Ngāti Kahu & The Voyagers

After learning about how Tūmoana voyaged to Aotearoa & back to Hawaiki, and how his daughter Kahutianui and her partner Te Parata made it to our special local wāhi of the Karikari Peninsula and became the founding ancestress of Ngāti Kahu, we got to work on how we could show our knowledge of this story. Madel, Emily, and Paige began writing a play script.

Some of us got busy creating props for the waka Tinana (later Te Mamaru) and we rehearsed our actions and lines to retell the story our way.

We performed our play for the school assembly and also for Pīwakawaka again.

This term we also learnt about the waka hourua. A two-hulled ocean-going, voyaging canoes that Tūmoana's Tinana (later repurposed as Te Mamaru) might have been like.

We also became aware that the voyager who discovered the many islands of Polynesia, used natural things like the moon, stars, wind, ocean currents, to navigate their way around the vast Pacific Ocean.

We tried to create our own version of the waka hourua and tested these out in the school swimming pool. Some were very innovative and resourceful in the recycled materials we chose!