POWHIRI

The Powhiri, is a traditional Maori ceremony to guest of the land. This it make them apart of this land, and tell them this land is now their land too. What happens, is a girl calls the guests in (all done in Maori). Then the guest respond to her call and follow her in. As the guests walk in, a male leads another call, where the entire group follows after, and chants and does arm movements. This is done until the guest is into the center of the powhiri place. Once the guest are in the center, the first girl finishes her chant, then the guests are seated. Once the guests are seated, the host stand ups and gives a speech. They say their pepeha, and then some other welcoming words into the community and the land. Following this, the host group stands and sings a song. Once the song is over, the male leader of the guests stands and gives his pepeha, and a little history of the group and a short speech (this is all done in Maori). Once this is over, the group stands and forms a circle around the leader and sing a song. Following this, the leader steps forward and puts a gift on the ground as a peace offering. If the hosts accept, you are welcomed into the land, if not, then it means enemies. If the gift is accepted, the guest then proceed on to do the hongi (Nose to nose greet) with every adult in the community. This is the mingling of the breath making you a part of their land now. Henderson South School (The school I am working at) is the place that decided to hold a powhiri for us, the BYU students. Here are a few pictures from ours!

 

This is us! After we had walked in, and the first girl had finished her call, we were seated.

This is our leader speaking for us and sharing his pepeha! Professor Jacobs did a very good job! It worked hard to perfect his Maori!

 This is us offering the song. We chose to do a short Maori song. Since the whole ceremony is suppose to be in Maori, we wanted to go outside of our comfort song and learn a short one we could sing. It was very fun. The children loved our singing, as well as the principals, teachers, and staff. They children burst out in clapping after (very nontraditional for a powhiri). This is the Waiata we sang (we sang it through a couple of times.) 

Te aroha
Te whakapono
Me te rangimarie
Tatou,  Tatou  e

This translates to me Love, Faith, and Peace, Be amongst us all. It was a beautiful song! The Maori language is a beautiful language! After this we went down the line and did the hongi. I was glad our school provided it, it made it very comfortable to do the hongi with all the teachers. Following the hongi, we walked over to the staff room and had a feast. I truly mean a feast! All the adults and teachers had brought traditional Maori foods in, and it was very good! This was a neat cultural experience!