World cruise 16 - Margaret

From Margaret
Waitangi (Bay of Islands) New Zealand
Maori Culture and Paihia Highlights

A tour that was set for 3.5 hours and took 5.5 hours – but it was worth it, especially driving through the gorgeous countryside. New Zealand really does have fields full of sheep or cattle and some time fruit orchards.

Our enthusiastic guide gave us a most personal tour of the Kerikeri Basin and the Puketi Forest. His Maori ancestors had lived in/owned most of the land we visited. The Kerikeri Basin is at the confluence of a tidal inlet and a freshwater river. It is home to the two oldest structures in New Zealand – a wood frame house built by the English missionaries and a stone building that they built a bit later to secure their supplies as the Maori's didn't see any reason why they shouldn't help themselves if it was something they needed.

The small church just uphill from these two buildings is located on top of a Maori cemetery. When the missionaries learned where they had built they offered to move the cemetery to another location, but the Maori apparently didn't feel that was necessary. So, our guide's several-greats-grandfather's remains buried under the chapel. The missionaries also learned that when the Maori's who lived across the river from them came back from warring on their neighbors it was best not to go visiting. Dinner, more often than not, were those they had killed in battle.

The Puketi Forest is one of the few remaining bits of virgin forest in New Zealand and is important as the last stand of Kauri trees. These giants are rot and water resistant like the redwoods and live to very great ages. The oldest one that they know about was 4000 years old. This forest is also full of the native fern trees as seen here. They are beautiful and make you think you are in an entirely different world.

The last place we went was the Mangamuka Marae – a Maori gathering house, cultural, and spiritual center. The building was hand-built by the local tribe who then got artisans from their own and neighboring tribes to carve designs in all the woodwork representing Maori stories and history.

A Marae is also a welcoming ceremony to friends. Our guide gave us very strict instructions on how we were to behave at this ceremony, including no pictures until after the ceremony was over. We had to pick someone to be our "tribal" chief for this ceremony. That done, we all had to take off our shoes and file silently into the Marae building which had incredible maori carvings all over it. Women filed in first. After the ritual greeting of a handshake and touching noses, we sat to hear the welcoming speeches – this time women in back and men in front. There is a whole set of protocols that had to be followed. The welcoming speeches were partly in Maori and partly in English and were followed by songs of welcome. Our "chief" had to respond with a speech of thanks for our welcome, and we had to sing some songs to them – "Amazing Grace" and "You Are My Sunshine" being ones that all of us knew. Then the Maori's all introduced themselves to us, and we were free to take pictures and ask questions.

We got back to the port 15 minutes before the last tender to the ship left. I found myself wishing we had had longer to explore and ask questions.