Te Whare Wanunga

This weekend the WU students at Christchurch came down and we all went out to a whare wananga (a house of learning) to experience Maori culture and learn about weaving. The whare was established by Roka and Carey, an elderly Maori couple, years ago so that they could teach Maori ways. Roka is very well-known for the amazing Maori cloaks that she has made from harekeke, flax, fiber that she has shown around the world and that are on display now at Cantebury Museum. She is now a teacher of Maori arts at Uni of Otago. Carey is part Maori part Scots who was very grandpa-like with his short Santa Claus-beard. He used to be a schoolteacher before founding the whare. It has been used as a private school, a carving school, and it has developed into a place where they offer harekeke, flax, weaving courses. They established it independent of the government and now they are connected to the largest university in NZ, a Maori one called Te Wanunga te Aotearoa. After this educational purpose it also serves as a place for their whanau (extended family). They have quite an extensive whanau because along with their children and grandchildren they also took care of hundreds of children through the welfare system over the years. The whare wanangua has become their family home where at least some of their whanua come for the weekend. When they have children they return to the whare to bury their whenua, placenta, in the ground to give them a deeper connection to the earth, also called whenua, there and the family.

We spent the weekend learning about tikanga Maori, Maori ways, and enjoying being in their family. When we first arrived at the whare we were sang onto the ceremonial green by Roka's daughter. The women in our group entered the open courtyard first, followed by the men, to her eerie, wailing song. Roka, singing the replies, led us in to our seats along the long wooden benches facing the whare's front and her seated family. Following Maori customs the men sat on the benches in front of us as Carey stood up to welcome us. He spoke Maori in a deep booming voice and he greeted us and our ancestors and paid respects to them, the whenua, and the atua. The Stas gave a short response in his native Greek before we finished closing the space between us visitors and their family. We said 'Kia ora' (hello) to each other as we gripped arms and touched our noses together. The nose represents tihei mauri ora, the first sneeze of life, and thus our ancestors; so by touching noses we were kind of introducing our ancestors to each other and getting rid of any foreigness between the two. The welcoming cermeony had created a state of tapu, a sacred state of separateness, that we broke by eating food which is noa, or common. When Carey said that we were going to have tea I expected a few biscuits and some hot drinks. Instead we went into the main hall to find three long tables laden with trays of food. (This theme continued for the rest of the weekend- we ate often and well.) After taking tea we all went down to the village green where they were having their annual A&P (no idea what that means) show. It was a mix between a farmer's market, garage sale, and an auction. Little children were riding ponies and taking rides on a small fire truck that went around the green blaring its tinny horn. There were huge steaming pots of local clam chowder and tubs of homemade raspberry honey.

After lunch we had a runanga, an introduction circle, in the wharepuni, sleeping room. All of the whanau, weaving students, and Willamette students went in and made ourselves comfortable on thick mattresses and fluffy pillows. We then went around the circle introducing ourselves; the ones who could speak te reo Maori (the Maori language) did, their beautiful flowing words were very sleep inducing. Which incidentally was allright because we were doing things the Maori way. Traditionally meetings were held in the wharepuni and everyone lay down on blankets and mats on the smooth earthen floor. The meetings would usually go long into the night so if anyone was ever tired they could just close their eyes and go to sleep and wake up when they were rested to get back into the conversation. So Carey kept on encouraging us to just take a nap if we felt like it, an offer which for college students is a bit too needed. We got to sleep in this wharepuni with the weaving students who were there for their weekend course work. It's long walls were set with tall windows that were separated by elaborate wooden carvings that were made by Carey's students. The end wall was covered with a harekeke carving that represented their whanau's whakapapa, their genealogical table- half a ship and half a canoe were connected by a bible to show the Pakeha-Maori origins. The two wooden statues on either side of the door represented each side of the family. On the other side of the door was a whale's tail sticking out of the ocean, to represent their origin from the sea.

After meeting everyone we went to Blueskin Bay to do some clamming while the weaving students started working harvesting the harekeke leaves. Blueskin Bay got its name from the Maori who used to live there- they were so heavily tattooed that their skin looked blue. I had never been clamming before, so it was an entirely new experience for me. Roka and her family still follow the old Maori way of only taking those tuangi, clams, that were larger and leaving the smaller one to breed and grow older and larger. After collecting enough tuangi to go along with dinner we took a leisurely stroll along the beach to a sea arch. It was a gorgeous day out, cloudy but not cold, with the bay calm until it reached the sea.

After returning to the whare Roka taught us how to prepare the harekeke and to make small flat baskets out of. Harekeke was, and still is, very important to the Maori. They use harekeke leaves to make baskets and decorations and use its fiber to make nets and clothing. After dinner one of Roka's granddaughters taught us how to make flowers out of the leaves. She was much, much better at it than we were, but was very patient with us clumsy Americans. Now I have an everlasting bouquet of beautiful flowers made of harekeke on my desk.