WLJ- Day 6: Native Aotearoa

Day #6: Native Aotearoa

Welcome to Day #6 of your journey and the last day in the south island. You are going to start the day by traveling 63 km north up State Highway 1 from Dunedin to a place called ‘Shag Point.’ Shag Point is one of five places in the south island where the Maori arrived hundreds of years ago to settle in New Zealand. They arrived at Shag Point in large canoes called ‘wakas.’ For more information on Shag Point and other Maori landing places, go to the Waka landing places website.

http://www.kiwidaydreaming.com/p/new-zealand-maps.html

Activity 1: Let’s imagine that you were on the first waka to arrive at Shag Point. You had never been to New Zealand before and you had no idea what to expect. Write a poem describing how you would have felt when you arrived in New Zealand. Would you have been excited or scared? I would have felt pretty nervous, I reckon…

I will feel kind of scared arriving in New Zealand

But I was wishing it was warmer than Queenland

I just wanna sleep through one night

Hopefully I will be alright

I see the blue sky

And the sun was a bit too bright

I just wanted to leave

But is that all I’m relife

I’m just a human Maori *I’M NOT MAORI*

A Maori which one time would be good at sewing

Just waking up with a smile

But I’ve haven’t seen my parents in a while

I just sawed the time

But I thought is that right

I look at the clock again

But it’s broken

I wanted to just get out of this yuck house

And hopefully crawl out like a secret fast mouse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waka_(canoe)

Activity 2: After visiting Shag Point, you hop back in the van and drive all the way up the east coast of the south island until you reach the town of Picton. You get out of the van and onto the Interislander ferry. It travels back across the Cook Strait to Wellington. Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand and every winter the city hosts a huge Matariki festival to celebrate the Maori New Year. This year part of the festival is being held at Te Papa, a big museum in Wellington.

Read about the Matariki festival at Te Papa.  There are so many different things to see and do at the festival this year. On your blog, tell us about three of the events. You can choose any three events that you wish.

1. Flax weaving, it would be really interesting just hearing one of the Maori people teaching us how to weave a flax so you can present it at home for your parents or Whanau. So in the future you can just think back of what you done and just weave out a flax again.
2. Little Maori carving contest, for the Maori carving it’s just having a little board in front of you, but before carving you have to draw what kind of Maori design you are going to draw on your board. So after doing that you can just carve it out and that you Maori carving. The age for the Maori carving is 10 to 13, containing sharp object.
3. Girls making Maori Poi, any girls can make a Poi, it’s sound awesome trying to make a Poi. So after the girls finish making their Poi they can just dance it out with the poi in front of the crowd.

Bonus Activity: As part of the Matariki festival, there is a two day Kapa Haka competition. The haka is a traditional war dance that Maori performed before going into battle. The haka is now performed by children/adults in the community and by professional sporting teams, including our national rugby team, the ‘All Blacks.’  The All Blacks have performed various haka over the years. Watch the following three haka videos (1 – 3) and, on your blog, list the haka videos in order from best (#1) to worst (#3). There are no right or wrong answers ☺

#1. World Cup 2015 – All Blacks vs Argentina

So this Haka video for this is ok, but number 1 it always the same haka and number 2 for their final game they always do their haka which the All Black’s save for their final game. For this one I give it Number#2 (it’s kinda alright)

#2. All Blacks vs South Africa 2016

I kinda liked this haka because it’s just silent like the military but the fans doesn’t really like the haka because I can just tell the All Blacks fan are not cheering along. So I will give this a Number#3 (It’s just the worst haka for the All Black’s)

#3. Rugby World Cup 2011- All Blacks vs France

I would say this is one of the bestest Haka that All Blacks perform, I’m giving you my honest opinion but so far I like that the crowd is cheering along while they are doing it. I will give this a Number#1 (The best)

At the end of your day at Te Papa, you head to your hotel in the centre of Wellington. You are staying on Cuba Street, one of the coolest streets in the city.

Bonus Activity: 8 points

Sorry I’m blogging this at 5:45am because I’m going somewhere today :(