The Best Little Small Museum Ever!

Pataka or Storehouse (for food)

Meeting House, Okains Bay Maori & Colonial Museum, Banks Peninsular. 2008 Ajr

If you go down to the bay today, you’re in for a big surprise…..Okains Bay Maori & Colonial Museum is a thing of beauty and wonder – one man’s passion for collecting taken to extremes. Murray Thacker is the man behind it all. When his collection bulged out of his home garage, he bought the old cheese factory building (in 1968) and set up the astonishing array of exhibits he had collected over many decades. In 1977 it was made a public museum and today it gets around 6,000 visitors a year – which is quite remarkable in itself when you consider how ‘off the beaten track’ Okains Bay is. I spent ages here, totally captivated by the gathered histories of Maori and Pakeha alike. The Maori meeting house shown above (interior and exterior) was built observing all Maori traditions, using original materials from other meeting houses. Most of the carving was done by well known master carver, John Rua. The main Maori artefact museum houses many treasures, including a sacred god stick dating back to 1400, a war canoe from 1867 and a valuable Akaroa hei tiki recovered in England and brought back to Okains Bay by the museum’s founder. An amazing treasure trove well worth the effort of getting there.

Knock, Knock Who's There?

Okains Bay Maori & Colonial Museum, Banks Peninuslar. 2008 Ajr

Loved this brass hei tiki door knocker at the Okains Bay Maori & Colonial Museum on Banks Peninsular. It was on a side door at the rear of the museum - the perfect adornment for a door leading in to one of the most impressive collections of Maori artifacts I've ever seen.

Pounamu - A Few Facts

Contemporary Pounamu. Christchurch Arts Centre Market. Feb. 2009. Ajr

To most New Zealanders it’s greenstone. To the Maori it is pounamu. To the geologists it is nephrite, or jade. To tourists it is one of the most sought-after iconic souvenirs of New Zealand. But ‘greenstone’ is much more than a souvenir. From China to Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Middle East and New Zealand, jade has been revered for thousands of years. It has been endowed with symbolic status and mystical power, and treasured for its beauty, its sensual hues, diversity of color, its smooth touch and its extreme toughness. The New Zealand jade story is shorter than most – less than 1000 years – but early Maori valued it above all other possessions. Like the Chinese and the Mayans long before them, they treasured it more than gold. It provided them with a totally stone-based culture, which they developed to a high technical and aesthetic level in a relatively short time. Pounamu served them as tool, weapon, adornment, an item of trade and a symbol of authority and ceremony.

Traditional Pounamu Hei Tiki, Okains Bay Maori & Colonnial Museum. 2007. Ajr

For Maori it was a gift from the gods, of great spiritual and material value and archaelogical digs suggest they used nephrite as far back as the 13th century. Its use was well established by 1500 and between then and 1800 it was a key element of everyday life, the pivot of power between tribes and a major item of trade.The Maori continue to revere pounamu for its symbolic, mythological and aesthetic properties, and despite mass souvenir production, it retains a treasured place in Maori culture.

MOKO

I’ve been going through my Okains Bay Maori and Colonial Museum photos again and found this one (right) referencing the art of Maori moko or tattoo. Traditionally, men were tattooed much more heavily than women, who mainly tattooed their lips (kauae) and their chins. There’s been a strong resurgence of interest in moko – among both men and women keen to acknowledge their Maori heritage – and many are also choosing to be tattooed the traditional way using uhi or chisels, rather than with modern tools.

The Kete Collection

Maori Kete, Okains Bay Museum 2008. Ajr
I was trimming my flax bushes last week and I was reminded of the wonderful displays of traditional Maori kete I saw at Okains Bay Maori & Colonial Museum year. Kete is the Maori word for a basket made from the dried leaves of New Zealand flax (Mahi harakeke). They were used for carrying food, belongings and treasures (taonga) and were made in a wide variety of intricate designs, patterns and colours. This is one of the best small rural museums in New Zealand.