4914 This is the Maori Totem. The top of the base is the Maori happa face. The man on top is wearing a feathered robe and holding the dedication plaque.
4920 A close up of the stylized Maori face, bug-eyed and tongue out.
4922 The Maori clan house. The motif of the totem is replicated at the top of the center pole. The man at the bottom of the pole is holding the small war club. The wooden plaque at the right is a memorial to those who died in WWII.
Nov 16 – Waitangi, Bay of Islands, New Zealand. Well overnight my sinus problems had degenerated into a full blown sinus infection. We were supposed to go sailing today to Cape Brett but it’s cold, windy and raining so we opted not to go. Diana went on a tour of the r and a Maori Cultural Center. She was impressed with the huge ferns that were everywhere in the forest including some that enveloped whole trees. The largest tree is the kauri which grows a straight trunk and drops its lower branches as it grows and the trunk keeps getting thicker. They are big trees but dwarfed by the Giant Redwoods in the US. It’s a very hearty tree and can tolerated damp, water-logged soil making it the perfect tree for this area as many areas are swamps but others have well drained soil. (For a rain forest, that is)
They stopped at a Maori Cultural center where they had a traditional clan house, totem and church. They use a dark red color on their structures not very different from Pennsylvania barn red. It’s on all their buildings and important structures. On the Maori clan house the eaves, pillars and columns are all this shade of red. The red parts of a structure are almost always deeply carved with Maori symbols, especially the ‘war face’. You’ve probably seen happa dancers with this bug-eyed stare, mouth open and tongue sticking out and down. It’s a fierce look and was used to intimidate strangers and make them go away. The clan totem has this face carved into the red part of its base. Highly stylized, of course.
From her description she had a good day and I could tell I was wise to stay on the ship.
No comments:
Post a Comment