Sabbatical VIII - Te Puia

Monday May 27: As I have said, the Taupo Volcanic Zone is home to many Maori iwi, which loosely translates to “tribes”.  Around Rotorua, many of them make a living by offering glimpses of traditional life through tours and performances within their villages.  I opted to visit the Te Puia cultural site, on the outskirts of Rotorua.  Te Puia is an extremely well done tourist attraction.  This mean tour busses – my fellow visitors included batches of Chinese, Indians, and students from Clemson University.  Professional, first rate facilities, as well as the national training center for Maori artists.  It used to have a hotel complex, but its structures have been undermined by expansion of the geothermal field.

I packed up MG, bought some compression tape (my left wrist has developed a mild strain), and made it to Te Puia in time for an espresso, a chat with Sengita, and the morning cultural performance.  As explained by our host, we were guests being welcomed into the marae, the traditional Maori meeting house.  This started with a challenge by an extremely buff Maori warrior.  We had to select “our chief” to represent the tour group and make peace with the iwi.  Or else.  Some poor kid from Clemson named Shane got elected.  He did fine and did not get disemboweled. 

We then entered the marae, and watched a stage show by three women and four men, dressed in traditional clothing.  Think flax skirts, Kiwi feather cloaks, and lots of tattoos.  They treated us to Maori singing (reminding me of Fiji) including a love ballad of the Maori equivalent of Romeo and Juliet, dexterity games (actually combat training) and the haka.  A haka is to intimidate the other side, so they go away and no one fights.  It certainly works for the All Blacks: this is my favorite haka from the 2011 World Cup.

Of course this was participatory.  The female tourists got to do one of the dexterity games; the men got to do the haka.  This was all in good fun and hysterically funny, especially the poor Chinese women who had no clue what was going on.  Not that the men did much better.  Hard chant in Maori and move your body at the same time.  Fun.

Here are a couple more videos from the show:  Introductory    Weapon demonstration

I then joined a 90 minute tour of the complex.  The guide was pretty good; she seemed a bit tired and on autopilot at times.  That said, she totally lit up when some one asked her about Maori tattoos.  She gave us a discreet tour of her artwork (stingray, shark, and symbols she would not explain) and then told us a long dramatic family story about who could get certain tattoos: when, why, and with much family discussion.  She also said most Maori prefer modern tattooing methods; quicker and more sanitary. 

I digress.  We started at this sign, where the guide taught us to pronounce the phrase at the top of this sign:

It’s the full name of the Whakarewarewa Valley were Te Puia is located.

The tour included a decent look at Pohutu geyser, which erupts constantly:

Also mud pots (the ultimate source of mud for skin treatments):

Te Puia also has kiwi house.  Yes, I got to see the iconic bird, sort of.  Kiwis are nocturnal, so we all shuffled into a dark aviary dimly lit with red light.  Many collisions.  As I neared the exit, there they were: a pair of kiwis, the bigger female just wailing away on the smaller male.  I guess his haka sucked.  These were brown kiwi, probably about the size of a coot.

The best part of the tour was visiting the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute.  This opened in the 1920s, in an effort to redress the suppression of Maori culture before it was lost.  If I got the story right, it really took off in the 1960s, when the NZ government funded it.  Half a century later, I have to say it’s working.  Students from all over NZ come here on full scholarship and apprentice in either wood carving, stone and bone carving, metal casting (a recent addition) or weaving.  As traditional arts, men do the carving and casting, women do the weaving.  I asked about this; if you apply modern ethics to this sort of sexual division, it might be a fail.  At Te Puia, the emphasis is on traditional culture.  Out in the real world, there’s more of a blend.  Here are a few pictures: 

Of course there was a gallery of art work for sale.  Too bad I’d bought a helo flight the day before. 

Even with my incomplete understanding of NZ history, I can’t help but compare the path of the Maori writ large to that of the Australian Aboriginals or Native Americans.  I can’t say they faced any less prejudice, but the feel on my travels has been that Maori are largely an accepted part of society.  I am sure this is hard won, given the marginalization of the past.  Maori have built political power and managed to preserve significant chunks of their culture.  This may reflect the avidity with which Maori took to European materials (like metal – unknown precontact), the relatively short period of European contact (less time for destruction, and also by the time the British settled here, they were relatively ethically advanced, e.g., they convinced the Maori that keeping slaves was a bad thing), or maybe less decimation by European diseases (I am not sure if this happened at all).  As I have said before, Maori culture was/is very robust; maybe also less fragile than the hunter/gather cultures of AUS and parts of the US.  Anthropology and history, right?  I am speculating stories out of what I have seen.  If I ever find a good book on NZ history, I will feel like I have a clue.  OK, one more disclaimer: I could have read up on NZ (other than geology) before this trip, but I really wanted to come here more unprimed by book knowledge.  Maybe this makes me less accurate and more speculative, but the obeservations you are reading are thus more mine alone.

I’d been watching the NZ Met Office weather reports with trepidation; a big storm system was to blow in on Monday afternoon.  This started as I left Te Puia.  A good time to drive.  I thought I’d go back to the beach, this time the Bay of Plenty/Coromandel coast.  mnSo I drove northeast from Rotorua on Route 36, through Pyes Pa, Tauriko, Tauranga, and then northwest on Route 2 along the coast.  It showered on and off and edged towards sundown.  I ended up in Athenree, which is a coastal community on the back bay behind Waihi Beach.  It was an easy choice: the Athenree Thermal Pools and Holiday Park.  The staff are lovely.  The grounds and facilities are immaculate (it’s winter and off the tourist track, which helps).  It’s a great place to wait out the rains before heading back to Auckland on Wednesday.