Canoes and Sailing

“Ko te iwi te wairua o te waka, ko te waka te wairua o te iwi” The people are the spirit of the waka; the waka is the spirit of the people. Maori saying

Vakas were (and still are) of great importance to Pacific peoples. In the past, they were the way to travel, trade, and get food. They were part of stories and the work of everyday life. The whole community had huge respect for them. The Pacific peoples developed different types of canoes and ways of sailing for different purposes.

In Aotearoa GLOSSARY Aotearoa - New Zealand , one of the last places to be settled GLOSSARY settled - came to and occupied in the Pacific, every Maori iwi (tribe) is connected to the crew of one of the big canoes that first arrived there. This is the starting point of their whakapapa (family line, history). Waka GLOSSARY Waka - Maori word for voyaging canoe , the word for canoe, can be used in many different ways - for example, to mean a project or voyage done together, both physical and spiritual.

This is how we learn

Dr Simon Salopuka, Taumako voyaging student

“In Taumako the old people … they do not read and write. They do not stand in the classroom and teach. To learn how to build a vaka you must see how they do it, and do it yourself. This is how we learn.”

“From The Vaka Taumako Project.”