The traditional practice of flensing - cutting the skin and fat from a whale - has begun in Mercury Bay in the Coromandel.
Local iwi Ngāti Hei are being guided by cultural whale experts from Ngāti Wai in Northland.
The 16-metre-long sperm whale washed up at Matapaua Bay and was towed nearly 12 kilometres south to Wharekaho the site of an ancient Ngāti Hei pā, which is appropriate for burial.
It’s the first sperm whale Ngāti Hei have seen on their shores in a century.
"Tangaroa honouring us with this taonga we feel very privileged and honoured but at the same time quite sad," Ngāti Hei spokesperson Joe Davis told Newshub.
It's sad because the sperm whale is regarded as an ancestor in Māoridom - leaving Tangaroa - the God of the sea - and returning to his ancestral lands and origins to Tane Māhuta - the God of the forest.
"It's like a tangi, it died of natural causes it was mate (dead) before it came here now we look to fulfil its legacy.
"We could write waiata about this, share our experiences- meeting our whanaunga that is what this tohora has done," Davis said.
For Tohunga -whale expert Hori Parata and his team, they’ve travelled from Whangārei to assist Ngāti Hei to share Mātauranga Māori indigenous knowledge and to revive the cultural practices.
Parata said over 25 years he has had the honour to serve and do the cultural practice on almost 600 whales.
"The difference is our two paradigms, to them- it's just a whale to us it's a whanaunga," Parata said.
Manu Taupunga operational manager Jaycee Tipene-Thomas said health and safety is a crucial part of the mahi.
"At the end of the day, we're working with marine mammals who are deceased and decomposing and so that poses a biohazard risk," Thomas said.
The Sperm Whale is estimated to be 55 tonnes [and] there are about 50 volunteers from various iwi in Mercury Bay as well as the Department of Conservation (DoC) all helping and reviving the cultural and sustainable practices that have almost been forgotten.
"We take on the practices of the bone cleaners of old who would not eat for three days and three nights - hence not allowed to eat in the pit with our own hands and we are given the state of tapu," Te Uri o Hau descendant and kaitiaki (guardian) Buchanan Beech-Cullen said.
DoC Coromandel operations manager Nick Kelly said: "We are humbled and honoured to learn some of the cultural practices as well."
It's expected the process of cultural whale flensing and rendering whale oil will go on through the night with the bones hopefully buried ceremonially on Friday.
