tohunga

/ ˈtɒhʊŋə; tɒˈhʊŋə /

noun

1. a Māori priest, the repository of traditional lore

Example Sentences

“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

Well, after this, the Governor died; he was bewitched, as I have heard, by a tohunga at the South, where he had gone to get names to his paper; for this was his chief delight, to get plenty of names and marks on his paper.

From Project Gutenberg

The fugitives had fairly escaped; and what the relations wanted was that the atua, or familiar spirit of the tohunga, should bring the ship back into port, so that they might have an opportunity to recover the lost ornament of the family.

From Project Gutenberg

These priests or tohunga would, and do to this hour, undertake to call up the spirit of any dead person, if paid for the same.

From Project Gutenberg