Slideshow     4 shots DAWN CEREMONY The opening dawn ceremony for Maori Arts Meets America at the San Francisco Maritime Historical Park, 4 August 2005. View Slideshow

Maori Art Meets America

A millennium ago, intrepid Polynesian explorers in ocean-going canoes braved the Pacific to see what lay beyond the horizon. With remarkable navigational skills they recorded the course that brought them to Aotearoa - now called New Zealand. Some stayed; the rest returned to their homeland to report the discovery of a new land.

Over several centuries, migratory canoes returned to Aotearoa with settlers from Polynesia. When Captain James Cook made his discovery of New Zealand in 1769, he deduced that the local inhabitants were called Maori. The word Maori originally meant natural, normal or local, but it has come to define a person who is a descendant of the indigenous tribes of Aotearoa.

In early August 2005, another historic voyage brought a delegation of Maori across the Pacific. This time the destination was San Francisco. Accompanying the cultural ambassadors was Toi Maori: Art from the Maori People of New Zealand, an irreplaceable cultural legacy of textiles, tattoos and contemporary works.

To launch the event, representatives from California's native Ohlone tribe welcomed the Maori artists in a special dawn ceremony at San Francisco's Maritime Park. The ceremonial waka (canoe) Te Ika a Maui transported the Maori artists across San Francisco Bay to meet the Ohlone delegation.

The waka party come ashore during the dawn ceremony.
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Toi Maori was a feature attraction at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts until mid August. The event included an exhibition, live demonstrations and special presentations. Attendees were able to see traditional and contemporary kakahu (Maori cloaks), kete (woven bags), flesh and blood displays of ta moko (body tattoos) and contemporary art works by Maori sculptors and artisans.

A special feature of Toi Maori was the presence of the artists themselves. Some of New Zealand's most celebrated weavers, tattooists and contemporary artists travelled with the exhibition. Their interaction with exhibition attendees was an essential element in the Toi Maori experience.

At the conclusion of the Yerba Buena Center exhibition, the weaving component of Toi Maori - known as The Eternal Thread - moved on for additional airings in Salem, Seattle and Warm Springs. The Eternal Thread will remain in the United States until September 2006.

Toi Maori reflects the history and belief system of its makers. It shows how Maori follow an ancestral thread that leads into a world of creativity that has no end.