Expo visitors step into Maori's world

SHANGHAI - Wearing red and black vests and bamboo-made skirts, with totem on faces and bodies, a dozen of ethnic Maori people from New Zealand sang and danced in their traditional way and language.

That was the mystic scene unfolding before the eyes of the visitors at the New Zealand's National Pavilion Day event of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai on Friday.

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In front of the dancers and singers, on the pavilion square, stood a 10-meter long, three-meter wide canoe made of a precious kauri pine of 3500 years old, with Maori carvings and sculptures on it. It was New Zealand's gift to China on its pavilion day.

At the ceremony, a spiritual leader from a north Maori tribe walked around the huge canoe saying mysterious Maori prayers, "injecting energy" to the canoe, and "releasing" the canoe from the god of forest, the "Tane."

Watching the canoe closely, the audience would be amazed by its unique carving techniques and the primitive use of colors.

Engraver James Richard, a Maori, told Xinhua they combined the Chinese ancient philosophy of Yin and Yang, the negative and positive principles in nature to their Maori carving, with the bulge as Yang, and indentation as Yin.

The wave-shaped carving on the canoe were three essences, namely the physical, cultural and spiritual essences, said James. The three forces intertwined together as waves to push the life boat to sail, he said.

The three colors of black, red and white on the gunwales of the canoe symbolized the night sky, earth and light in between, originating from the famous Maori genesis myth, James added.

The canoe is called the "Te Kakano" in Maori language that literarily means the "seed", which is originated from a well-known Maori proverb "The seeds that were sown in Rangiatea (the world that opened up in the creation myth after the separation of sky and earth) will never be lost ".

New Zealand Prime Minister John Key attended the event and officially gave the gift to the Chinese side, saying he hopes the unique present could further encourage the cultural and business exchanges between the New Zealand and the Chinese people.

The canoe as well as the New Zealand Pavilion's theme "Cities of Nature: Living Between Land and Sky" come from the creation myth of the Maoris.

The myth goes that the world's beginning, the sky father Rangi and the earth mother Papa were so closely connected that even light couldn't penetrate them. Their son, the god Tane (god of the forest) used his hands and legs to separate his parents, the Sky and the Earth, to let light to come in, then life followed.

Inside the New Zealand Pavilion, visitors will pass from the arms of a five-meter tall sculpture of god Tane, embracing light and life.

Designers of the pavilion said the cities stand between sky and earth like Tane, while nature is everywhere around us. In New Zealand, 86 percent of the population live in cities and towns, yet the cities are still tightly connected to nature.

Karl Johnstone, a Maori, said:" Our Maori knowledge is to understand nature, read the change of nature. When something bad happens, earth mother would cleanse herself, to restore the balance."

However, sometimes the damage of human activities to nature is so huge, even nature cannot heal by itself, hence humans must take the responsibility to correct their mistakes and take care of the nature, he added.

In the hanging garden of the New Zealand Pavilion, a sentence reads :"If the shoots of shrubs are cut, what does it mean to birds? No matter where you come from, if you ask me, what's the most important thing in this world, my answer would surely be: man, man and still man."