Hongi Hika: A self-carved wooden bust completed on Hongi's first trip to Sydney.

After a lot of preparation our team finally set off to join Te Runanga a Iwi o Ngapuhi for their biennial festival in Kaikohe.  Matua Haare Williams, Chanel Clarke, Vasiti Palavi, Nicola Railton and Bethany Edmunds and a selection of Ngāpuhii taonga from Auckland Museum made a historical journey home to the north where the taonga will be displayed as part of the Toi Ngāpuhi exhibition at the festival.   Amongst the taonga at the festival is a beautiful piece of art by Hongi Hika himself, carved in 1816 on his trip to Sydney, and a greenstone mere.

It’s been a long journey getting to this point, and we are certainly looking forward to the next few days when we get to see our taonga at home in in Northland, amongst their iwi, and to hear and see their stories being told.    This is the first time that taonga have traveled North for the festivities, and we hope that by being there we will reinforce and promote the Mana, Matauranga and Tikanga of Ngāpuhi nui tonu, and enjoy a weekend full of entertainment, art, competitions, kapa haka, whanaungatanga, wananga, matauranga, stalls, shopping and plenty of kai.

The forward team have prepared the way  for the festival team that travels up tomorrow.  It was good to wake up this morning to see and hear the media coverage of our taonga loan.  I know Chanel has spent a lot of hours on the phone talking to the media,  RNZ has run a couple of stories, including a small piece on manu korihi news, and the NZ Herald also covered it well.  I also caught up with Vasiti as well this morning and she spoke of the emotional welcome they received as they arrived, and the care and attention they have all received.

The rest of the team tomorrow morning when we can set up our site at the festival in front of the stage.  The weather forecast is good for Saturday and Sunday, so we are all on track.  If you come to the festival come and see us and explore a range of activities we have planned for all the family.  Set the kids a task making badges or doing activities while you find our more about the taonga on loan, or use our cenotaph and te kakano databases to search for family members or taonga related to you.   If you want a bit of fame and have a story to share about your t shirt, why not let us take your photo in your t shirt while you tell us your story….it might even feature in our next exhibition ‘Identi-Tee: My T-Shirt, My Story’ or ‘Identi-Tee: Tāku Tī hāte, Tāku Kōrero’

Over the next few days we will be blogging from the festival, capturing the atmosphere and the flavour of our historic trip north.  We expect it all to be pretty fast paced at the Festival and this will probably be reflected in the style of our postings……accept our apologies in advance!  If you want to follow us on twitter then look out for the #Ngapuhi2012 handle, and if you are up in Kaikohe come and see us.  The full team will be Bethany, Chanel, Vasiti, Nicola, Jeff, Carlin, Dot, Amelia, Dianne, and myself.

See you at #Ngapuhi2012