Maori Place Names - 20

At Kokatahi

Inland West Coast

August 2009. Ajr

Carved Ancestry

I photographed this carving on my recent travels in the North Island – in Gisborne, near the bridge that crosses the Turanganui River in the centre of town. It was designed by Derek Lardelli and Te Aturangi Nepia Clamp and it was carved by Te Aturangi Nepia Clamp and Bill Baker. The carving is shaped in the form of a tauihu (canoe prow) in honour of the early seafaring Maori ancestors, who were sailing confidently around the Pacific Ocean centuries before European sailors.

It is an elaborate entwining of ancestry from the beginning of time to present day and includes representations of Tangaroa (God of the Sea), Maui (half god, half man), Toi Kai Rakau, an early ancestor, along with spirals representing the separation of Ranginui (Sky Father) and Papatuanuku (Earth Mother). In addition to his work as a carver, Derek Lardelli is also highly regarded as one of New Zealand’s finest ta moko artists. He also works as a visual artist, graphic designer, a composer and kapa haka performer and as a Maori researcher. Te Aturangi Nepia Clamp is internationally and nationally regarded for his carvings.

One Slice or Two?

To the untrained eye, these probably look like any ordinary loaf of bread. In fact they are Rewena Paraoa, which is more commonly known as Maori bread.

I photographed these handsome big loaves - almost as big as cushions - at the hangi at Tuahiwi Marae a couple of weeks ago, that we prepared for the last of the Te Karaka magazine kai features for Ngai Tahu. Rewena bread is traditionally made by creating a 'bug' or 'starter' from boiled potato, flour and sugar and leaving it to ferment for a few days. Some of the starter is then used to make bread and the rest is set aside and 'fed' for future baking sessions. You can use yeast instead of the potato starter, but it is the potato that gives it its distinctive sweet flavour.

Shadow Play

Sometimes - just sometimes - the loveliest photos are the simplest and as far as I'm concerned, that especially goes for shadows and words. I took these photos on Saturday morning in Hokitika as the sun hit the windows of what is going to be the new Te Waipounamu Maori Heritage Centre in central Hokitika.

West Coast Whare

Arahura, West Coast. August 2009. Ajr

I took these quick snaps of Arahura Whare Wananga on my way home from the West Coast. Situated a few kilometres north of Hokitika, the whole area is abuzz with activity at the moment as the old Arahura Bridge is removed and a new one is under construction. The Arahura Hapu are also in the process of building a new marae - on the hill above this one. It's going to have magnificent sea views that's for sure.

Street Murals Out East

Here's another example of the fabulous street murals that add colour and punch to the Gisborne townscape. I photographed this one on one of the Tarawhiti Polytechnic buildings. It's another example of the strong Maori design influence that most street murals in the East Cape/Eastland region have. Beautiful!

Maori Place Names - 19

Mangaoporo River, Near Tikitiki

East Cape.

May 2009 Ajr

Sweet as Sugar

Wanaka May 2009 Ajr

Miniature Kete

Woven for Sugar

On Cafe Tables

Kai Whakapai Cafe, Wanaka

Flying the Flag

Tikitiki, East Cape May 2009 Ajr

There has been recent national debate on a Maori flag to fly from Parliament. This arose after Transit New Zealand refused to fly Tino Rangatiratanga on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day this year. Tino Rangatiratanga was unveiled on Waitangi Day in 1990 as the winning Maori flag design in a 1989 competition. The red, black and white flag incorporates a koru design, which represents the unfolding of new life, rebirth, renewal, hope and continuity; and red represents mana (prestige/power) for Maori. I often saw this flag flying in strong Maori areas on my recent travels around New Zealand, especially in the Far North and around East Cape. I took the top photograph of it draped across a window of a house in the tiny East Cape village of Tikitiki; and the one below in the tiny Maori seaside community at Matai Bay in the Far North.
Matai Bay. Karikari Peninsula, Far North. April 2009 Ajr
Prime Minister John Key has entered into the debate by suggesting that if Maori could come up with a flag that everyone can agree on, it will be flown on Parliament House. Tino Rangatiratanga is one of four contenders. The other three are the Flag of the Independent Tribes, designed in 1834; the New Zealand flag; and the New Zealand Red Ensign, which was gifted to Maori by Queen Victoria to use on occasions of special significance to Maori. Maori have quite an established tradition of two things – flags and a difficulty in coming together as one united voice representative of all iwi (tribes), so it is likely the flag debate will take some time to find a resolution. In the meantime, I rather like the boldness of Tino Rangatiratanga. It seems to me to have a power and an individuality that some of the other more traditional designs lack.

