SIGNS OF LIFE: Studying Maori Culture in New Zealand

*NOTE: Much of my blogging absence is attributed to the fact I've been abroad touring New Zealand with my dance company. For a portion of our tour, we lived, danced, and learned in a native Maori Marae. This is my feeble attempt to share that overwhelming experience.

After three days of being rushed around, crammed into various airplanes, painfully separated from the luxuries of toothpaste, deodorant, and clean underwear, I had finally arrived in what is arguably the most beautiful country on the planet: New Zealand. Now, standing outside a wooden stockade fence made from tree branches and squinting my eyes in the afternoon sun as the warm breeze filtered through the flax trees swaying under a picturesque blue sky, the first thing I noticed was just how warm and comfortable silence felt here.

I had traveled to New Zealand not as a tourist but as a dancer with the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble as they embarked on an international cultural outreach tour. Through dance, we hoped to study the culture of New Zealand's native Maori tribes, and in exchange, share with them our own approach to the art. Unlike neighboring Australia, where the native Aboriginal population was severely suppressed by the colonial government to the extent that native children were forcibly removed from their homes and reeducated by the British, New Zealand's Maori people experienced a much more tolerant regime. Nevertheless, unfair government policies (including land disputes) coupled with generations of intermarriage between tribes and Europeans diluted Maori cultural knowledge to the extent that, until recently, it was in danger of being lost. However, in the last fifty-odd years, the Maori have worked diligently to bring their culture back from the brink, and it now flourishes in native tribal communities scattered across the country. It was thanks to this cultural resurgence that I now found myself here: at the opening in the fence outside a native Marae.



The Ensemble and I had touched down in the city of Auckland at 6 AM that morning only to fly a half hour south down to the capital city of Wellington, then drive to the Maori-dominated village of Lower Hutt. After the stagnancy of airports and modern city neighborhoods, Lower Hutt certainly looked the part of an exotic land; nestled between looming green mountains and situated along the edge of a small river, the modest suburban neighborhood was saturated in an old-fashioned sense of domestic peace. At the epicenter of the 1970s one-family homes stood the fence, peppered with red totems carved with tikis (human figures), their shell eyes bulging and tongues hanging out to intimidate enemies. As we peeked around the edge of the largest totems marking the fence's entrance, we saw a short, smartly-dressed older woman navigating the narrow dirt path which led from the gate up to the front steps of the Marae, its long sloping eaves spread wide as if awaiting an embrace. The analogy is appropriate; each Marae is named after an ancestor, and its physical design is representative of the human form. The large center beam which runs the length of the building's roof resembles the spine, the painted rafters which slope away from the beam form the ribcage, and theoutside eaves are the arms. At the apex of the eaves over the front porch sits a carved wooden head. When entering a Marae, the Maori believe visitors are literally entering the ancestor.



The woman approached us at the gate, her shiny black pumps scraping the dirt path. She greeted us with a warm smile and explained that her husband, Terri, the tribe's leader, would lead the welcoming ceremony. With that, she led us up the path, past the peaceful white grave of Terri's father who had the Marae built in the 1950s. As we approached the shadow of the building, we were instructed to remove our shoes before entering. As Terri later explained, the Maori believe that the world outside of the Marae is ruled by the spirit of war, while the world inside is ruled by the spirit of peace. Removing our shoes was done "not just to help keep the floors clean," Terri joked, but "to prevent tracking the war spirit inside." Unshod, we followed her up onto the Marae's stone porch and into the arms of the Ancestor.

Passing through the large front door, Terri, dressed more casually than his wife in blue jeans, a button-up shirt and baseball cap, greeted us in the traditional manner by clasping right hands and touching the foreheads together, eyes downcast. We then arranged ourselves in lines on chairs set out on woven flax mats - boys in the front, and girls in the back. As per tradition, only men are allowed to speak during the ceremony, and each group nominates one speaker. Terri spoke for the Maori, welcoming us first in his nativelanguage and then again in English, before he and his wife performed a beautiful Maori song. "We hope that was kind on the ears," he commented.

It was.

Then our director, Ford Evans, spoke for our group, thanking our hosts. We were then required to perform a song representative of our common heritage, and we bumbled through the Dartmouth alma mater. "That was very pleasant on the ears," Terri remarked afterwards.

He was being kind.

After the ceremony was complete, Terri invited us to move our luggage into the Marae and settle on the beds which ringed the main room in the Marae - fluffy mattresses covered in colorful hand-sewn quilts. After three days of sleeping upright on planes, they looked like the most comfortable beds I'd ever seen. I also took an opportunity to really study the intricate carvings, weavings, and paintings which covered the walls and ceilings of the building. Once we were settled, Terri's wife went to the kitchens to help finish preparing our dinner while Terri told us more about his people, the Marae, and traditional Maori stories. However, there was one comment Terri made which struck me as particularly poignant: "We don't shoo away spiders," Terri said. "We enjoy seeing a spider spinning a web in the corner. It's a sign that even when no one was home, there's still life happening in here."



