WAKA Episode 1: The Revival

For centuries, Pacific navigators voyaged across the world’s largest expanse of water in oceangoing waka, populating every habitable corner of Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, guided by a highly sophisticated navigation system that relied on a profound knowledge of their natural world.
Like many ancestral traditions, though, the knowledge of wayfinding and waka building was almost lost as a living practice, destined to survive only in historical journals and museums. Luckily for us, a small group took up the battle to keep them alive.
Their story is explored in Waka, a six-part online video series which looks at the revival of waka building through four teams from across the Pacific.
To launch the first episode - where we meet the carvers and their trees, and see the legacy of Northland kaumātua Hekenukumai Busby.
Waka is a six-part online video series produced by Tawera Productions in collaboration with E-Tangata and the New Zealand Herald as part of Tuia 250. It was made with the support of NZ On Air. A version of this story was also published in the Herald.

[@nicholastautuhi5031]

Can't express how awesome this is.....

[@shoutatthesky]

As white person of this land I am so grateful for the wisdom our Māori brothers and sisters share. To see this wisdom nurtured and passed down the generations is beyond special. Thank you for sharing this video!

[@taraishot100]

Thanks bro good to see a pakeha acknowledging our culture wish we could all just respect each other

[@jacobkopa-nathan7626]

Very insightful. Kia ora

[@Silvius.2]

Some more branches eyes in wood for canoe some stronger its canoe!
Not easy to build but blady strong vorever.

[@user-oh4yd5uh4e]

The avocado (Persea americana) is a medium-sized, evergreen tree in the laurel family (Lauraceae). It is native to the Americas and was first domesticated in Mesoamerica more than 5,000 years ago. Then as now it was prized for its large and unusually oily fruit.[3] The tree likely originated in the highlands bridging south-central Mexico and Guatemala.[4][5][6] Its fruit, sometimes also referred to as an alligator pear or avocado pear, is botanically a large berry containing a single large seed.

[@markroberts2964]

It's a beautiful log, the wood alone is very special

[@kennethhammond4028]

Awesome work guys

[@ironclay3939]

1:41 into this video and This is in Whangarei - I recognize the shed - I really don't like the way our country is going right now

[@user-oh4yd5uh4e]

You don´t like the types of sheds that are being built in the country nowdays?

[@nuttyazfuk9270]

Mauri ora

[@ReiSpitz]

Quite a history about the Maori - put the Inca's or the Aztecs to shame in degeneration. Outcast from the Cook Islands during the 13th century as weaker primitive Neolithic people by later waves of Polynesians (Maori were from the original wave of primitive Polynesians pushed right out across the Eastern Pacific by successive stronger more advanced groups arriving from the west). They were outcast on rafts and some floated to the North East Coast of NZ driven by the South Equatorial Current and were stranded for 500 years. The weaker were pushed down to the South Island or Chathams etc. So the South Island Maori (had their own language) were the weakest of the weak. They were captured and eaten as 'Slave flesh' by the northern Maori doing raids. (Well they all ate each other - 80% of Maori pre European were dark skinned easily fattened slaves farmed and eaten by a lighter skinned 'Ariki' thin wiry elite royal caste). So it was with some righteousness as well as British cunning that they armed the southern Maori who then with muskets launched a genocidal war on the north.. That plus measles & flu halved the Maori population and removed most of the elite. The British then liberated the slaves and outlawed cannibalism. The northern Maori fought with the British against the south bad west Maori 'rebels'. The Maori sued for peace and a treaty was signed that removed all sovereignty and made them subjects to the English crown where the English would protect them from each other. Land could only be sold to or via the Crown. Maori could live on their reservations with native custom but none did. The treaty of Waitangi is strikingly clear in that the Maori cede sovereignty completely and become citizens of Great Britain - all 3 clauses lock that in. Nothing in today's 'Maori' culture is authentic. The music - all European (Maoris did not have tonal music, the songs are missionary tunes or introduced - Poi dance is from Islands and Stick dance from old Malaya. The carvings and art - all European - Arabesques that was the fashion at the time. Original Maori had limited dash carving and no painting of objects. No written language - all the syntax & grammar plus vowel inflection is European. No technology - some lagoon canoes and wood or stone Neolithic tools. No food sources - like pigs or crops - they left that all behind, all they had was a weak inbred fox (now extinct), some rats and a weak dismal pacific yam. They ate out all the bird-life including 10 species of Moa and 46 other bird species, didn't know how to farm the sea as were island people and so they turned to societal cannibalism. Today - no full blood or half blood left. No genuine tradition and almost all are offspring of Maori slave females sold to white settlers for muskets or food. -So more fake than the 'Sioux' or 'Cherokee' or 'Crow' who had at least retained some genuineness about who they were and their history. -Everything you 'saw or experienced' is fake. A totally convected disneyfied tokenistic set of inventions fueled by a grievance culture of mixed-race imposters fetishing a false past bad history because it pays benefits. 'This Horrid Practice' - Professor Paul Moon, "A Savage Country" Professor Paul Moon 'Behind The Tattooed Face' - Heretaunga Pat Baker, 'Anthropology In The South Seas' - H D Skinner

[@andrewmacdonald9367]

What the actual heck did I just read? Wow... You are saying some wildly inaccurate things!

[@ReiSpitz]

@@andrewmacdonald9367prove it.

[@ButterflyMatt]

Peoples did not spread and thrive in new lands by being pushed there because they were weak. That’s a lie that imperialists tell themselves to excuse their inhumanity.

[@ohnean1]

@@ReiSpitz You're the one spewing this shit so the burden of proof is on you, and your pack of white professors and anthropologists don't count ... if we're not telling the story ... it's not our story !!

[@kingkalki5212]

Lol what type of coloniser bs is this we are the royalty of hawaiki the homeland of all Polynesians and perhaps even the South Americans themselves

[@raybreeze2841]

What rubbish

[@kevenwatson6443]

i have been struggling with how to tell my grandchildren that there are people who are going to hate you because you are maori, but i want to prepare them for what they will eventually encounter, I'm dreading the day they feel sad for just being them

[@drinkingup2157]

@@kevenwatson6443 Our mokopuna should never feel sad for who they are. Your support and guidance along with the rest of your whanau and having knowledge of their whakapapa should arm them for whatever they might have to deal with.

[@kevenwatson6443]

@drinkingup Kiaora ra after a year of reading stuff like this I know now just how bad the racism is in our country I knew it was out there just didn't realize how bad this is the perfect platform for cowards too just make up a name and away you go that's how I explain it to the mokos now, just faceless cowards

[@shoutatthesky]

Shame on you Ray the racist. From a white fulla.

[@Chas-te7uz]

Yeah, most pakeha are rubbish alright.

[@xHCGxHRTY_SA_]

Not the same doing it by hand u giving aroha to it to come alive