Seriously, why wasn’t I born into such an amazing culture?
Everything about it is so fantastic, it makes me feel that for everything England has (and I only admit that it has anything worthwhile very begrudgingly), we have no beauty in our culture.
The Maori performance I witnessed and the information I learned today astounded me. There is such a rich history, and as per usual, it was us that fucked things up. Up until the Europeans arrived, battles were fought in close combat with vicious weaponry, but when we came along, we brought guns and when Maori tribes got hold of them, things changed.
That aside, I was lucky enough to speak to some of them about various things afterwards including the crafting of canoes, and tattoos. The main guy I spoke to had a large tattoo on his back and he explained that the left side was for his fathers tribe, the right side was for his mothers, and they met in the middle with the bottom set aside for his siblings. He explained how he had the bulk of it done traditionally, which is incredibly painful – if you don’t know what a traditional Maori tattooing process looks like, I suggest you look back to last years blog on the London Tattoo Convention to see some pictures. He said that he had to get the rest filled in with a needle to save time, and it was much less painful. He said he was going to start the tattoos of his own life story on his arm soon.
In fact, most of the Maori’s I spoke to had tattoos for their families, the utmost in respect which is something else I think we lack, and I include myself in that most days. Everything about the culture is so rich and involving, I’m jealous.
I want some rich history attached to me. I wish I was a Maori. I’ll have to settle for just meeting them for now. Which was pretty damn good.
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