Opening Gig

Christchurch. July 2009. Ajr

Tuahiwi’s Te Ngai Tuahuriri kapa haka group will soon be winging its way to Canada. They’ve been invited to officially open the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto, along with New Zealand High Commissioner to Canada, Kate Lackey and the Mayor of Toronto on August 21st. I took this photograph of the group pefforming at the opening of the Christchurch Arts Festival recently.

Canoe Memorial

Images Whakatane. May 2009. Ajr

I arrived in Whakatane early in the morning and took time out of my travels for a quick look around town. I drove passed the Whakatane boat ramp and found myself at this pretty spot on the coast. The above plaques, on the side of the rocky outcrop shown in the top image, are a memorial to the Matatua Canoe. Just so you have a clear reading, the memorial was erected on March 16, 1940 by the Matatua tribes, to commemorate the historic landing on this sandy spot, of the Matatua Canoe, one of the main fleet of the Maori migration from Hawaiki in the year 1340 AD, after a voyage of 2,000 miles under the guidance of famous chief and navigator, Toroa.

Hot and Steamy

Rotorua. May 2009 Ajr

Things can get pretty hot and steamy at Rotorua’s Whakarewarewa Living Thermal Village. It is an active geothermal area after all – not that that ever stopped the Ngati Wahiao people from settling there over three hundred years ago. In fact, it’s probably one of the chief reasons they did settle there – for the natural hot water, the warm earth that kept them warm in winter and the natural steaming hot pools that they used for washing, bathing and cooking. Around 70-80 Ngati Wahiao people still live in the village today and still make use of the geothermal resources. The reserve is peppered with little raised boxes that cover their cooking vents; and the community bathing pools are still used regularly. On a bigger scale, the hot pool they call Parekohuru (above), which means ‘murderous rippling waters,’ is used for cooking large quantities of food. The water is 95 degrees Celsius on the top of the pool and it gets hotters as it goes down. Its blue colour indicates the presence of minerals and salts. The water is hot enough to boil and egg in one minute and the locals can cook 200 frozen cobs – lowered into the water in muslin bags tied with a rope – in just ten minutes. The hottest pool in the village is Korotiotio, which means ‘Grumpy Old Man’ – aptly named given that its temperature measures 155 degrees Celsius. In the old days, the women of the tribe threw freshly killed poultry into the water for 15 to 20 seconds to make them easy to pluck. The steam from the pool is said to be very good for asthmatics. www.whakarewarewa.com

Pounamu Treasures

Greenstone - Pounamu

Carved to Wear
May 2009 Ajr

Maori Place Names - 18

Three Marae at Raupanga

South of Wairoa

Eastland, North Island

May 2009 Ajr

Through the Church Gate

Tikitiki, East Cape. May 2009 Ajr

I fell in love with everything about the very gorgeous little St Mary's Church in the tiny East Cape settlement of Tikitiki - right down to the church gates shown above from both sides. I've written about my visit to the church before here and shown some photographs of its exceptional and highly decorated interior that highlights superb Maori craftsmanship - it's worth clicking on St Mary's Tikitiki in the index line below to see those; the church is one of the most elaborate I've seen anywhere.

Preparing a Feast

Tuahiwi, North Canterbury. Aug. 2009 Ajr

The cookhouse at North Canterbury's Tuahiwi Marae was a hive of activity on Saturday as the men prepared the kaimoana (seafood) for the big hangi I was writing about it for Ngai Tahu's TE KARAKA magazine. They made light work of the huge piles of koura (crafish) and green-lipped mussels - cooking, splitting, shelling - making them ready for the hangi table. A feast for sure! www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz

Rugby Winner

Ruatoria, East Cape. May 2009 Ajr

Tokomaru Bay, East Cape. May 2009 Ajr
I read a couple of days ago that Malcolm Mulholland’s book, “Beneath the Maori Moon: An Illustrated History of Maori Rugby,” (Huia Publishers) has won Best Maori Sports Book in Massey University’s inaugural Nga Kupu Ora Book Awards. Oddly just minutes before I read the small item in the newspaper, I had selected out these two photographs of the signs at two East Cape rugby clubs I drove by on my recent travels. I had also stopped at a Maori rugby game at Hick’s Bay the day before and had been amazed by the huge crowd of supporters gathered around the edge of the field. So obviously, despite the NZ Rugby Football Union’s decision to suspend all NZ Maori games in 2009, there is still huge support for Maori rugby. But I don’t know enough about rugby, nor the politics of the game, to comment on that decision. But I do think it’s admirable that Mulholland has produced an excellent visual and verbal record of almost a century of New Zealand Maori rugby. Mulholland is an editor at Te Putahi a Toi, Maori Studies at Massey University in Palmerston North. He edited ‘State of the Maori Nation’ (Reed Publishing) in 2006.

