Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
See Ngahuia Te Awekotuku's book
Mau Moko: The World of Maori Tattoo
(2007) for the
big picture, with powerful, beautiful images and an incisive commentary.
Carving
Traditional Maori carving, with its intricate detailing and curved lines, can transport the
viewer. It's quite amazing to consider that it was done with stone tools, themselves
painstakingly made, until the advent of iron (nails suddenly became very popular).
For information on Maori arts today, check out Toi Maori at
www.maoriart.org.nz
.
Some major traditional forms are
waka
(canoes),
pataka
(storage buildings) and
wharenui
(meeting houses). You can see sublime examples of traditional carving at Te
Papa in Wellington, and at the following:
Auckland Museum
(
Click here
) Maori Court.
Hell's Gate
(
Click here
) Carver in action every day; near Rotorua.
Otago Museum
(
Click here
)
Nice old
waka
and
whare runanga
(meeting house) carvings;
Dunedin.
Putiki Church
(
Click here
)
Interior covered in carvings and
tukutuku
(wall panels); Wan-
ganui.
Taupo Museum
(
Click here
) Carved meeting house.
Te Manawa
(
Click here
)
Museum with a Maori focus; Palmerston North.
Waikato Museum
(
Click here
)
Beautifully carved
waka taua
(war canoe); Hamilton.
Wairakei Terraces
(
Click here
) Carved meeting house; Taupo.
Waitangi Treaty Grounds
(
Click here
)
Whare runanga
and
waka taua
.
Whakarewarewa Thermal Village
(
Click here
) The 'living village' - carving, other arts,
meeting house and performance; Rotorua.
Whanganui Regional Museum
(
Click here
) Wonderful carved
waka;
Wanganui.
The apex of carving today is the
whare whakairo
(carved meeting house). A commis-
sioning group relates its history and ancestral stories to a carver, who then draws (some-
times quite loosely) on traditional motifs to interpret or embody the stories and ancestors
in wood or composite fibreboard.
