Waikato celebrates Waitangi weekend with community events in Hamilton

The Waikato Museum celebrates Waitangi Day with a special community festival.

The Waikato is the place to be this Waitangi Day (well, apart from Waitangi itself, of course) as Hamilton is celebrating the day with free community events.

There will be live music, kapa haka, food stalls, film screenings, guided tours and harakeke [flax] weaving demonstrations.

The Waikato Museum will be the centre of the action in Hamilton.

Waikato Museum’s director of museum and art Liz Cotton says the museum, which also carries the name Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, is a proudly bicultural organisation.

The museum will be screening the 2022 biopic 'Whina' for free for Waitangi Day. Photo/ Jen Raoult

“We strive to meet our responsibilities of partnership under Te Tiriti o Waitangi and provide kaitiakitanga and manaakitanga for our collections, our people, and our communities. Waitangi Day provides another opportunity for us continue engaging in these important conversations,” Cotton says.

The festival will open with a kapa haka performance by Te Waiora o Waikato, a group affiliated with the University of Waikato, on the museum forecourt at 1pm.

A lineup of local musicians will play live music on an outdoor stage throughout the afternoon.

The museum’s lecture theatre will be turned into a cinema to show the 2016 movie Poi-E: The Story Of Our Song at 1.30pm and the award-winning biopic Whina at 3.30pm.

Renowned weaving group Te Roopu Aroha Ki Te Raranga will demonstrate traditional techniques to transform harakeke [flax] into woven creations.

Poi-E tells the toe-tapping story of the first Te Reo Māori song to hit the top of the charts, while Whina dives into the life of activist Dame Whina Cooper. Both screenings are free thanks to a partnership with the New Zealand Film Commission, but the museum recommends booking online as there is limited space.

The renowned weaving group Te Roopu Aroha Ki Te Raranga will demonstrate traditional techniques to transform harakeke into woven creations, and visitors will of course be able to immerse themselves in te ao Māori [the Māori worldview] by exploring the museum’s permanent displays.

The guided museum tour with Te Runanga Ngāti Naho chairperson Brad Totorewa on the New Zealand Land Wars has already been booked out. Totorewa has an extensive career in education and is the mastermind behind the rebuild of the Rangiriri earthwork trenches, the site of the bloodiest battle of the Land Wars.

The museum’s permanent displays, which can be explored unguided, include the majestic 200-year-old carved waka taua [war canoe] Te Winika, and exhibitions such as Katohia He Wai Moou, Katohia He Wai Mooku, which brings together the sculptures of world-renowned Tainui artist Fred Graham.

The exhibition 'Katohia He Wai Moou, Katohia He Wai Mooku' brings together the powerful sculptures of world-renowned Tainui artist Fred Graham ONZM.

For more information, visit the Waikato Museum website.

Meanwhile, the Hamilton Gardens is offering free guided tours of Te Parapara, New Zealand’s only traditional Māori productive garden, throughout the weekend. Hamilton Zoo will celebrate the public holiday with live music on Waitangi Day (standard entry fee applies) and Matamata-Piako District Council, together with Te Manawhenua Forum mō Matamata-Piako, organised a community day at the Te Aroha Domain.

The Waitangi event at Te Aroha Domain has been cancelled due to the weather.

In a post on Facebook, Matamata-Piako District Council said “while the extreme weather experienced this week may be behind us, more rain is forecast for Friday.”

“The open air nature of the event means the bad weather would make it an unpleasant experience for anyone willing to brave the conditions. We know people were looking forward to this and we’re gutted.”

This year’s Waitangi Day event is Matamata-Piako’s fourth Waitangi celebration that has been cancelled. The Waitangi Day events in the district usually rotate between Te Aroha, Morrinsville and Matamata and the last celebration was held in Morrinsville in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Friday’s print edition of the Waikato Herald went to press before the cancellation decision was announced.