normal NPC's should, never leave their village and are confined to their own space. This seems logical, since they are the tribe chiefs that should keep the order. But if we take a look at other 2001 media we shall see that the Turaga were usually a tad more active than we were led to believe from the movies and the games.

This thought came to me thanks to the story line cards from the QftM game, where the Turaga seem to be much more mobile. First off, they actively participate in the search for the masks. They walk around with the Toa and help them not only through giving some wise advice but also through active participation. A couple of examples:

“Whenua joins Onua in his quest for the Golden Master Mask of Power. On the way, the pair is set upon by vicious Nui-Rama bent on stopping them. With lightning-fast reflexes and massive strength, Onua fights off the attack while Whenua hangs on to the back of the mighty Toa.”

“As thanks for saving Ta-Koro, its Turaga, or leader, accompanies Tahu on his quest. Turaga Vakama soon proves his worth when he uses Kanohi Matatu’s powers of Telekinesis to aid Tahu by moving a huge boulder with the strength of thought.”

“Although Vakama has helped clear their way, the duo soon comes to another great challenge — breaking waves of treacherous, white-hot lava. Vakama despairingly laments the end of their quest, but Tahu surveys the situation and makes a decision — they will surf the fiery lava breakers on a board of stone!”

“Hurrying through the desert on a mysterious assignment, Nokama is heartened by the sight of an oasis. As she enters the shallows, a huge shadow falls over her. She turns to find a Tarakava preparing to strike. Nokama can only hope the threat of her Fork-Shaped Staff will keep the creature at bay.”

In the 2002 story booklets the Turaga actively battle the Bohrok Va as well. Here are a couple of examples, while the others can be found here:

“While Gali struggles with the Gahlok Su, the Turaga of Ga-Koro also swings into action to protect her village. Setting out across the lagoon towards deeper water, the sharp eyed Nokama instantly spots a Gahlok Ca headed her way. She swims on as if she sees nothing, hoping the element of surprise will help her to victory.”

“Deeper in the swamp, Matau hurries towards the nearby sounds of his Toa clashing with a Lehvak Za. Matau knows that together he and Lewa should be able to chase off the enraged Bohrok. If only Matau knew that a Lehvak Va was watching his every move from the shallow water, awaiting an opportunity to spring into action.”

Their portrayal in these story cards makes me inclined to regard these Turaga as wise and brave leaders, disregarding their old age. The Turaga are also known as the Protectors of the Toa, which further confirms their heavy involvement with the quests for the Masks as an active helper.

This, surprisingly, looks like how the Protectors helped the Toa during the 2015 reboot. They are much more active characters and great fighters to boot. They also accompanied the Toa during their mask hunt and helped them as mentors and armor-bearers. It seems that the Protectors aren't as far removed from their 2001 counterparts as we thought. Of course, our Turaga don't have that many special fighting skills, but even their symbols of power weren't originally meant as canes serving as support for a frail body — that was a movie addition. Originally, they were often used as their designs suggested, to cut branches, dig tunnels, etc. 

On these cards we often see the Turaga running across the entire island to help the Toa, something that definitely doesn't fit with the frail old man archetype from MoL. Even this picture made by Advance can be seen in a totally different light if we know the actual context:

Looking at these pieces of media, the many commercials where the Turaga are positioned as people ready to help the Toa find their masks make much more sense. Turaga are more leaders than elders, even if they aren't true warriors like the Toa. This is a small difference from their usual appearance but the entire purpose is shifted significantly. Elders isn't meant as something indicating age, but wisdom, and these earlier Turaga are quite capable of holding their ground and defending their village.

The evolutionary system now becomes Matoran → Turaga → Toa, which repeats this evolutionary scheme provided by Christian Faber. Turaga are wiser and superior versions of the Matoran, defenders of their villages who, thanks to their role as priests, also get closer to the spiritual and godlike Toa.

The mission of the Tohunga

Using the peculiarities within the culture of the Tohunga and the Turaga to inform me, I decided to formulate a theory about their role within the general mission of Mata Nui. Remember, his mission consisted of transporting the civilization of a dead planet to a new place which would be the site of their rebirth — and, according to my theory, Mata Nui himself would literally be this site. Landing on the surface of a new planet, Mata Nui's body would be the earth on which artificial synthetic islands are formed, the future homes for the Great Beings. But what I was the most curious about was how the Tohunga were busy with making the islands more beautiful. It is well known that the island only becomes a tropical paradise because of the way in which the Tohunga cooperate. This is their duty, a duty they put before themselves and fully recognize, taking care of their allocated tasks.

