Architectural Detail

Carved Highlights

Turangawaewae Marae

Ngaruawahia, Waikato

Click on Turangawaewae Marae in the label line below

To find out more about this important Waikato marae.

A Rock, A Bird, A Pattern

One Bird - HUIA

Curved of Beak

Painted on a Rock
Photographed at Ngai Tahu's
Hui-a-Tau, Colac Bay, Southland
November 2009

Maori Place Names - 39

I love the Weka Pass area. There's something mystical about the place that always fires my imagination. And not without good reason as it turns out. Located around 80 km north-west of Christchurch its home to magnificent limestone outcrops that imbue the landscape with an almost tangible power. The area is well known for its Maori Rock Art – which I have yet to explore. Maori are believed to have first explored the area over 1,000 years ago, in search of food. Birds were plentiful then. It is assumed the Maori camped overnight under the limestone overhangs and using charcoal and red ochre (haematite), also known as kokowai, they drew human figures, fish and dogs. There’s a walkway that provides access to the site in Weka Pass Reserve and there are known to be other rock art sites on private land. I believe the main site suffered good deal of vandalism at one point and now there’s a large fence between the public and the drawings.

Also in this region, you’ll find Pyramid Valley, which I drove through about a year ago – stunning countryside and again littered with massive limestone rocks and cliffs. On a different occasion, I was lucky enough to visit a huge farming property in this area, where I actually touched dinosaur fossils. The place was littered with them and there have been significant dinosaur skeleton finds there too. The area shot to fame in 1938 when two farmers, Joseph and Rob Hodgen, discovered large dinosaur bones when they were burying a dead horse in a swamp on their land. When archaeological research began in 1940, over 183 complete moa skeletons were discovered along with tens of thousands of bone fragments. It’s an area I must go back to - when summer finally arrives.

Our Feathered Friends

I’ll confess from the start that this is not the best picture of our pretty native tui that you’ll ever see. I was in the middle of the bush on Ulva Island (near Stewart Island in the very south of New Zealand) with a small camera and an inadequate zoom, so everything is a little fuzzy - although you can still he his shiny green-black plumage and the distinctive white wattle under his beak. So that’s the excuses out of the way…. Now to one of our loveliest song birds…. It seems hard to believe now but the tui was once an important food source for Maori. When I was doing one of the kai features for Ngai Tahu’s TE KARAKA magazine recently, I spoke with one man, who said his grandmother always loved tui. She’d catch them, pluck them (the feathers were used for cloaks and kete decorations), impale them on a stick and roast them over a fire. Like most people in this day and age of rigorously enforced penalties for harming native birds, I was slightly horrified. I could hardly believe him. But he was right of course. Maori would frequently hunt and snare the birds at the beginning of winter when the birds were fat and healthy. It still seems a shame to me – they wouldn’t have made the biggest feast after all and they sing so beautifully. Tui are also masters at mimicking other birds and animals and in the old days, Maori are said to have kept young male birds in cages and taught them to talk. The birds would be kept in isolation – away from any noises they could copy – and new words would be repeated until the bird had learned them. The phrase 'me he korokoro tui – like a tui’s throat' is also high praise for a gifted speaker.

From the Kete Files

Kete = Baskets

On Sale at Hui-a-Tau

Colac Bay, Southland

November 2009.

www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz

Work in Progress

A week or so ago, I travelled down to the Ngai Tahu Hui-a-Tau at Colac Bay in Southland. It was a ten hour bus ride with a group of Ngai Tahu people, which turned out to be a lot of fun - albeit a long journey. We all found ways of keeping ourselves amused and I loved watching one lovely kuia (old lady), who sat diagonally across from me in the bus, weaving with fresh harakeke (flax). Watching her nimble fingers weave the intricate patterns for her putiputi (flower) was almost hypnotic. It was a very relaxing way to pass the time. I spoke to her about her work and she told me she had been delighted to learn some new weaving techniques different to her own. "I thought I should practice them at the hui and on the bus while I could still remember them," she said. www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz

Tea Anyone?

When I was at Auckland Museum earlier this year, I gasped at their stunning collection of Royal Doulton ‘Maori Ware.’ It’s a rare find these days and you pay a premium price for it. So when I was at a tiny antique store in ‘the back of beyond’ last week – actually Le Bons Bay on Banks Peninsular – my mouth fell open when I saw a cup and saucer set tucked into the rear of a glass cabinet. The owners let me photograph it and here it is. Beautiful! Apparently you can now pay up to $600 for a perfect cup and saucer set. British-based Royal Doulton produced a number of New Zealand-themed porcelain series including the Kia Ora stoneware (1907), this Maori Art Teaware (1907) and a New Zealand International Exhibition series (1906). Maori Ware features this red, black and white kowhaiwhai design (based on the koru) and included cups, saucers and plates. It remained in production until 1923. The antique shop owners told me they are lucky to find one or two cup and saucer sets a year now, hence the staggeringly high price you pay for the pleasure of owning a set. www.royaldoulton.com

