CHC Chores and the Wharenui of Joy

Monday 14 April

More early morning Fitbit steps - in my PJs plus chunky jumper… all good until 4 big tradie trucks pulled into the lane I was walking along 😳

We had a busy day ahead - lots of chores in CHC so we set off around 9ish to take my bike for yet another fix. We went to the place opposite to get Louis a coffee, it really was too early for a locally brewed beer. Sadly the rather funky looking ginger crunch which I got for morning tea seemed to have more turmeric than ginger and was really weird so that was disappointing. I would have got my sister the "snow good" T for Christmas as it was only $1 at the op shop, but sadly in child size only.

Other jobs included getting a spare caravan towing mirror, paying our diesel dues, dropping off my sharps container, getting an insurance quote for our two Pajero dings, Louis having a swim and me doing the laundry.

When all that had been achieved we swung by the pop-up Canterbury Museum in town to see the Wharenui Harikoa - a fabulous recreation of a marae meeting house created with love and wool! Lissy & Rudi Cole-Robinson took 3 years and 5000 balls of yarn to hand crochet the Wharenui with its traditional style panels and decorated beams all in vibrant fluffy wools. Some of the panels were crafted by indigenous artists around the world but all spoke of love, tradition, mythology and the natural world. Absolutely blown away by it… especially the pinkness!!! 🩷

The Wharenui was full size - see the pic with Louis for scale - and most of the panels represented Maori mythology & deities. The creation was under the watchful eye of Nana's Pou - see upper right. Lissy's late Nana, Bella was the kaitiaki or guardian of the wharenui.

Atop the central gable were two figures

• the face of Tāwhirimātea who is a son of Papatūānuku (earth mother) and Ranginui (sky father), a weather god, who tore his eyes out and threw them into the skies to create the stars at night when his parents were torn apart.

• the figure of Tāne-mahuta who was the brother responsible for splitting their earth mother and sky father apart.

The panorama above shows the intricate details and juxtaposition of the different panels adorning the supports of the wharenui - with greater detail captured in the montages below.

At the front of the wharenui was Hiwa-i-te-rangi who welcomes guests and invites them to dream big. There was an opportunity to commit your dreams and wishes onto paper and pop them into the woven box in front of her, then on Matariki Lissy & Rudi will burn them in a ceremonial fire, sending the wishes skywards to the gods, represented on the pou by the yellow feathery leaves drifting skywards. The green lady is Matariki - the brightest star in the cluster and the mother of the sister stars.

Moving next door there were some rather random display pieces relating to polar epxloration, Maori travels, famous Kiwis, history and wildlife.

• A polar expedition balaclava,

• Reindeer bootees,

• Roald Amundsen,

• A gold plated motorbike on which Mauger broke the world track speed record (it wasn’t gold then!),

• Māori go fast stripes (kowhai designs painted on waka/canoes),

• A stove heater designed as a coat of armour(!),

• Scrimshaw on a whale tooth,

• A Dunk Island butterfly &

• A Bohemian glass Portuguese man o’war (very like the Harvard glass flowers - created for scientific study)

  
  

Picked up my (hopefully) fixed bike at the end of the day and retired home for more Traitors… which is seriously interfering with my blogging!!!