Waka centre honours pledge

PROUD: Master navigator Hekenukumai Busby at the new Kupe Waka Centre under construction on family land at Aurere. PHOTO/PETER DE GRAAF

A promise made 30 years ago is taking shape on the banks on a Northland river.

By the 1980s the art of traditional non-instrument navigation, which carried the ancient Polynesians to every corner of the Pacific, was all but forgotten.

The only person to still hold the knowledge was a man named Mau Piailug from a tiny atoll in Micronesia. He made his students - among them Northland's Hekenukumai "Hek" Busby - swear to keep passing on the knowledge and make sure it was never lost again.

Now 82, Mr Busby and the Te Tai Tokerau Tarai Waka committee are honouring that promise by building the Kupe Waka Centre, a school for traditional celestial navigation, on family land at Aurere in Doubtless Bay.

Mr Busby learned his skills from the late Mr Piailug and in 1992 they sailed to Rarotonga on Mr Busby's double-hulled waka Te Aurere. "We made a promise to our teacher not to lose the knowledge again. And we promised to keep teaching it," Mr Busby said.

The project's second source of inspiration came from the late Sir James Henare. In 1985 another of Mr Piailug's students, the Hawaiian Nainoa Thompson, navigated the canoe Hokule'a from Hawaii to New Zealand on the Polynesian Voyaging Society's Voyage of Rediscovery.

At the powhiri Sir James said he hoped one day soon a waka would be built in Te Tai Tokerau that would go back to where the Voyage of Rediscovery began.

"On the day [Sir James] died I was at the marae waiting for his body," Mr Busby said.

"I mihied to him, and said 'I'll try to cover your wish'. When I left there I headed into the bush and knocked down the trees for Mataatua [Mr Busby's first waka]. I pulled out the last tree on the day of his funeral."

Since then waka built by Mr Busby have sailed every side of the Polynesian Triangle formed by Aotearoa, Hawaii and Rapanui (Easter Island). He said his sailing days were behind him but he was determined to pass on knowledge.

"I'm stuffed, my eyes have had it. Looking up at the stars is difficult."

The Kupe Waka Centre had been designed as a whare hui where students could learn traditional navigation techniques based on the stars, sun, moon and swells. Among its first visitors will be a group of Hawaiians from the Polynesian Voyaging Society. On a four-year, 87,000km round-the-world voyage, the Hawaiians are due at Waitangi on November 15.

Mr Busby wants the building to be ready by May when the group are due to leave Aurere on the next leg of their journey to Australia. He would also invite students from Rapanui where waka knowledge had been lost entirely.

Teaching would be shared among New Zealand's three qualified traditional navigators - Mr Busby, Jack Thatcher of Tauranga and Piripi Evans of Kaitaia.

The $1 million building has been funded by the ASB Community Trust, the Lotteries Grants Board and Te Puni Kokiri.

Architect/project manager Rau Hoskins of Design Tribe Architects said the star-shaped building faced due north, aligned with Mr Busby's traditional star compass. It had a dining area to the south, an ablution block to the east and a kitchen to the west. It would be powered by wind and solar panels.

"The key thing is the Awapoko River. Crews can sail up the river, tie up, be welcomed into the complex and sleep there, like a marae."

It is being built next to a New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute school for carving and waka-building opened in 2013.

- On November 10, Maori TV is screening a documentary about master navigator Mau Piailug's role in reawakening Polynesian traditional voyaging. Papa Mau - The Wayfinder starts at 8.30pm.