Top of the South

The Nelson region, at the top of the South Island, is home to the eight tribes of Te Tau Ihu (Nelson-Marlborough) – the legacy of thousands of years of migration and intermarriage. They are Ngati Kuia, Rangitane, Ngati Apa, Ngati Toa, Ngati Koata, Ngati Rarua, Ngati Tama and Te Ati Awa. Whakatu Marae, in Nelson itself, is one of seven marae in the region. It’s a large complex (10 hectares) that includes this beautiful wharenui, housing for the kaumatua (elders) a kohanga reo (pre-school language nest) and a centre for health and social services. I stopped by when I was travelling the length and breadth of New Zealand in April-May (travel guide research) and took these photographs. I particularly liked the detailed exterior carvings of warriors paddling a waka (canoe) along the roofline of the wharenui (meeting house).

The destinies of the Te Tau Ihu tribes improved significantly with the establishment of the Wakatu Incorporation in 1977. The organisation today manages multi-million assets that include agriculture, forestry, commercial developments, orchards, viticulture, fisheries, marine farming and subdivision development. There has also been a significant move toward the restoration of marae, the establishment of kohanga reo and health and training centres. www.wakatu.org

Eeling at Wairewa

I stopped at Wairewa’s pretty Mako Marae on my way to Banks Peninsula last week and took these photographs through the fence – I LOVE that traditional style fence by the way. The marae sits on the edge of Little River Village about 30 minutes from central Christchurch and I last visited when I was writing the kai (food) series for Ngai Tahu’s TE KARAKA magazine (which is now free online by the way). As always, drawing memories of traditional hunting and gathering methods from the kaumatua (elders) was a delight – so much information about the old ways is fading and it’s important that as much as possible be saved before its gone.

One person who was generous with his memories was John Panirau, who has been eeling at Wairewa since 1948. He remembers around 30 family drains but he says the barrier between Lake Wairewa and the sea was much narrower then.
“The width of the bar has trebled since then and the sea no longer comes over all of it. The eels were much more plentiful too and it was nothing to catch five or six hundred in a night – and there was still plenty left for other whanau. “I remember one tangi we had, three of us lads were sent down to the drains and we were back in an hour with a hundred eels. The tuna were so keen to get to the sea they’d slither across the shingle in broad daylight and we’d just rake them up.

“You don’t see that now,” he says. As kids, he and his friends had to help prepare the drains and learn how to make the parua. “And if we made it too deep we were told off – and we were always sent home if we stepped over the drains. All those rules have been broken over and over since then. Nowadays people actually put bridges over the drains and that’s very upsetting for the old people. Tuna and the whakaheke is still a very important part of our community but as the elders disappear, the young ones change the tikanga. Many of them have not been brought up here so they don’t have the same feelings that the old people instilled in us. If you’ve been steeped in the protocols you’ll follow that pathway but when our kids are brought up in the cities the values are different,” John says.

Francis Robinson, 81, remembers the days of the horse and gig – days when his job was to run the bags of eels from the drains. It was his job to look after the horses and at twelve, he often joined in the catching and listened to the stories the old people told. “There’s always been a lot of mystery about where the tuna go and what they do and when it comes to catching and preserving them I’ve seen a lot of different ways. But it all comes back to one thing – hard work.” John Panirau agrees: “Learning to catch tuna is one thing but learning how to prepare and dry them was something else altogether,” he says. Francis says the job of preserving a catch of 500 tuna was a huge task that could take several weeks.

“We had to wipe the tuna clean, bone them and then string them up by their heads with harakeke to dry. Then the salting and curing would start. That was hard work and I’d always run and hide to avoid the job,” he laughs.The Wairewa kaumatua all agree that their local tuna are the best in the country.“When you’ve eaten eels from all the different parts of New Zealand, you know that these are definitely the best,” says Francis. The environment is different here; maybe that’s what makes our tuna taste so much better. Our tuna are definitely sweeter. www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz www.tekaraka.co.nz

Maori Place Names - 39

Whangaparaoa (Cape Runaway)

East Cape, North Island

May 2009 Ajr

A Resting Place

I came upon this quiet country urupa (Maori cemetery) quite unexpectedly when I was driving near Kaiapoi recently. I know nothing about it but as the Kaiapoi area has a strong Maori history, it obviously has a firm place in Ngai Tahu history. www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz

More From Hui-a-Tau

Three Candid Images Snapped on the Day

Ngai Tahu Hui-a-Tau, Takutai o Te Titi Marae

Oraka Aparima Runanga

Colac Bay, Southland. Nov.20-22.2009.
www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz

A Bright and Shiny Moment

One of My Favourite Photographs

From Ngai Tahu's Hui-a-Tau

At Colac Bay, South Westland

November 20-22, 2009.

