The End of Orientation

A picture of a Whare Hui on a Marae. Not the one that we stayed at, though - this one's googled.

Alright.. I'm back. I was a little sick these past two days and couldn't gather up the energy to write here. It's... tiring, you know, pushing down the keys on a keyboard. Takes, uh, a lot of energy.

Right, um. So we're back on the bus, waiting outside the Marae when Andrew, one of the Butler staff, gestures for us to get off. He must have heard the welcoming calls of a Maori woman - the summons, the beginning of the karanga, sets off a series of back and forth exchanges between a female from the host party and a female from the visiting party. A Maori woman (possibly from another tribe?) joins our group to perform the reciprocal calls in the Maori language.

According to the briefing that we had the previous night (a briefing that taught us Maori pronunciation and the basic protocol of this powhiri/welcoming ceremony), this exchange of greetings is a time to remember those who have recently passed away. It also states the purpose of the upcoming meeting.

As the karanga took place, the group stepped through the gates and onto the Marae. We took slow steps forward... with the women in front and the men behind us. The only men who stood in front of us were the two students whom the women had voted as our speakers for the night. We all stood there, shivering in the cold, as the next part of the powhiri began.

Then came the Taki or Wero (I'm getting these two names from Wikipedia which we all know is... an extremely reliable source). For our group, this meant that a Maori man in the traditional outfit of a Maori warrior came out of the Whare hui (I'm getting this from memory) and slowly advanced towards us with a staff in hand.

I was shivering with three layers of heavy clothes on, and this man didn't even have a shirt on; for a second, I wondered how he could stand the cold... or if the adrenaline from the ceremony pushed those thoughts aside.

Anyway, he advanced towards us with a mixture of battle cries, intimidating glares, and thrusts of his staff. He came right up to our two male student speakers and thrust the spear by their faces... then stopped, backed off, and placed a small branch and leaf onto the ground. One of those speakers stepped forward and slowly picked up the branch. Then the Maori man retreated back into the Whare hui, and we followed.

We had to, of course, take off our shoes as we entered the Whare hui. We were later told that the whare hui is the women's domain. The columns surrounding the doors were a women's leg and the room inside is the womb where its occupants are watched over and protected. As the next part of the welcoming ceremony began, the women (who were previously in the front) filed into the last three rows of seats while the men filed into the first two rows. This setup is supposed to act as a defense for the women - if the host warriors were to attack, the men would be able to protect the women.

The host elder and speaker stood up and welcomed us in the Maori language. While the Maori warrior who had given us the branch outside had been in traditional garb, this elder was wearing a western outfit - pants, t-shirt, jacket, etc. I had realized that the majority of the ceremony had been a bit of a show, designed for visiting students. We were told, later, that this Marae wasn't open for tourists... and, while I truly respect the ceremony and the culture, I wondered if a group of visiting students deserved the honor that such a ceremony traditionally grants.

Regardless, I did greatly appreciate the experience of the ceremony. As the host elder gave his speech, I sat back and listened to the language - taking the time to both enjoy the undercurrents of the speech without understanding its literal meaning. I examined the designs on the walls and the figures (with their glowing, seashell eyes and the extended tongue) and waited for the speech to end. When it did, the group of Maori hosts all stood up and sang. The singing that follows a speech acts as a signal that the rest of the group agrees with what their speaker has said. When the song ended, the Maori hosts sat down.

It was our turn to give our speeches.

Two students and the Maori man who taught us the basics of the protocol of this ceremony (a man from another tribe) acted as our speakers. After each speech, we all stood up and sang a song. As I wrote before, our group sang two Maori songs and one American one - Amazing Grace. If you're interested, here are the words to the two songs. I'll.. keep them here as a reminder to myself later on:

Tutira Mai
Tutira mai nga iwi
Tatou tatou e
Tutira mai nga iwi
Tatou tatou e
Whaia te maramatanga
Me te aroha, e nga iwi
Kia ko tapatahi
Kia kotahi ra
Tatou tatou e
Tatou tatou e

Te Ahroha
Te aroha
Te whakapono
Me te rangimarie
Tatou, tatou e
(Repeat)

--
If you're interested, wh is pronounced f in the Maori language. Go ahead and try singing it. I'm sure you'll be able to google the tunes. It was.. quite fun, even though I'm glad that the overall singing drowned out my horrible singing voice.

