Ka¯ kahu woven from local stories
School’s new Ma¯ ori cloak source of pride
Why does St Anthony’s School have a Ma¯ori cloak and why is it special to us as something that represents who we are?
St Anthony’s journey began early in 2020 when principal Marg Hyslop asked staff: “Why do we have this korowai cloak?” Which was commercially produced.
The school decided the student, teacher or others who had responsibility for leading the school at that time showed responsibility by wearing the korowai.
Hiria Tua put forward the thought that maybe we should make our own korowai that better reflected our school and values. From very early on, Traci Wheeler also supported us on this journey.
Wheeler challenged us to find out about our local stories and what we would take from these to be reflected in our ka¯kahu. She also pointed out we really were talking about creating a ka¯ kahu cloak, which was different from a korowai cloak. At this same time, we approached Reap, which agreed to support the project.
It was a year of bus trips in 2020, to discover local stories, guided by Ta¯ Rihari Daymond. We based our travels on the four rivers our students are grouped into at school. We started off at Rock Rd where the Maka¯kahi flows.
Ta¯ Daymond spoke to us about the legend attached to the Haast eagle and how this led to how Pahiatua was named. Our second trip saw us at Traci and Todd Wheeler’s farm next to the Mangahao River and our final river journey was to the start of the
Manawatu¯ Gorge, where the mighty east coast Manawatu¯ River flows through the ranges to come out on the west coast.
For our charism journey, our younger students visited the sites of the Brigidine nuns’ homes and the three St Anthony’s School sites in Edward and Tyndall Sts.
We started 2021 with a solid understanding of our local stories. The next step was to transfer these ideas into a ka¯kahu. Traditionally cloaks were made from harakeke, and we spent time ensuring we knew how to care for our flax and the protocol around harvesting and using it. To transfer our stories into visual representations we made a trip to our marae to learn about tukutuku panels.
Hiria Tua explained each pattern and the meaning behind it. Back at school we experimented with designing our own tukutuku patterns to represent what was important to us.
Traci Wheeler met with staff to discuss what should be on the cloak and together developed this list: the cross, our Brigidine values, our four rivers, and the Tararua Ranges. She went away with our ideas and quickly transformed these into an amazing pattern.
Traci sat in St Brigid’s Church to start the process of casting on the first row of our ka¯kahu cloak. She worked steadily weaving and this continued during lockdown.
The ka¯kahu visited the school a few times afterwards for the students and staff to see how it was growing, and for them to remember the stories and meanings represented on it.
On Friday, December 10, the ka¯kahu was unveiled, named for the first time, and blessed in St Brigid’s Church by Father Vince Onesi. Its name is Te Kahu Manukura, or The Cloak of Leadership. The person who wears this cloak in the future carries the school and all we represent on their shoulders.
The cross represents our life through Jesus Christ. The ma¯whitiwhiti (stars) represents the four Brigidine sisters who founded St Anthony’s School in 1906, and our four gospel life values of love, integrity, fortitude and excellence. The poutama (stairs) speak of our journey of gaining and sharing knowledge. The feathers from the pukeko represent Pahiatua.
The kaokao (stance of a warrior) represents the protection and strength of our Tararua and Puketoi ranges which bound our Tararua district. Within the kaokao pattern are four of our awa (Tiraumea, Maka¯ kahi, Mangahao, Manawatu¯) representing the compass points of our four whanau groups. The ta¯niko band along the bottom are representative of our school colours.