Koroua and Kuia
Living taonga
More than elders of our tribe they are cherished taonga themselves holding the secrets of the past waiting to be shared or foretold.​
Navigating the spirit world with the tone of karakia alone is an artform for Maori. Male and female balance the old ways with an everchanging new adaptation.​
Games were a means of learning
Cards Under the Cherrytree raises memories of unbroken dreams with sacred land.
​
Feminine knowledge woven through wit of game from old to young as the old thread their baskets of knowledge to the next generation.
The gatherings of young women with the old shared births, healing, remedies, oral teachings and stories.
Kai
Nanny Rati's kitchen had the fondest memories of koroua and kuia at peace. Surrounded by laughter and smells of rising rewena bread beside an open wood fire stove.
My greatgrandfather was of Ringatu faith. His practises included cooking kai outside to release the spirit of food before eating. Both food and sleep were tapu to him.
Music is knowledge
Song and speech went hand in hand on the paepae. For the old the movement of their dance adds mana to the action.
Families would sit and listen if the old people sang a song from their own time increasing the mana of the occasion.
Many could be stilled by the sorrowful sounds of a guitar or flute giving weight to the Maori message from an old soul.
Fan of a good book
Our old people wove Pa perspective through the English bible. Faith before belief was a wall of theory to keep out the past practises of dark Maori magic.
Some old customs had bad mana before the introduction of Christianity to Aotearoa. The good book was used like a taonga to seal passageways through karakia to our spirit world in Hawaiikinui.
When the bible speaks of serpents we embrace our own bonded history of taniwha.
Te Paepae
A formal stage for young men to learn when Koroua speak of spirits and land ancestors.
The weaving of whakapapa down from Ranginui to the people was an art best mastered when your old. Time and age means life is the final teacher.
He Tipuranga was an old saying about the growth and knowledge of understanding
