The opening of
Kopinga Marae
The Opening
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The opening of Kopinga Marae
A marae with a difference:
When the leaders of most of New
Zealand’s Maori tribes arrived for the opening of the Chatham
Islands’ Kopinga Marae in January, some were bewildered. As they walked
over the brow of a hill to approach the marae through a car park, there
was no public space where they could gather to hear welcoming speeches,
as there is at mainland New Zealand marae.
Instead of the traditional carved external porch with seats to enjoy the
sun after the speeches, an enclosed porch leads through grand wooden
doors into a small museum area containing important Moriori relics. To
cap it all, the meeting-house is not rectangular in traditional style
but five-sided and built around a central pole.
It is unlike any other marae, built to emphasise the uniqueness of the
Moriori people. "It was a blank canvas," says Leo Watson, the Pakeha
lawyer from Paekakariki, who manages the Hokotehi Moriori Trust, set up
to operate the marae.
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When Te
Atiawa people occupied the Chathams and enslaved the Moriori in 1835,
most of the customs and traditions of 500 years of Moriori culture were
lost.
"Other iwi have suffered a lot through the loss of their language and
culture," Watson says. "Moriori are unique in having to get back to the
original carvings and research and then, through consultation with their
own members, build up a modern manifestation of what their traditional
protocols were and how they could be used in this day and age. This
marae reflects that connection to the old with a new way of doing
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Mainland-style
marae were never a feature of Moriori tradition because the ancient
Moriori moved around collecting food. Agriculture, the basis of mainland
villages, was impossible in the Chathams.
Kopinga (grove of the kopi tree), a $4 million centre built with income
earned from the fishing quota, looks out from a high point near the
centre of the island across Lake Huro and the lagoon to Te Awapatiki.
It is full of symbolism. Its five sides are inspired by unusual
five-sided basalt columns along the shore at Ohira on the Port Hutt Rd,
and by the shape of an albatross, a bird that dominates these oceanic
islands.
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Human faces
engraved into kopi trees in the Hapupu Reserve on the northeast of the
island, and seals or birds carved into limestone caves on the edge of
the lagoon, have inspired panels around the walls created by modern
carvers led by Massey University lecturer Mana Cracknell.
The central pole bears the names of all 1663 Moriori who were alive in
1835, compiled by 33 elders at another meeting at Te Awapatiki in 1862
and sent to Governor Sir George Grey with a plea to expel the Atiawa
invaders. A wooden floor around the pole provides a speaking platform.
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"The welcome is
inside. That is as much a practical factor as anything else - the
weather here and the height of this place dictated that," Watson says.
Kopinga dramatises a revival of Moriori pride in their heritage after a
long period when, as marae chairman Alfred Preece says, "It was
something you hid away. There was shame attached to it and there was
also disadvantage. That has changed in the past 20 years."
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/7/story.cfm?c_id=7&objectid=10125534 |
The opening of
Kopinga Marae
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Waitangi - Rekohu - Chatham Islands
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