So Te Papa is telling woman that if they are pregnant or menstruating they should not go the behind the scenes tours because the tours include sacred Maori items. I'm sorry but wtf! This is not the eighteen hundreds. These days people don't believe in things like spirits and curses. Or so it would seem.
I do think that this is a ridiculous state of affairs. I guarantee that no single pregnant or menstruating woman will come to harm by being in proximity to some bit of wood or green stone. Or indeed any other such 'sacred' object that is sequestered in the dungeons of our place. The so called warning is, in my opinion, an excuse to push the cultural beliefs around such things on to others that do not share them.
This ridiculous superstition is seen by many as just that. But if you think about it. Is it really so out of step with our modern way of thinking as we might initially suspect. I would say no. Yes it is ridiculous. But no more so than the Catholic belief that during mass, the priest says magic words and turns bread and wine into the actual body and blood of a two thousand year old carpenter. Or that a priest must have a penis in order to truly serve their god.
The reaction to this superstition being practiced at Te Papa is justified. It's pointless and unnecessarily exclusive. Yet it is a massive hypocrisy to condemn one form of harmless superstition and then turn around and engage in another. If you want to be consistent. You either have to allow Te Papa to exclude pregnant and menstruating women. Or you condemn it and take a similar view of all superstitious actions and practices.
I for one think it's baseless and dumb. I think all superstition is a pointless waste of time. Though I am perfectly willing for others to engage in such behavior in cases when it does no harm.
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