My cultural education continues--

I just got back from a morning at the Marae Graduation Ceremony. This is one option for graduates of any program at U of Waikato, though the largest group was from the School of Maori and Pacific Studies. Tomorrow is the regular Pakeha (NZ European) ceremony at a downtown theater--I will go to that, too; I hear it also does incorporate some Maori customs, but not to the extent of the Marae ceremony.

A Marae is a Maori meeting house/cultural center; there is one on campus, though I'd never been to it before, as it is tucked away in another side of campus, behind the school of education. So this morning I donned my academic regalia (hired by the university...I didn't really have the proper robes and hoods and whatever for Vanderbilt. They just told me to choose whatever colors (ok, colours) I wanted, and I ended up with a quite Swarthmorean combination of black robe and maroon hood. Maybe tomorrow I'll get someone to take my picture) and followed my compatriot from psychology over there. It was a beautiful morning, sunny but still cool enough to sit in a black robe in the sun for three hours. We snuck into the back row of the area for faculty (as a woman, I would not be allowed to sit in the front row, even if I wanted to. I learned that the wrong way at a Maori welcome ceremony at a clincal agency we visited...).

The ceremony started with a Powhiri, which is a Maori welcome ceremony--first a haka (challenge) by a whole group of people, kind of a relatively tame version of what was to come, but a ceremonial assertion of sovereignty, in a way, in a grimacing and grunting and dancing sort of way. Then a woman sings a welcoming call, as the visitors (we, as faculty, were in the host box...) walk slowly down toward the Marae. There follow a series of prayers and speeches of greeting, all in Maori, first by the hosts, then by the guests. This went on for about 30 minutes, while people wandered around in the background and children played on the railings. Then a group of women began singing (my colleague claims that in spite of being excluded from some aspects of this ritual, the women actually have considerable power, as they begin singing whenever they get tired of the speechifying). Then all the front-row types on both sides greeted each other with Hongi (touching foreheads).

Then things were rearranged and we were on to what initially seemed to be a more familiar graduation process. The recently-appointed chancellor spoke (he is apparently a former prime minister), and the vice chancellor (who is the one who actually runs the university) and the student speaker (who was quite good, and from the psychology department--rah--getting her Ph.D.) and an honorary degree to a Maori woman weaver.

Then they started awarding degrees. They started with the more mundane schools, like Computing and Arts and Social Sciences (that's us) and Sciences, which each only had a few students. Most of the graduates had some family members who came part or all of the way up to the podium with them--from elderly folk to children--and a few had groups of people who sang or chanted things, sometimes in English, but often in something else (mostly Maori, I think, but other Pacific Island, and one that Neville thought was Celtic). They weren't all Maori, at least not obviously so. Anyone can choose to have their graduation in this ceremony, which is more informal and includes family. But many were Maori, and many wore, on top of their robes, woven cloaks of flax and feathers, and some (I think Pacific Islanders) got bedecked with spectacular garlands of flowers and ribbons and other sparkly things (I got a look at one later, and it has candy, and money, and god knows what else)as the left the stage. About ten or twelve of them had full-blown Hakas performed for them, by between one and twenty people--almost all men, though there was one group of women, and one mixed group. These Hakas can get pretty scary, if you have to face one down. If I was the enemy, I'd have second thoughts about challenging these guys...It's where they shout and slap themselves and stick out their tongues and grimmace and chant, apparently various stories of battles and such...one group looked like maybe the kids of the graduate, four pre-teen boys. Sometimes the graduate joined in, and haka'd back, facing them...somewhere before or after these expressions of support, the graduate got their cap and degree conferred. And finally we all got to go to lunch, 3 hours down the road...

and I guess I'd better get to work, but I'm glad I went--

More soon. I have a list of topics waiting for words.

Carrie