Thursday, November 23, 2017
VISITING Te Maro students Te Kirikau Blake, holding the powhenua, and Tu Paea Mika with the tewhatewha, give a demonstration of mau rakau on Tuesday, before heading off to stay with their hosts Omarumutu School. Photo Ross McCullough OB4042-3
Ross McCullough
A BUS-load of 42 schoolboys from Tauranga arrived in Opotiki on Tuesday to learn mau rakau alongside Omarumutu School children.
Nga Hihi o Roopu Parapara wananga, set up to pass on knowledge of the Maori martial art, brought the boys to Opotiki on a knowledge-sharing exchange.
Jack Thatcher, who carried on the wananga after founder Awanui Black passed away last year and has since passed the torch onto young Josh Te Kani, said 42 boys from four schools in the Tauranga area had come to Opotiki for four days.
They included Te Kura Kaupapa o Maori Otepou and Te Kura Kaupapa o Maori Matapihi, Te Puna Ma Tauranga, and Te Maro, the Maori unit at Tauranga Intermediate School.
Thatcher said with Omarumutu School, where they stayed, they were sharing their training and techniques of the martial art.
A pohiri will be held on Friday where there will be challenges or wero, from both hosts and visitors on aspects of mau rakau.
As well as the challenges and sharing of these techniques, there would be a mix of stuff going on at Omarumutu marae, Te Kani said.
He said the trip was a chance for the boys to go away from Tauranga and strengthen ancestral connections and ties with locals; “to teach as well as learn some of the stories from the East Coast.”
Some of those learnings about geneology and heritage, Te Kani said, could be mental and spiritual, but were an important part of mau rakau.
While the boys were at the Opotiki skatepark on a break on Tuesday, Thatcher told Opotiki News the Tauranga programme around mau rakau was a discipline the children learned to help them manage anger. It helped to create strong, healthy, young leaders of the future.
He said it worked on the principles of tua kana teina – old brother looking after younger brother.
“A lot of these boys, when going on to other schools, decide to take on leadership roles,” as a result of what is learnt on the programme,” he said.
The boys who have come out to Opotiki all aiming for their first of eight grades in mau rakau, with the eighth grade Pouwaru, the equivalent of a black belt in karate.
Thatcher said as well as the knowledge exchange, the visit had allowed them to go to the pa of their Ngai Terangi ancestors at the back of Torere marae.
The last time the wananga were in Opotiki was seven years ago when a similar group of school boys came on a learning and sharing exchange on the different aspects of mau rakau.
He said a promise had been made to Bill Maxwell that the wananga would return earlier, but had finally set the wheels in motion for it to happen.