Kapa Haka 'life force' to fire up iwi

LIFE FORCE: Te Matatini mauri is settled into place by Somme Taylor (left), Ben Matthews, Jimbo Ratapu, Peter Te Tau and PJ Devonshire during a welcoming ceremony involving about 100 guests and performers at Aratoi Museum in Masterton on Thursday. PHOTOS/LYNDA FERINGA

The life force of Te Matatini Kapa Haka Aotearoa - a biennial festival and competition that commanded a million television and online viewers this year - has passed into the hands of Wairarapa Maori.

Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa chief executive PJ Devonshire said the Te Matatini mauri - life force - is an argilitte, or pakohe, stone weighing 26kg that embodies "the physical energy of the festival" and the vital nature of the competition.

The mauri had been carried in a carved box frame aboard the double-hulled canoe Te Matau a Maui from Rapaki Bay in Christchurch to Wellington after the close on Sunday of the three-day festival, which broke viewer records this year.

Ngati Kahungunu iwi took the mauri into safe keeping in Christchurch as hosts of the upcoming kapa haka event in 2017 and the treasure was handed on to Wairarapa Maori at a powhiri, or welcome ceremony, at Aratoi Museum on Thursday afternoon.

About 100 guests and performers attended the ceremony, including Ngati Kahungunu ki Wairarapa and Rangitane O Wairarapa representatives, Mau Rakau Wairarapa toa, or warriors, and members of the Kura Kaupapa Maori O Wairarapa and Makoura College kapa haka groups.

The mauri will be held in Wairarapa for two months, and would be taken to schools and other locations in the region "to light the fire of kapa haka competition here" before being carried throughout the wider Ngati Kahungunu rohe, or territory, including Dannevirke, Waipukurau, Wairoa and Tauranga.

"We are now the guardians of the mauri, the kaitiaki for the next two months of what is a living thing, and part of it coming here is to help energise the passion for kapa haka in our community," he said.

Mr Devonshire said the last formal Wairarapa kapa haka group was Te Puke ki Hikurangi at Papawai about 10 years ago and earlier still was Whanau Whanui o Wairarapa in Masterton, the last group to compete nationally at Hawera in 1994.

"There is talk of putting together a couple of groups again and we will be touring the mauri around to locations like Cobblestones, the Carterton Events Centre, and schools like Carterton School, which has a strong kapa haka group."

The mauri was accompanied by an image of the late Ngati Kahungunu elder Tama Huata, who drove the campaign for Ngati Kahungunu iwi to host the national competition for the first time in over three decades.

Mr Devonshire said Te Matatini had this year commanded a national and international audience and won attention with the record number of Maori Television viewers, prompting a call for increased funding from the Ministry of Heritage and Culture.

In 17 years the festival had only attracted a $100,000 increase in funding to $1.1m a year.

This compared with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, which receives close to $4.4 million a year, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, which receives $13.4 million a year.