Tino pai rawa te whare hou o Te Tumu
Te Tumu opened their new building on Tuesday morning. With a dawn ceremony. I was an usher which meant getting out of bed at 3:20 am but it was good times.
Ceremonies kicked off with a blessing by a Ngai Tahu tohunga. We had about 400 guests with delegates from Hawaii, Canada and the Pacific Island communiy.
After the blessing guests were called into the Union Hall by the putatara (conch shell), very cool.
There was a mihi whakatau (I'm not sure what the actual difference is but I think mihi whakatau is less formal than a powhiri), there wasn't room in the hall for the ushers so we sat in the next room. I admit I fell asleep a little.
There was an ava ceremony before breakfast.
Following breakfast there were cultural tributes which were awesome. I liked the Pacific dance best.
The ceremony concluded with the unveiling of the plaque and a hakari (feast).
I've been at uni today helping out in the kitchen and dining room while the speeches are on. I caught the end of the Professor from Hawaii's speech on Hawaiian creation narratives, very interesting.
The following is an article from the ODT. Typical of the media to focus on something stupid (which was a joke made by one of the Canadian delegates) rather than how good it is that Te Tumu has this new building which will open up so many new opportunities for Maori studies.
Cree ritual relies on Maori officer
By Tom McKinlay
An unnamed Maori customs officer played a crucial role in the opening of the $4.4 million extensions to the University of Otago’s School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies yesterday. As part of the pre-dawn opening ceremony, members of the Cree first nation, from Canada, performed their traditional “smudging” ritual to cleanse the building and those attending. The ritual involved burning a small amount of red willow fungus and letting the smoke waft over those attending. A member of the Cree delegation, Tracy Bear-Coon, said the Canadians had split their supply of wood fungus between them coming into New Zealand to improve their chances of getting some through Customs. On arrival at Auckland International Airport, they had all declared they were carrying some, but only one of them managed to get it through after choosing the customs queue leading to a Maori officer.
European customs officers encountered by other members of the delegation had confiscated the fungus for treatment and searched their bags, Ms Bear-Coon said. The dean of the school, Prof Tania Ka’ai, said her “feet did not touch the ground” during the ceremony, after the decade spent working towards it. “It is the breath of life that everybody came today to give the building,” she said. The school is known as Te Tumu, which translates as mooring post, and the extensions include a waka-shaped building with purpose-built areas for teaching the performance arts. Prof Ka’ai said it would mean students no longer had to go outside.
“We have been known to perform out in the car park because it couldn’t be timetabled. There wasn’t a room big enough anywhere,” she said. There were already signs that enrolments would increase on the back of the new facility and the new papers the school could now offer.
Ngai Tahu kaumatua Sir Tipene O’Regan unveiled the plaque for the extensions and said later the opening (whakatuwhera) had been enhanced by the presence of other cultures, particularly those of the Pacific, Hawaii and Canada. Maori studies existed in a wider world and it was critical for universities to place it in that more general context of indigenous development, Sir Tipene said. Maori studies had evolved since it first emerged at universities in the 1960s and was increasingly becoming the focus of interdisciplinary efforts. The new building was the latest articulation of that, he said. What went on inside the building was the key thing, he said. “It will depend entirely on the quality of the teaching and the intellectual force that goes into it. Buildings don’t make successful universities — programmes and people do.”
Ceremonies kicked off with a blessing by a Ngai Tahu tohunga. We had about 400 guests with delegates from Hawaii, Canada and the Pacific Island communiy.
After the blessing guests were called into the Union Hall by the putatara (conch shell), very cool.
There was a mihi whakatau (I'm not sure what the actual difference is but I think mihi whakatau is less formal than a powhiri), there wasn't room in the hall for the ushers so we sat in the next room. I admit I fell asleep a little.
There was an ava ceremony before breakfast.
Following breakfast there were cultural tributes which were awesome. I liked the Pacific dance best.
The ceremony concluded with the unveiling of the plaque and a hakari (feast).
I've been at uni today helping out in the kitchen and dining room while the speeches are on. I caught the end of the Professor from Hawaii's speech on Hawaiian creation narratives, very interesting.
The following is an article from the ODT. Typical of the media to focus on something stupid (which was a joke made by one of the Canadian delegates) rather than how good it is that Te Tumu has this new building which will open up so many new opportunities for Maori studies.
Cree ritual relies on Maori officer
By Tom McKinlay
An unnamed Maori customs officer played a crucial role in the opening of the $4.4 million extensions to the University of Otago’s School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies yesterday. As part of the pre-dawn opening ceremony, members of the Cree first nation, from Canada, performed their traditional “smudging” ritual to cleanse the building and those attending. The ritual involved burning a small amount of red willow fungus and letting the smoke waft over those attending. A member of the Cree delegation, Tracy Bear-Coon, said the Canadians had split their supply of wood fungus between them coming into New Zealand to improve their chances of getting some through Customs. On arrival at Auckland International Airport, they had all declared they were carrying some, but only one of them managed to get it through after choosing the customs queue leading to a Maori officer.
European customs officers encountered by other members of the delegation had confiscated the fungus for treatment and searched their bags, Ms Bear-Coon said. The dean of the school, Prof Tania Ka’ai, said her “feet did not touch the ground” during the ceremony, after the decade spent working towards it. “It is the breath of life that everybody came today to give the building,” she said. The school is known as Te Tumu, which translates as mooring post, and the extensions include a waka-shaped building with purpose-built areas for teaching the performance arts. Prof Ka’ai said it would mean students no longer had to go outside.
“We have been known to perform out in the car park because it couldn’t be timetabled. There wasn’t a room big enough anywhere,” she said. There were already signs that enrolments would increase on the back of the new facility and the new papers the school could now offer.
Ngai Tahu kaumatua Sir Tipene O’Regan unveiled the plaque for the extensions and said later the opening (whakatuwhera) had been enhanced by the presence of other cultures, particularly those of the Pacific, Hawaii and Canada. Maori studies existed in a wider world and it was critical for universities to place it in that more general context of indigenous development, Sir Tipene said. Maori studies had evolved since it first emerged at universities in the 1960s and was increasingly becoming the focus of interdisciplinary efforts. The new building was the latest articulation of that, he said. What went on inside the building was the key thing, he said. “It will depend entirely on the quality of the teaching and the intellectual force that goes into it. Buildings don’t make successful universities — programmes and people do.”
PHOTO: CRAIG BAXTER Pacific wave . . . Te Tumu dean Prof Tania Ka’ai dances with members of the local Pacific Island community at the opening of the university school’s new building.
Music: Alanis Morissette - You Learn (Album: Jagged Little Pill)
posted by Sarah N at 4:41 PM
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