Tauranga

Docked in Tauranga, NZ, we were looking at Mt Maunganui, an extinct volcano which Dale remembered walking around many years ago when he thought he’d like to live in a place like this. He walked over by it today while I joined the masses and went to visit a Maori tribe on their tribal grounds.

Our guide, whose name I could neither pronounce nor remember, was a member of the tribe and all the people who we met there were his close relatives. He had the full face moko, which seems almost frightening before you get used to it, and his cousin, who entertained us during lunch with a traditional performance using balls on strings, had only the women’s chin moko.

When we arrived we were welcomed into their community house which was built without nails, has slightly out of plumb walls to withstand volcanic activity and has been moved twice, taken apart and re-assembled piece by piece. Each design represents part of nature that they revere; each part of the house has a special significance. They seem to have incorporated bits of Christianity into their religion (or visa versa) as they belong to various Christian denominations (and some cults) and they feature a “picture of Jesus” in the house.

Before lunch, cooked in a modern appliance to imitate the outdoor hangi which is too labor intensive to do for 20 tourists, they demonstrated how it is done for real. Fortunately they have lots of lava rocks to use which won’t explode like other rocks would if heated as they do.

The lunch was delicious anyway. The people were anxious for us to understand that although it’s important to them to retain their language (and NZ requires Maori to be taught in all schools) and their customs they are, and always have been, interested in technology. They look down on the Aborigines of Australia, calling them backward. They are “moving ahead”, as they said. They took us around their beautiful tribal land and showed us their kiwi farms, white-tented down in the valley, and explained that it’s a pricey business to get into; $300,000 per hectacre for a permit to grow gold kiwi. The country exported 600,000 cubic tons of the fruit last year!

Wood is one of their primary exports; pine, which goes mostly to Asia.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day with these people. They were kind to those in our group who needed extra help and they answered our many questions carefully and completely. They kept us busy and engaged all day and I felt like I could be good friends with them if we lived close.