1 April, 2010

Great forest of Tane nourishes families at Botanic Gardens

The native forest at the Botanic Gardens provides the setting for a new discovery trail enabling families to see life through the eyes of Ngāi Tahu children of the past.

Te Wao Nui a Tane opens on 2 April and runs for the school holidays. It complements Mō Tātou: The Ngāi Tahu Whānui Exhibition at the neighbouring Canterbury Museum.

Families will be able to see in real life all the raw materials used by Māori and displayed at the Museum exhibition. Growing right next door to the museum is all the food and materials for feasts, gifts and domestic appliances, such as raupo, ferns, lancewood, flaxes (harakeke) and horopito.

The trail takes children through five activities: learning about how tuna (eels) were speared and how spears were fixed; how manu (birds) were snared and stored; collecting berries and shoots; gathering harakeke (flax); and making and exchanging gifts.

Botanic Gardens curator Dr John Clemens says the trail allows families to enact the story of a family using local traditions.“ Many of the foods and materials are still used as they were 100 years ago. This trail shows the enormous value of the forest to Māori, and the interdependency that exists between people and their environment.

The trail is great fun for a family, because they can use the printed guide to understand and enact the wider context of a Ngāi Tahu family using local knowledge . “It is a great example of a learning experience that is also fun and highly interactive for all members of the family,” he says.
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