Waitangi Festival and Treaty Grounds

We took a our first extended road trip north of Auckland to go up to Northland and the Bay of Islands and experience Waitangi on Waitangi Day. This is the annual holiday on February 6th that commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which is considered the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand. This year was the 180th anniversary, so it was extra special. There were people who had traveled from around the world to be there, as well as a new museum that was opened the day before when the politicians usually come up. (The Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was granted the very special experience of going out on a waka that day, too.) Each year, there is an all-day Waitangi Festival on the Treaty Grounds and the buildings are closed, so this meant we waited to visit them until the following day.

Bay of Islands with Waitangi Treaty Grounds opposite Russell, and Kerikeri off to the left

I didn't know what to expect - the website was vague on what things would be happening. When we arrived, there were all of these waka (canoes) out on the water, with people paddling and chanting. That was really cool and unique to get to see. The biggest one was the waka taua (war canoe), which takes at least 175 men to operate and has its own special house on the Treaty Grounds. There were some waka with all-female crews, too, and quite a few youth out there. I thought it must make them so proud to be able to participate in an event like this that is positive and celebratory of their culture. All too often that is not the case in New Zealand. Eventually, all of the waka made their way over to the shore and there were more ceremonial activities - all in te reo Māori. 

Explains the white circles at the front of some of the waka

We headed over to the main Treaty Grounds where there were lots of stalls with food, drinks, art, jewelry, and other stuff to buy. We saw some cultural performances - dancing and singing - and tried to keep out of the sun since it was quite hot out. My main critique was there weren't enough bathrooms and the ones that were there were placed quite far away and were hard to find. I also thought it was a missed opportunity to have something about the Treaty and the history for people to check out (since the museum was closed for the day). I know it's contentious, but at least some posters or a pop-up thing with general information would have been nice, since there were so many people with time to learn something.  

There was a small march/protest about an ongoing land dispute in Ihumātao

Waitangi Treaty Grounds Tour

The next day, we had the guided tour of the Treaty Grounds and a short cultural performance, and then were able to go through the two museums and the marae. I wasn't sure how much I would learn since I already know a bit about the history, but I was pleasantly surprised at learning some new things, especially about some of the key figures involved. I have to say, going through the museum can make you mad at the British colonial enterprise and what they did to indigenous populations pretty much wherever they went. 

The big waka taua was made all by hand, with parts of kauri trees being joined for the hull

stump of a kauri tree, which are facing kauri dieback disease in NZ

this is the sheltered home of the waka taua

cultural performance using little balls that make noise when snapped

interesting comparison between worldviews through maps

The flag below hasn't been retired, so it is still official.
The other black, red, and white flag (so-called Māori flag) was designed in 1990 and has become popular.

Part of the issue with the Treaty is how rushed it was. Less than a day to translate!
But it was really the changing of key words that make it controversial.

 

Unsurprisingly, the Treaty was not a Māori creation.

There was a 4th article on religious tolerance but it wasn't written into the Treaty.

Flags have real significance in designating authority.

Kerikeri

After lunch, we headed to the town of Kerikeri a little north. We stopped into a couple tourist shops (delicious chocolate sample at the chocolate factory) and popped by Rainbow Falls. Quite a few people were swimming in the area.

The Stone Store - an old building still operating as a shop

Reminder of colonial life and gardens that the British brought with them

Russell

The next day we took the car ferry over to Russell. It was an easy thing to drive onto the ferry and only took a few minutes; they are very efficient at doing this throughout the day. 

Russell used to be a lawless town full of scoundrels (think Tortuga from Pirates of the Caribbean or Mos Eisley from Star Wars) and was known as the "Hell Hole of the Pacific". This was one of the reasons why local Māori wanted the British Empire to exert some control over their people and other traders in the area. Well, that backfired... Also, its original name was Kororareka, which means sweet blue penguin, which is a lot nicer than Russell. Anyway, it later turned into a holiday spot and tourist area, so it's quite a shift since the mid-1800s. It's directly across an inlet of water from Waitangi, so you can see the flagpole on the Treaty Grounds from the shore. 

View from Russell over to Waitangi Treaty Grounds

We went to the Russell Museum, a small locally-run museum whose main display is a replica of Captain James Cook's ship Endeavor. It could use a refresh and some of the info was repetition from what we'd seen the previous day, but we like to support local museums. We walked by New Zealand's oldest church, Christ Church, and the Pompallier Mission, then it was time to head back to Auckland.

Pompallier Mission

Hanmer Springs and Maori Workshops

A while ago I finally watched all of The Lord of the Rings movies for the first time since being in New Zealand. It was fun to see some of the scenery I've been to, and the mountains of course are gorgeous as usual.


I have been going to a few Māori workshops to improve my awareness and understanding of the bicultural aspect of New Zealand. I wish these were mandatory for everyone, both locals and visitors. I'm sure I now know more about some of nuances of the culture than New Zealanders. And -- did you know -- New Zealand had a Declaration of Independence!!! I can't believe it took two years for me to find this out. Before the famous Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, a number of Māori chiefs from the North Island signed a declaration calling themselves The United Tribes of New Zealand. I was so impressed. It also changes how you see the Treaty, and how unfortunate that Britain exploited their power as a colonizer. A video we watched at one of the workshops reminded us that the translator of the Treaty from English to Māori deliberately changed one of the words because he knew the Māori chiefs would not sign if he used the word for sovereignty. It reiterates the power of language.

My tutoring has been going pretty well. I think the second time around you get the rhythm of how much you can cover in a session and which activities work better. I have also had a few occasions to teach, and that has been a stressful but good experience. Unfortunately, I've come to the realization that I've been spending too much helping others with various things or trying to improve the state of things that I haven't been able to get my own stuff done, so I'm having to make the difficult decision to be more selfish with my time so that I can get my thesis done. After the semester is over, I really have to dedicate myself to writing. We'll see how successful I am at saying no!

We finally went to Hanmer Springs for a short vacation, which is a kind of resort with a bunch of hot pools that is about 90 minutes north of Christchurch, so it's considered a weekend getaway. There were quite a few people there, but winter is not exactly a great time to go, because as soon as one gets out of the water, the wind is freezing. The second day, it was raining so we had to leave our towels all the way at the entrance. I would much prefer to be dry and warm. And let's just say that the super hot pools can make your blood pressure drop so you have to be careful upon coming out for your body to readjust... The town is fairly small and within view of the mountains, which were beautiful in their snow-covered glory.

stock photo of the pools - I didn't want to worry about my camera getting wet

 

Hiking, Hakas, Hail, and Star Wars

We've been to a couple new places around Christchurch recently. I also found out about a project called Christchurch 360 Trail that is working on a kind of hiking/biking trail around the city that goes into different kinds of terrain and can be broken off into chunks. Our walk in Bottle Lake Forest Park turned out to be more rocky than we hoped and is really more suited to biking than walking. Many of the trees are growing to be harvested, so the scenery wasn't that memorable.

Sumner Beach was pretty and the weather was nice.

  

I attended the annual Maori Graduation Celebration (Hui Whakahonore) which is a more intimate affair than the regular graduation (which takes place in a stadium with hundreds of graduates in multiple ceremonies), although Maori graduates also participate in the regular ceremony as well. The smaller setting allows Maori families to perform a haka if they wish when their graduate receives their certificate and pounamu, or greenstone, necklace. I had never seen a haka before, and it was a very unique and emotional experience. They originated as war dances but are now used for special occasions and ceremonies. Some people (mostly men) rhythmically stomped their feet and shouted, while other people sang or spoke to their graduate. You could feel the energy in the room and it was so much more than the mere clapping or whooping that I'm used to!

I have been doing Christmas baking and bringing a taste of American treats here, although I've had to make substitutions because some ingredients aren't available here (no Chex cereal!!). For a country with such a diverse group of people, the suggested Christmas desserts in the newspaper and ads seem limited to a couple items, and they like to put fruit in everything. The British influence is still trying to hold out I guess.

The big event lately has been the new Star Wars movie, Episode VII: The Force Awakens. We went to a midnight showing and being in New Zealand finally meant being ahead of the game -- it showed a day early here so with the time zone difference, we saw it almost two days ahead of everyone in the U.S. It was good and thankfully not the prequels. We did a marathon of the despecialized original trilogy beforehand so the references and nostalgia were nice and fresh. We will be seeing it again this week to catch what we missed the first time! We went to a bookshop that specializes in science fiction because I was looking for another copy of Dune to lend out to people I've been telling about it, and I ended up finding one copy buried underneath several boxes of not-yet-priced books, as well as a set of the Star Wars books (I already have these back home but wanted to re-read) and a dozen other science fiction books, many from the 70s so I can see what was popular at the time. I stumbled upon several Frank Herbert short story collections that I couldn't resist, even though I'm not researching those technically. The most interesting was probably the book subtitled Understanding American History Through Science Fiction which features short stories sorted by various social studies themes and discussion questions for students. 

The weather also unleashed one of the worst storms I have ever seen, with a massive hail storm that brought tons of hail and wind and thunder and lightning. It decimated a lot of our plants in the garden and elsewhere, with the leaves shot through with holes. When it cleared up the first time, I went out and poured warm water on the strawberries to melt some of the ice bath they were sitting in. Then another round of thunder and lightning and rain came later. Crazy weather here!