Based on this, I made the guess that the initial mission of the Tohunga, Rahi and Turaga consisted of not only keeping the internal systems functioning, but also preparing the GB's new home and cleaning up the islands, making them comfortable for living. One major argument in favor of this is the specific distribution of the Tohunga into six colorful tribes, one for each separate biome, from the tropical jungle to the snow-covered mountains. Each tribe is perfectly suited for surviving in this particular environment, but would this be useful if the entirety of their work was done INSIDE the robot? I have serious doubts about that.

But, as we know by this point, the virus and the following crash damaged the memory of the crew and they started their journey basically from scratch — explaining their faulty idea that Mata Nui created this island specifically for them. The ones that this island was created for were the GB's and not the Tohunga, but nobody remembers that and the Tohunga are refining the island for their personal needs and to have a good life.

If my conclusions are correct, then the comparisons between the Tohunga → Turaga → Toa society and the Bohrok swarm make much more sense than they do in modern canon and this schematic from Christian Faber is thrust into a totally new light. It basically justifies his idea that the Bohrok are the opposite of the Toa. If the three members of the Toa side of the evolutionary path are tasked with protecting and taking care of the island, then the Bohrok are the opposite. Their task consists of fully cleaning the surface and returning it to its original state, the way it was in the time before time, as told to us on the website and in the comics. So, Bohrok are not just cleaners, cleaning the robot surface from trash and grass, as it was realized post-2004.

The original Bohrok are nothing less but a full doomsday device, only required for a full reboot — if the GB's decide to leave this world in favor of the next one. In this case, the whole scarab-locked tombs and ancient Egypt aesthetic is much more fitting for the insect-like Bohrok, since those guys loved to discuss death and rebirth.

Evolving Droids

The idea of evolution and the merger between technical and organic materials is key for the early development of the series. This has been said multiple times by Christian Faber. Here is how he explains the meaning of Biological Chronicle, the name given by him to the series, while answering the question — "Why Biological and not, let's say, Bionic?":

“You are right that it could just as well have been made from Bionic. But looking back I know that “biological” was what stood just next to Chronicle on the notepaper.

When I look at the word now I actually like Biological better than Bionic since Bionic is made from biology + electronics which is not the case with Bionicle whereas Biological (according to Wiki) is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy.

Bionicle is exactly that. It is the story about a living building system made to create living creatures and the epic evolution it has been and will go through.”

You have to agree that this explanation for the name Bionicle is very well fitting for the idea of Evoids (referring to Alastair Swinnerton’s idea for the franchise name: Evoids, or Evolving Droids) — robots that have, by happenstance, forgotten their past and are forced to build a future from scratch, exploring a world they are not familiar with. Living in harmony with the island is not a function given to them by their creators, but a natural part of their evolution — not unlike the way our society behaved during its first stage. The Tohunga got their own culture and religion, based on their comprehension of the world they saw around them and the few scraps of memory the Turaga had left. Who knows, maybe inside the robot they didn't even have their own consciousness like the Bohrok? But after forgetting what their mission was, their evolution went into a different direction and a new civilization was born on the ruins of the old one. One based upon that which came before: the nigh-incomprehensible machinations of the GB's, their leftover technology, and the comatose giant robot that once carried them to the island and now rests beneath it. In fact, one can easily make a parallel to half a dozen different science fiction stories set on our Earth, featuring robots/mammals/etc. surviving and building a world built on the ruins of our society. A truly post-apocalyptic world, even explaining another potential, discarded, name — Afterman.

It seems like we finally reached the true heart of Bionicle, the whole idea of VoodooHeads if one of the earliest concepts is to be believed — one of the two tribes was more developed while the other was much wilder and in tune with nature. Two different branches of development for one and the same species. Each single tribe has adapted to its part of the island although they all started, or so it seems, from one single development point. But they had no back story when first designed, they themselves didn't know where they came from, and that was what Swinnerton provided, their background. If we take the idea of Evoids literally, then the Droids evolve and adapt to the surrounding environment. That's how the various tribes are born. And in this space for interpretation, finding someone else's perspective, is the true beauty of early Bionicle.

Special thanks to my friend Frozen Death for the translation, and a big thanks to Maku for editing. I also highly recommend Maku's document that includes a lot of useful information about early Bionicle lore.