Once the speeches and the songs were done, we all went up and gave a Hongi to each of the host Maori. A Hongi is a Maori greeting, where each person shake hands and press their noses against one another. It is a traditional "sharing of the breath of life" (once again from the extremely reliable Wikipedia).

If you're wondering about the pictures... I still hadn't found my camera, and we weren't allowed to take pictures during the ceremony anyway. But here's a googled image of the hongi.


That marked the end of the ceremony and the beginning of the feast. We went to the dining hall (there's another name for this, but my memory's failing me here) and ate a great meal. The meat was cooked underground - the chefs dug a hole in the ground, buried the food, and cooked it all with burning coals. During the meal, a group of Maori men and women performed on stage for us.


This image, I actually stole from a friend's blog... but this is the group of people I saw and it's taken while I was watching. I should be... a good bit behind the camera. Anyway, they showed us some traditional dances and items. There was a ball on a string - once used as a training implement for young men - as a part of the dance, as well as a small club. Several of the female students were dragged up for a dance involving the aptly-named ball on a string. Afterwards, the guys were dragged up and disrobed.

That's.. um.. right.

Then they were all taught the haka. The haka, from what I could gather, is a war dance that involves stamping, making lots of noise, sticking your tongue out, bulging your eyes, and, in short, making yourself as intimidating as possible. If you haven't seen it, you need to youtube a video of the New Zealand All Blacks (the #1 rugby team in the world) performing it. It's.. pretty intense.

After the show (and a reciprocal thank you via a magic effect for the performers), we cleaned up and reentered the whare hui for a good night's sleep. We lay mattresses out on the floor, set up the pillows, pulled out our sleeping bags, and prepared for a moe (sleep).

But, because we weren't tired yet... and it was our last night with everyone - some of the students would be leaving for Christchurch and the Butler staff were probably tired of us by that point - I performed some more magic. After half an hour or so, we returned to our sleeping bags and sat bag to an information session by a Maori woman who told us a bit about Maori history, religion, and politics.

When she was done, we finally closed our eyes and passed out for the night.

7 July: The next day, we woke up to our last good breakfast. Once we finished, some of us helped with the dishes while we waited for the farewell ceremony. When all the eating and the cleaning was done, individual students took turns standing up to thank our hosts. Then one of our male student speakers stood up to give the final farewell and handed our small hosts a small tree. We all stood up and sang Te Ahroha one last time.

When we finished, our hosts gave their speeches and sang their songs. We ended with a farewell hongi, gathered our stuff, and left the Marae with both a lot of new information, an amazing experience, and, it seems, new Maori relatives.

Before we left for the airport to drop off half our group, the Butler staff had one final mystery destination for us. The bus drove us through Auckland and into... the Villa Maria Vineyard for some wine tasting. We wafted the scent, twirled the glass, wafted more, sipped, gurgled, and swallowed. We were supposed to spit it back out, but our guide through the building forgot to take out the spitting bowl thingies.

We tried two white wines and two red ones - I took small sips of each and swallowed a lot of water afterwards. Honestly, though, the sweeter wines were manageable, flavor-wise. It's a good place to bring my parents if they come down....

Afterwards, we got a tour of the interior of the vineyard. A machine fills up the bottles, caps them, labels them, and cleans them, while humans package the bottles into boxes. The first and last forty bottles of wine are discarded each day to ensure quality; these bottles, of course, end up in the hands of the vineyard's staff. After some students bought bottles of wine (to take home for their parents, of course), we loaded back onto the bus and headed to the airport.

We gave the other students a brief farewell before heading to our new home in Auckland - UniLodge. And thus ends our orientation - what I call Camp New Zealand. The next stage is the "living on your own" stage... and then, finally, comes school.

But we're not there yet.. and I think I'm done for the day.