Remember how I said we have been leaving trail markers in Wellington? I forgot that Alice from Rotorua placed her sticker on her water bottle!
We had two tours today, Sunday October 13th. The first was a visit to Te Papa, the museum of New Zealand. Our instructions were to walk to Te Papa and let the people in the red tshirts know that we had a tour. Along the walk to the museum, we may or may not have placed another “trail marker”. Once at the museum, our name wasn’t on the list, but Pan Pacific was listed. Pan Pacific is the local tour agency that our tour agency, Uniquely New Zealand uses for making reservations in country. Did you know that travel agencies have “speed dating” rounds in countries to meet the different suppliers? I didn’t either. I think our driver Harry mentioned that. We were told that our guide would be Phil and we would enjoy our tour (which included a Māori tasting at the end. Currently Phil was organizing the tour buses bringing Star Princess cruise passengers to the museum.
Phil came in and met with us right away. He retrieved a wheelchair for Gammy. He offered her a mobility scooter, but she didn’t take it… Phil took us upstairs and talked about the Waharoa (gateway) that was against one wall. There was a sign language qr code posted on the exhibit. I have included the link. It not only signs the information about the gateway, it also has closed captioning.
Now we have been told many things about the Māori way of life: only the men carve, the carvings are of ancestors, the gateways are usually in front of the meeting house or the fortified village itself. It is with many retellings that the processing is occurring.
Moving on from the gateway, we entered the Natural world exhibit, where Phil explained about the Moa bird in front of 2 Moa skeletons. He explained about the Moa’s predator being the Haast’s eagle and how the birds on Aoeterra (long white cloud) or New Zealand had many flightless birds on land because there were no animals on land before the Polynesians came. The Polynesians became the Māori. So apparently the Haast’s eagle couldn’t see the Moa if the Moa stood extremely still. This worked great until the Moa met up with man. The Moa stayed still, man killed Moa. Moa dies out, Haast’s eagles die out. It is a vicious circle.
Phil also explained that we would not be seeing the whole museum, but our tour allowed us to stay or come back again. Since we had an afternoon engagement, I asked if we could come again the next day and he said yes. I will tell you that when we went back again, we mentioned his name and they all said, “You were on a tour with Phil? Come on in… Haere mai-welcome.”
Another exhibit we saw was a meeting house that was created to include all peoples of New Zealand. It was created by women, men, people from different nationalities, very modern and diverse.
Meeting houses were made the same: the ancestor on top, arms out to the sides, with carvings for the fingers, legs going down. They were not made to last a lifetime because as the house aged, the ancient ancestors faded and new ancestors replaced the oldest ones.
Most of the pou we see are poles with ancestors on them. We came upon one set that was more totem in appearance. Phil then told us a story of how he went to Alaska and saw some totem poles and thought they resembled Māori Po. Turns out the carver of that totem pole was actually a Māori.
We saw an enlarged copy of the Treaty of Waitangi and then it was time to head downstairs for our tasting. After visiting a meeting house, we were told it is polite to eat a meal offered by the host. Even if all you do is tear a piece off the bread or whatever you are offered. The museum created a feast using small plates and samplings. A hāngī in a tart, bread, and a parfait made using feijoa. There was kawakawa tea to drink. Just what we needed. Phil recited a prayer in Māori and then we held hands and said, “How Fortunate we are!”. Life is good!
We walked towards the hotel, but had a horrible thirst. Dotty, Jim, and I stopped at Garage Project for another “tasting” while Gammy went back to the hotel. I am sure Jim will give you a more detailed description of the beverages in Beer Report 3.
We all met up downstairs in time for our 1330 3 hour tour to begin. There was so much going on on our 3 hour tour, I will write about it separately.
#HowFortunateWeAre #MakeOurOwnSunshine #AdventureOfALifetime