Maori Place Names - 38

Fantastic Multi-Directional Sign

Photographed Just South of Dunedin

South Island

May 2009. Ajr

In Training

Some were more energetic than others at Ngai Tahu's 2009 Hui-a-Tau at Takutai o Te Titi Marae at Colac Bay, 45 minutes southwest of Invercargill last weekend. Well known as an excellent surfing beach, the tides turned on moderate conditions on the last sunny day (after a massive storm the day before) and some of the waka paddlers were able to get out onto the ocean to practise for upcoming Oceania waka championships. www.ngaitahu.iwi.nz

Maori Flag Gets the Nod

The Maori flag Tino Rangatiratanga, once associated with Maori protest, has been given the official seal of approval by the New Zealand Government and will fly from the Prime Minister's official residence on Waitangi Day in February. Of the flags suggested, Tino Rangatiratanga won the support of 80% of people consulted. It is likely the flag will also fly beside the New Zealand flag from the top of the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day. I photographed this flag flying from one of the many cars at Ngai Tahu's Hui-a-Tau at Colac Bay in Southland during the weekend.

A Southern Hui

If there's one thing the participants in Ngai Tahu's 2009 Hui-a-Tau at Colac Bay will remember, it's the changeable weather and the chaos it created. Located 45 minutes southwest of Invercargill, Colac Bay is a sleepy little bay, popular with surfers and those looking for a remote holiday. On a fine day, it is a glorious spot to be. In bad weather, when the southerly winds lash in from the sea, it's another story altogether. We had both for the Hui-a-Tau, which was held at Takutai o Te Titi Marae, home of Ngai Tahu's Oraka Aparimu runanga.

People began gathering outside the marae at about 5pm on Friday November 20th, waiting for the formal invitation to enter (the powhiri), as Maori protocol demands. An estimated crowd of between 700 and 800 had made the pilgrimage and as you can see in these photographs, we were blessed with a beautfil sunny evening for the occasion. At least half a dozen large marquees had been raised by a hardworking team, who had spent all week at the marae, making the necessary preparations.

By late Friday evening though, the weather had turned and raging winds and rain battered the coastline all night. By the time a bus load of us arrived at the marae at 8am on Saturday morning, eager to catch up with old friends and relatives at the monster marae breakfast, the rain was almost horizontal, one of the largest marquees had been blown down and rapid decisions were being made about transferring the hui elsewhere. Disappointed we drove back to Invercargill, only to receive the message that proceedings would be delayed until lunchtime. As it turned out, the rain stopped (for the most part) and although the freezing winds continued, a reduced hui programme carried on into the afternoon.

The next day - Sunday - the sun came out again and everyone was happy. The important discussions were held; the family connections were made; the market stalls went ahead; and every meal was a masterpiece of organisational planning and mouthwatering goodness. Tables at every meal were piled high with all the best seafood including crayfish, kina, cockles, mussels, oysters, fish and the titi (muttonbird) that Oraka Aparima and the marae are famous for. And by the time mid-afternoon arrived, most of us were reluctant to leave.

www.nagitahu.iwi.nz

Birds of a Feather

The Kakariki is a small brightly coloured native parakeet that lives in and around the edges of native forest, often in large noisy groups. The red feathers of their head were prized by Maori for use in feather cloaks, or to secure to the ends of tiaiha (spears). The birds were caught with handmade snares using bait as berries. As legend has it, Maori used to believe that the brilliant orange-red feathers of another, much larger native parrot, the kaka, which has an incredible burst of colour under its brown-green wings, were stolen from the kakariki. Kakariki in fact, literally means small kaka. As Margaret Orbell points out in her very useful book, The Natural World of Maori, the birds sometimes raucous chatter has been likened to human behaviour in the simile 'ko te rua porete hai whakarite,' ‘just like a nest of kakariki.’ I took these photos of kakariki on Ulva Island, near Stewart Island – with a very small camera and from a long distance, hence the blurry quality. But they give you an idea of the kakariki’s vibrant colouring and distinctive red head.

Kai Time!

Traditional Maori Foods cooked in a hangi (earth oven)

A mouthwatering offering at Tuahiwi Marae, near Christchurch.

Making the Most of Whitebait Season

Locals making the most of fine weather and the right tidal movements to go whitebaiting on the Kaiapoi River, just north of Christchurch. Whitebait, commonly Inanga to Maori, have always been a delicacy for all New Zealanders. I've written on this blog about traditional whitebaiting methods before so just enter whitebait into the blog search box, above left, if you'd like to read about that.