Houses of Ceremony

The carvings and weavings of the primative people is amazing. The villages all still have these ceremonial houses that I do think are not furnished as these are, kind of like a mosque, frankly. Shoes are removed and they move in and sit on the floor to conduct their services or business. Each of the "tribes" do have their totems and artistic identities. I am impressed with this fantastic museum which is free if you want, or you can donate. We spent several hours there one rainy Sat afternoon.

One of the most interesting displays was in the geology section; the most active volanoe in this volcanic country is the one under our bay! The magma seems to be raising quite a
bit recently. Oh well, at least we are close enough that we
will no longer care of it erupts or not.

Fierce!

These are the people if you have seen Polynesian dances, that try to conquer you with fear first. They do their eyes and tongues, glaring and flaring, know what I mean? Their dances today, before their, like, rugby games, involves this posturing. Each of these represent a leader.

Auckland Museum

What a fearsome people the original Maori's were. This is quite a young country established after a "war" that I believe occured after a treaty was signed with the British in the mid 1830s. This war lasted 30 years or so and then the country was founded, much the way we founded our country on American Indians, oops, I should say native Indian lands. That famous treaty is still celebrated today and they are actually trying to honor it.

Anyway, back to the fierce Maori's. They had these hugely long "canoes" that transported their royalty. These are built by the gigantic Kuari trees (spelling?) and were pretty clever. This shows how the kept their feet dry!

Smeds last night

Well, they had to leave. Drats. But we did get one more hand of hand and foot in, really last minute. As they left at 7:00 am, we had a hotel room reserved for them near the airport so we could not be bothered! Sorry...but actually, Dave's sis, Sheryl and hubbie Pete, had come in on their heels so our cute little house was a little full. So, we did let them go. Also, no picture, but their last night here was a magical goodbye by a large pod of orca whales. Shelley spotted "something" out in the bay while we were in our town and thought they were dolphins. We thought they were a pretty big and then we spotted their spouts. We went up to the lookout part of the bay and got to watch the orca's playing as they left the bay. Evidently this does not happen often Smeds, so, what a fond farewell, eh mates!