Today is actually the 14th and I am sitting in Starbucks writing my notes for yesterday--so I thought I would just combine them.
Gee, can I even remember yesterday? Well, for starts, I know I got up, because I am here today. We went to the New Zealand Maori Arts and Craft Institute. I thought it would be like Sturbridge Village (for the people who know Sturbridge Village). It was good, but I thought it would be more.
They had a building that was a craving school. This is where they pass down the Maori art of carving to young Maori trainees. We only saw a museum of carving that depicts the Maori history of carving and the carving depicts the tribal history and geneology.
They have a guided tour which we missed the start of which was in the carving school, so I didn't learn as much as I would have if someone was explaining. We jumped on the tour here though.
The guide, who was a Maori, took us to the meeting house and explained the traditional Maori welcome. The welcoming tribe sends someone out to offer a peace offering. As an outsider they would have had me running. One warrior comes out with black lines painted on his face. He is dressed in a skirt made of flax. It is strands of flax that have been stripped, twisted, dyed, and dried. He has a "stick", may be a spear and he struts, dances, and grunts before the visitors. He then leaves a peace offering which is a branch or leaf of some kind. The visitor is suppose to keep eye contact and go slowly to pick up the peace offering and walk backwards to his spot. During all of this the other warriors are in the background, grunting, growling and making noises which would intimidate me.
The meeting house is made in carved timber by the trainee and graduate carvers. The carvings are very intricate and like the totem poles of the Indians it tells a story of the past people. The meeting house is a sacred place and you must take your shoes off. The colors that they dye things are red, to signify the red earth and blood that flows through our veins. The black is death and white is beginning or birth. They have a Maori concert there, but we skipped it because we were going to one at night.
The guide took us on a tram that took us by mud pools, cooking pools, and gysers. The mud pools are bubbling but don't actually reach the boiling temperature. They only get to 90-95 degrees Celcius, 100 is boiling. The mud pool is the result of acid gases and steam that cause decomposition of minerals to form a clay called Kaolin. Kaolin is white when pure, but when finely divided black sulphur turns it to grey. The activity varies depending on the amount of rain fall. The mud is suppose to be beneficial to the skin.
There are several gysers there that are still active and are the largest in the valley. The Pohutu gyser erupts on an average once to twice each hour, and has been known to reach 90 feet. The gyser is a complex spring which discharges water in a cyclic manner. Hot water, steam, and gases are fed into chambers. When this reservoir becomes sufficiently pressurized and hot enough to boil water is forced up the gyser vent and ejected into the air.
When we were there with the guide we just saw steam all over the grounds, but no gyser action. Laurie and I walked back to it and watched the gyser go. It lasted a long time. The water spurting out reminded me of a fountain that plays to music because it was sporadic and at different heights.
The last stop from the tram was the Kiwi houses. Kiwis are nocturnal birds and so the houses have to be dark in order for one to see them. It took a while for my eyes to adjust and eventually I saw a Kiwi walking around. They are bigger than I expected. They are flighter birds, they have large, thin beaks, long legs and a round body. They are an endangered species in New Zealand.
Laurie and I then walked around the park. They had a replica Maori Village and weaving house. We stopped at the weaving house and the woman was showing how to use a shell to strip, cut, and scrape the flax. She actually let me try to strip the flax. Underneath the layer of the leaf there are thin, white stands that are string. As I said earlier, this is what they make the skirt out of. They don't strip the whole leaf, it is done in sections to make a design. The strands of the flax get dyed. Then when the pieces dry, the leaf part curls and hardens.
We had lunch there that we packed and then went back to our hostel, after we shopped and used the internet.
Our big evening was going to a Maori Concert and Hangi. The bus goes by all the motels, hotels, and hostels and picks everyone up. They dropped us off at the Tamaki Maori Village. The bus driver was great. He told us about the welcoming tradition which I mentioned earlier. He selected one person from our bus to be our chief. Each bus was to have a chief. When the warrior left his peace offering one of the chiefs would be responsible for picking it up. One thing that I forgot to mention about the warrior's welcome; while he does his dancing he makes the ugliest faces, sticks out his tongue, and bulges his eyes. Even though it looks humorous, we needed to be quiet out of respect for the culture.
After the peace offering we followed the chiefs into the village. It looks neat and reminds me of camp when I was young. They had tree posts lined up to make a fence throughout the village and had very large trees. While walking through the village there were little camps set up and you saw the Maori demonstrate different activities such as poi twirling, hand games, reciting chants, and carving. We were then summoned to the meeting house. Women were not allowed to sit in front because if there was fighting between the people, the men in front would be the protectors. In the meeting house we were welcomed with speeches and a group shared a variety of Waiata, Haka, Song, and Dance. It was very entertaining. One thing that was great were the women with their poi twirling. It is a string with a ball on one end and tassels on the other end. They have short ones and long ones. By flicking their wrists they would get those pois going and they would have long, short, and several going all at the same time and without hitting the people and the pois that were next to them.
After the entertainment was the hangi, which is the traditional cooking for the feast. They heat rocks, put them in the ground, put the food in baskets and wrap them up with wet cloths and put those on the rocks. Then it is covered with wet hessian, which I don't have a clue what that is, then cover everything with dirt so that the steam doesn't get out. It takes 3-4 hours to cook. The food gets layered in the pit with the meat first, then vegetables and the pudding. We had chicken, lamb, fish, potatoes, stuffing, kumara (like sweet potato), carrot coleslaw. It was like Thanksgiving dinner. They even had the cranberry sauce for us Americans. The dessert was a pudding, fruit, and brown bread. Everything was
