The New Zealand Experience: Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and Ko Tane Maori Experience

Yesterday we went out on a family excursion to the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and Ko Tane Maori Experience. We started with the Maori experience. One of the men from our tour group, and older fellow with a good sense of humor, was selected as "cheif" for the evening to lead our group through the greeting ceremony. First we were introduced to a bit of Maori culture through a telling of their creation myth. I've borrowed this from Wiki:

Rangi and Papa are the primordial parents of Tani and Oma, the sky father and the earth mother who lie locked together in a tight embrace. They have many children[2] all of which are male, who are forced to live in the cramped darkness between them.[3] These children grow and discuss among themselves what it would be like to live in the light. Tūmatauenga, the fiercest of the children, proposes that the best solution to their predicament is to kill their parents (Grey 1956:2).
But his brother Tāne (or Tāne-mahuta) disagrees, suggesting that it is better to push them apart, to let Rangi be as a stranger to them in the sky above while Papa will remain below to nurture them. The others put their plans into action—Rongo, the god of cultivated food, tries to push his parents apart, then Tangaroa, the god of the sea, and his sibling Haumia-tiketike, the god of wild food, join him. In spite of their joint efforts Rangi and Papa remain close together in their loving embrace. After many attempts Tāne, god of forests and birds, forces his parents apart. Instead of standing upright and pushing with his hands as his brothers have done, he lies on his back and pushes with his strong legs. Stretching every sinew Tāne pushes and pushes until, with cries of grief and surprise, Ranginui and Papatuanuku are pried apart.

After this our group was lead through winding jungle paths in the really beautiful reserve where we encountered a group of Maori warriors who issued a challenge to our "chief" by making a show of fierceness then throwing down a fern branch at his feet. If the "chief" picks it up it shows the group of visitors comes in peace, if he kicks it aside, its hostility. Of course, since we came to see the show, our "chief" picked up fern and we journeyed on through the jungle to the Maori "Pa" or village. The journey through the jungle was lead by a Maori guide who paused here and there to give us insights into Maori beliefs and native New Zealand wildlife. The park had a great set up where it felt like being in the jungle with much growing naturally but with discreet fencing and the like for the safety of the wildlife living there.

Upon reaching the village our "chief" greeted the Maori chief with The Hongi, or touching of noses. In this two people press forehead to forehead and touch noses together while clasping hands and shoulder. Forehead to forehead indicates shared thoughts, nose to nose represents shared breath of life, and the hand/shoulder clasp prevents a sneaky grab for weapons. I enjoyed this because it has much been my habit with touch forehead and nose to Greg, no idea why, just always liked to in an affectionate gesture and its nice to have a meaning to it that reflects how I felt about it even though I never put it to words before.

The Maori village, or Pa, is made up of low to the ground huts with very small entrances. This is for two primary reasons, one being low to the ground helps to keep in warmth and two the small door made it difficult for enemies to enter while villagers were sleeping. After the formal greetings and information about the village our group was escorted to a performance area where the Maori performed some traditional and not so traditional song and dance.

The Maori women used an item called a Poi, which is basically a ball on a string, during the dance routines. Poi were originally used as a way of improving strength and flexibility in the forearms for warriors and women alike. After a few routines they had some of the women in the audience come up and try a routine with the Poi. The warriors came around tossing them to audience members and singled out Celia as one, who promptly freaked, dropped the Poi and refused to go up on stage, so I did instead. It was fun, I was totally uncoordinated and probably looked silly, but I did it, so it's all good. :) Greg was also invited up to do the male aggression stance thing, but he passed due to his back.

After the performance we were taken on a tour of the wildlife reserve itself. New Zealand actually had no animal predators before people came. It had a large variety of land birds and the most common comment heard through most of the tour about a lot of these was "their curious birds, will come right up to anything interesting and there for were really easy to catch". The natural curiosity and trusting nature of much of New Zealand's wildlife it seems has been its downfall as much of what was in the park was endangered including the nationally treasured Kiwi. The Kiwi is actually a shy species and nocturnal and NZ is making a great effort to bring back the numbers of the half a dozen or so varieties of them.

Some of the more memorable critters we saw were the Kea, a rather large bird with the intelligence of a 6 year old child. They are smart enough to work in groups and apparently love to chew on rubber, which makes them a bit of a menace to cars traveling through their natural habitats. I thought these guys were just adorable and had a really enjoyable character.

The Morepork is the only owl native to New Zealand

The Weka is a ground bird, rather large, who is very curious. The Maori use to catch these birds by simply tying something shiny to a tree limb and waiting a few minutes. They were quite cute and would come out to the edge of their enclosure anytime some one was near by.

This is only a small sampling of all the birds we saw. I enjoyed them immensely. We also saw some mammals, including Greg's favorite, the Wallaby, which he called his "roos!".