Maori Museum - Auckland

We were greeted by the deeply resonating sound of a Maori horn welcoming us into the museum. I'm told that the Maori greeting protocol consists of touching noses, not rubbing, and mingling your breath. Then you become a part of the particular *marae* where you were greeted.

They didn't do this with us, probably because we were too many.

The Maori carvings are exquisite and adorn everything. Inside the marae (meeting house) the ceiling is meant to reflect a person. The beam running down the middle of the ceiling is the spine, and the arms that support the sloping roof on either side are the ribs. There arms are each decorated with a different pattern but one design is consisten to each of them: they must have an unbroken line going from the spine to the end.

One of the most spectacular items was a warrior canoe long enough to hold 100 warriors. It was created from a single tree trunk. There is a floor on this canoe made or reeds under which the warriors could store their food or, captured slaves. Not very pleasant quarters.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Palace

Image
Wow. Our days are full of strange sights and long hours. In the bus every morning at 7:00, and never home before 5:00. The summer palace was built by Rama V to commemorate the village where he met his wife. How romantic is that! Lo hiding between the antlers The gardens are gorgeous, with topiary herds of elephants, deer and rabbits. Sounds of peacocks echo through the gardens but they remained frustratingly elusive. Their cries were augmented by the screech of other unseen birds in faraway branches. But we did see an amazing variety of bougainvillea in all colours. Hans standing by the elephant's trunk. From the walls in the Reception Hall, yellowing faded faces of Ramas I to IX gazed out from acestral photos. Each Rama is believed to be an incarnation of Vishnu. Other rooms held lacquered furniture inlaid with mother-of-pearl and stunning teak carvings. As with all Buddhist buildings, we have to remove our shoes and in some cases, we were asked the night before to dress respectfu...
Read more

At Sea

Image
Today we were scheduled to stop in Marseille but overnight the wind picked up and we apparently have heavy swells. Too heavy to allow a vessel of this size to dock safely, so the port was cancelled. Didn’t matter much to us since we hadn’t scheduled a tour and were just planning to take the shuttle into the old part of the city for a walkabout. Instead, we have a day at sea and that’s never a bad thing when you’re on a fabulous cruise liner. Already, I was part of a losing team at a game this morning and now I’m catching up on blogging. Later, who knows? There’s never a shortage of things to do on the ship. And there’s always the fitness room. I can only hope it will be full.
Read more