Hoea te Waka

Listing details: Hoea te Waka screening programme

When: 7pm Thurs through Sat, February 7, 8, 9

Where: The New Zealand Film Archive, 84 Taranaki St, Wellington

Ticket price: $8 public / $6 concession

Hoea te Waka

Rere Ki Uta Rere Ki Tai: The Voyage (1988) screens alongside Waka: The Awakening Dream (1990). The films, which depict monumental waka voyages, look back at some of the momentous celebrations of Māori self-determination of the last century and reflect on the Treaty of Waitangi.

In December 1986 100 Māori and Pākehā men paddled Ngātokimatawhaorua, the historic waka taua, 70 kilometres from Waitangi to Whangaroa in celebration of the Whangaroa County Centennial. This arduous ten hour non-stop journey is the subject of Rere Ki Uta Rere Ki Tai: The Voyage (1988).

The film, which was directed by Tainui Stephens, documents the men’s spiritual and physical journey, from their preparations through to their arrival in Whangaroa.

Waka: The Awakening Dream (1990), directed by Peter Turei, focuses on another commemorative convergence of waka taua. In the late 1930s Princess Te Puea Hērangi commissioned the building of a fleet of waka taua to commemorate the ancestral waka that brought the Māori people to Aotearoa. The waka were to be part of 1940 centennial of the Treaty of Waitangi, but this did not eventuate.

Fifty years later, on 6 February 1990 at Waitangi, her dream was realised. This Waitangi Day 1000 people paddled 22 waka on the water. Never had so many tribal waka gathered in one place at one time.

The Hoea te Waka programme will screen at 7pm on February the 7th, 8th and 9th.

Image credit: Waka: The Awakening Dream (1990)

ENDS

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