More Maori-Inspired Graffiti

Tokomaru Bay, East Cape. May 2009 Ajr

I touched on the subject of Maori-inspired graffiti here a couple of weeks ago (click on graffiti in the label line below to reads that if you're interested). That post came about in response to a comment someone else had made about never having seen any 'Maori graffiti.' Whether you call the above graffiti or street art is a moot point but one thing is for sure, there's an all-pervading 'Maoriness' to everything about it. I took these photographs in gorgeous Tokomaru Bay, which is a small seaside town with a large Maori population, about 91 kilometres north of Gisborne on East Cape. The local Maori, Te Whanau-a-Ruataupare have four active marae within the community; and the main town centre is more or less in the middle of the big horseshoe bay, which provides the locals with eight kilometres of golden, sandy beach.

Meet the People - 22

Another in the Series Meet the People – Contemporary Maori Doing Ordinary and Extraordinary Things – Kelli Tuuta (Ngati Mutunga/Taranaki), Rocky Roberts (Ngai Tahu) and their son, Monahan Tuuta-Roberts of Christchurch, are all learning te Reo together. As Te Wiki o Te Reo draws to a close for another year it seems fitting to feature a family keen to support and nurture their cultural heritage through the learning of the language. Rocky and Kelli see it as an investment in their future. “It’s about who we are,” says Kelli. Monnie, now 7, was first exposed to te Reo as an 11-month old toddler, when he was enrolled at Te Waka Huruhurumanu, the bilingual Early Learning Centre at Christchurch Polytechnic. Rocky was then studying at the Christchurch Polytechnic Broadcasting School (he now works for MoreFM) and Kelli was working as a nurse at Christchurch Hospital. Monnie is now a pupil at Te Tikanga Rua Reo, the bilingual unit at St Albans Primary School and keen to support him fully, Rocky and Kelli began te Reo lessons themselves – at Te Wananga o Aotearoa – three years ago. For Rocky, it has been a journey of personal discovery. He had little contact with, or knowledge of his Maori ancestry while he was growing up and says when he met Kelli, the only Maori word he knew was kia ora (hello). Kelli on the other hand, had a strong Maori upbringing in Taranaki but she lost touch with that when she left New Zealand for overseas adventures in Europe. “For me, learning te Reo again has been about the rediscovery of my Maori roots. It’s made me question my life and it’s made me much more aware of my own Taha Wairua – my spiritual side. But the best thing of all is knowing that Monnie with be fluent in two cultures, that he will be equipped with the knowledge that willo enable him to walk tall in both the Maori and the pakeha worlds.”

The Last of the Kai Features

I went out to Tuahiwi Marae 15 minutes north of Christchurch on Friday with the editorial team from Ngai Tahu’s magazine, Te Karaka. It was to be a day of preparations for the last of the Ngai Tahu kai features – a big hangi on Saturday. Over the last four-and-a-half years, Ngai Tahu chef, Jason Dell (who recently shifted to Singapore), Ngai Tahu communications manager and photographer, Phil Tumataroa any myself have travelled to all eighteen Ngai Tahu runanga around the South Island, interviewing and photographing the kaumatua (elders) about the traditional kai (food) their region is known for.

Jason meanwhile, took that traditional food – maybe it was tuna (eel), koura (crayfish), whitebait, kanakana, toheroa or mussels – and gave it a modern twist before presenting a feast to the kaumatua and their invited guests at their marae. It’s been a fantastic series – informative and loads of fun and we’ve met some very special people along the way. I’m sad that it’s all over. These are a few photos from Friday – Jason (in white) in the Tuahiwi kitchen preparing the food, ably assisted by former chef and now Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu’s web officer, Simon Leslie [in striped shirt]. I’ll be bringing you some photos of the actual hangi – its preparation and laying down and the meal itself, over the coming days, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of the spectacular meals Jason has prepared on our previous outings, just click on Traditional Foods and/or TE KARAKA in the index line below this posting. www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz