Auckland Museum and Maori for Beginners

Manda writes:

Barbara and Ted suggested the Auckland War Memorial Museum as one of the places worth visiting in the city, so today we decided to take a trip over there to see what it was all about.

The building looks modern inside, as if it had been recently refurbished. On the ground floor there is an extensive collection of Maori and Pacific Islands exhibits. This included weaponry, clothing, carved wooden sculptures and buildings and even a 25m long Maori war canoe. The detail of the carving is intricate and it must have taken them ages to do.

The first floor is dedicated to ‘Natural world'. Here we saw skeletons of the whale, dinosaurs, birds etc. I got the impression that this floor was mainly aimed at children with many interactive things to keep them interested and occupied.

The second floor concentrates on New Zealanders at war. Exhibits include tornados, fighter jets, bombs etc with audio war broadcasts playing in the background to set the scene. It was interesting to read a board filled with cards from visitors of the museum who also had been prisoners of war during the 2nd world war. This brought back memories of the war diaries written by Australian and New Zealand soldiers that I'd read in a war museum in Anzac, Turkey.

The highlight for me was the Maori performance by Manaia, a group of young Maori dancers celebrating the culture and customs through song and dance. It provided a good introduction to the Maori culture.

Manaia: traditional Maori song, rituals and, of course, the haka.

Before we went in, we were advised not to smile or laugh during the performance of Haka, a type of war dance, as it would show a sign of disrespect. We all sat there looking serious as the males performed the Haka. After the second less formal dance, one of the performers said that it was, “Ok to clap now", “OK to laugh now". He was greeted with claps and laughs as a now happy audience were content that they could express gratitude to the performers. The show took on a more informal feel from that point onwards.

Some of the music, foot stamping and chest smacking sounded very loud and so children were advised not to sit right at the front in case they got scared. Those brave enough to grace the front seats occasionally got a fright as the dancers thrust wooden staffs in their direction.

One thing was apparent and this was the level of co-ordination these performers had. This was displayed as the performers threw batons at each other that they had to catch, otherwise the guitar player had to do fifty press-ups for each one that fell to the ground. The task grew increasingly difficult as more batons were introduced. One eventually fell to the ground but as a result of deliberate mischief, we later found out from one of the performers. They like stitching each other up! Somehow the guitar player got away Scott-free and didn't have to do any press-ups!

One Tree Hill (yes, we know that's not a tree on the top).

On the way back, we stopped off at the One Tree Hill lookout. Lovely 360-degree panoramic views of the city could be seen from this point. There was an obelisk on this otherwise bald hill. What was confusing was that we saw two tree stumps, yet the place was called One Tree hill. We later found out from Ted and Barbara that a tree had stood here until 1876. It was later replaced by a pine tree, which was braced with cables after a Maori protester attempted to chainsaw it down in 1999 as a retribution for the felling of the original one. The council subsequently removed the damaged tree. Glad that's been cleared up - the mystery not the tree!

In the evening, we took Ted and Barbara out for a meal. We went to a nice restaurant called Riva, on Mission Bay. The meal and company were superb - as were the fire jugglers across the road who were practising on the grass and putting on a show for all the waterfront diners.

Ted, Barbara, Manda and Ian, at Café Riva on Mission Bay.