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Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Te Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao or TE PUIA for Short



The TE PUIA Bus picked us up at 4 PM to take us to Te Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao which means, "The gathering place for the war parties of Wahiao". I generally find that whenever I'm near a gathering place for war parties of any type, I should really be somewhere else. Especially since I'm no longer employed to keep the peace. However, at this particular gathering place for war parties, they had great quantities of good food, thus proving the exception to the rule. Plus they also had a friendly security guard, making it totally safe...
 
The Maori are the tribes of warriors we see doing the intimidating dances before rugby matches. Some tattoo their faces arms and legs and stick out their tongues and bulge their eyes to instill fear in their enemies.

We did however, meet a beautiful and friendly Maori girl, probably in her 20s, who showed us a picture of her tattoo that went from her right knee over her butt cheek to her waist. She was "permitted" by her tribe to wear this mark of honor and she was obviously very proud of it. I can't imagine going through the pain and itching of a tat covering more than a square foot of skin, although on her, it did look pretty cool.

These are Maori; or at least part Maori. They sure have the songs and dances down pat. They gave us a 45 minute show, taught us how to do the intimidating dance of the rugby players and the ladies sang Maori songs to delight us all. No people were killed, eaten, or even injured during the performance. If I ever play rugby, I've got a very cool dance up my sleeve!

 
 
The place called Te Puia is a Maori culture center, on ancient tribal land, maintained by the Maori and offered as a tourist haven, educational center, and souvenir shop. We were guided by a lady of the tribe, who explained why the Brits failed to wipe out the indigenous peoples of New Zealand as they had done most elsewhere. It seems a crafty scheme to arm the very warlike Maori tribes with muskets, so they could kill each other off, sort of backfired on the British who then had to face angry natives who now had muskets! The British conquest was further compromised when horny sailors bought Maori girls to be their wives; paid for with more guns and ammo! Eventually a treaty was forged and peace descended upon the land, due mostly I think to the Brits and Maori having interbred considerably. In fact, there are hardly any pure blooded Maori left today, and having become mostly Christians, they also stopped killing and eating people.


 
Today in New Zealand, you can see the soft features of the Maori in the faces of many with names like McTavish, Jones and Smith. The people here seem to play well together.
 
The food we sought was to be slow cooked in an buried earth oven called a hangi and the feast it yields is varied and delicious. During the three hour cooking process, we watched the Pohutu Geysers erupt, on and off for the whole evening. No laundry detergent needed!


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