Children’s po¯ whiri experience
“Haere mai…” Whaea Jordyn calls out, sending shivers down my spine.
“Karanga mai . . . ” Whaea Lex answers back, her voice sounding eerie and lamentative.
The boy next to me shifts and leans forward to whisper something I couldn’t quite catch, to the boy in front of him. He knocked accidentally against the kowhai tree, sending a shower of petals and pollen on my head, making me sneeze.
A murmur passed through the crowd of assembled people, teachers and students alike.
Slowly the beautiful karanga draws to an end, and we begin to move towards the wharenui.
The tekoteko perched on the roof glares down at us, as if daring us to break tapu. The bunched up crowd veers to the right to start removing their shoes, as not to show disrespect to Te Kohanga Whakawhaiti Marae’s tupuna.
I felt in awe as I stepped into the delicately carved inside of the wharenui.
It’s here that Ta Daymond begins his whaikorero. Words slightly familiar such as wahine, tupuna and tapu appear throughout his speech.
I notice his rakau tokotoko is beautifully carved with part of a deer’s antler providing a smooth bone handhold, elegant and traditional.
After the ceremony we listen to a waiata sung in perfect harmony by Ta Daymond’s choir.
Then we move into manaakitanga, the wharekai. First we say the karakia then we eat. The food is delicious. I bite into some ginger crunch and savour the gingery goodness. I sit back down at my table and talk with Olivia, Emma, and the rest of the people at my table before we go back to Pahiatua school for the rest of the day.
As we leave Pahiatua I look over my shoulder at the tekoteko and am filled with a new kind of respect for him and the place he guards so selflessly day and night, devoting himself to protecting it and its people.