There is certainly plenty of life happening in this place. Even as we were listening to Terri's stories, the sound of laughing school children and the smells of home-baked bread were carried in on the breeze through the Marae's open windows. Some of Terri's grandchildren scampered through the Marae to see us, other members of the community joined us for dinner in the Marae's dining room, and people were constantly passing in and out of the place, giving the sense of one large family. Terri's wife summed it up well: "If we need something and holler out the door, somebody will come running." Most of the tribe spoke Maori amongst each other, a language which, a couple of generations ago, was nearly lost. Now, however, the tribe's children
are bussed to a school where they are taught in their native tongue, and are raised fluent in both Maori and English - complete with its unique down-under twang.



Also recently revived has been the native weaving, done entirely by hand without the aid of a loom. The art form experienced a resurgence partially from the efforts of Terri's sister, who used traditional techniques to create modern works of art. Her work became known both nationally and internationally, and she toured with her pieces all over the world. We were able to see some of her work at a small art gallery down the street from the Marae, which displayed traditional carving, jewelry, and weaving. The main material used in Maori weaving is flax, which is harvested, boiled, dyed, dried, and braided to make up the base of the weaving. Other materials, including shells, beads, and feathers decorate the weaving, especially on traditional cloaks. The most beautiful cloaks were decorated with feathers from New Zealand's native Kiwi birds, which are endangered. Unfortunately, their ecological status makes the feathers difficult to come by; weavers must possess a special permit to use Kiwi bird feathers, and the feathers themselves are distributed to weavers by the government. Then, although the weaver is allowed to keep their creation, the final product is, by law, the property of the government. Although the Maori support conservation efforts, they have difficulty accepting this policy. In fact, they view the cloaks, with their feathers fluttering in the breeze, as living tributes to the birds, and a more respectful end for their feathers rather than just allowing them to decay. Also, flax harvesting to make the weaving fiber has grown more difficult since large stretches of land where flax grows wild are currently under government protection.



The next day we found ourselves warming up for dance class on the shiny wooden floor of the Marae while Maori dance students practiced their moves nearby. The high-school age group had recently qualified for the national competition, and were excited to practice their pieces for us. For them, we performed some choreography by modern dance luminary Twyla Tharp, and also demonstrated and taught the students some of our own original work. Their performance began when their coach blew from a large conch shell, speaking in the native tongue. The group demonstrated dances featuring the patu - a wooden paddle-shaped weapon used by the ancient Maori in battle, and the poi - small balls hung on an end of braided flax. Although the poi were originally used for strengthening the wrists of warriors to help them wield the patu, poi dances are now considered feminine and are performed by women. The group also sang several songs, accompanying themselves on guitar.



When they were finished, it was our turn to try to learn their repertory. The first dance I attempted was with the poi. The swiftly spinning flax balls were deceptively difficult to manipulate; being handmade, they varied slightly in lengths and weights and it took all of my coordination to keep both my poi spinning and going in the direction I wanted. The patu was slightly easier for me, being somewhat similar in wrist movement to baton twirling. However, the uneven weight and fingering were completely unique. "If you drop your patu, you have to do ten press-ups," their coach warned, as he demonstrated several deft twirling moves. Sure enough, one of the dancers' patus swiftly clattered to the floor. In response, she dropped and gave him ten. "The press-ups aren't so bad," the coach joked. "We used to kill you." He wasn't completely joking; in battle, if you dropped your patu, you were as good as dead. The Maori were famous for being fierce warriors, intimidating their opponents with their patu twirling, bulging eyes, stuck out tongues, and stomping legs. The Haka, or Maori war dance (now most commonly seen being performed by teams at the start of rugby matches) which involves communal chanting, stomping, and other intimidating tactics, is frightening enouth when being performed by a friendly group of high school students - one can only imagine how it must have appeared to have hundreds of warriors shaking the ground with it.



A couple of days later, I found it difficult to leave this exotic place which had so quickly come to feel like home. I would miss the sight of the mountains rising out from behind the stockade fence, the multicolored birds playing in the small river, the sounds of children playing and the musical Maori language. I would miss the sense of community which arose between the tight-knit homes, communal dinners, and waking up together to the sun glinting off the shell eyes of the red tikis. But most of all I would miss the people who had so openly welcomed us, taking us hiking up their mountain for a view of the town, who stayed up late talking drinking hot tea and eating homemade cookies with us after taking cold showers in the Maori bathhouse, and whose children had slept next to us in the Marae.

I would miss the comfortable silence.

During the goodbye ceremony, we sang our songs more fully than the tentative attempts at our first meeting. As we touched our foreheads goodbye, our hands were clasped more tightly and were followed by a kiss on the cheek and a hug. And as I stepped off the front porch of the Marae and put back on my shoes, I looked back at the empty entrance and noticed a small spider weaving an intricate web off the nose of one of the elaborately carved poles. For the first time, instead of frowning at the web or moving to bat it away, I smiled warmheartedly.

A sign of life.