The rangatahi helping revitalise waka hourua
"This mahi deepens my connection to our ancestors and atua Māori."
This week Ohinga visited the Te Hau Kōmaru National Waka Hourua Festival in Kaiteretere to celebrate this ancestral navigation tradition.
Waka Hourua travelled from as far as Auckland and to gather at the festival at the top of the South Island.
Waka hourua were utilised by Polynesian navigators to traverse vast ocean distances across the Pacific Ocean, employing celestial navigation techniques such as reading stars and ocean swells, along with other environmental cues, to guide their journeys.
This festival offers classes sharing mātauranga around this practice, opportunities to learn about waka hourua, and the chance to board a waka and experience first-hand how they operate.
If you would like to go see the waka yourself the festival continue until Sunday in Kaiteretere.
Ohinga is our weekly te reo Māori series, created by @mahitahiagency with funding from @te_mangai_paho. Stay tuned for a new episode every week.sts about the things that matter to young people in Aotearoa.
More stories:
Why the world's biggest kapa haka competition needs more funding
Despite being unique to Aotearoa, kapa haka receives way less funding than other performing arts.
'Kapa haka is a celebration of life': 50 years of Te Matatini
Te Matatini is the biggest celebration of Māori culture in the world
Alien Weaponry: The world is embracing Māori, why can’t Aotearoa?
We sat down with the band after they opened for Guns N’ Roses in Wellington.
