Here I am back after a longish absence. We have the boat out of the water, and what was to be a brief interlude ashore has turned into a major refit - and I have rather gotten out of the habit of writing the Blog because it seems odd when we're up on stilts. But by public demand I've steeled myself to the task. A rather small public perhaps, but real enough.

So much time having passed I am starting with Waitangi Day, 6 Feb. This is the Public Holiday to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 when the UK took over New Zealand - somewhat surprisingly with the agreement of the indigenous Maori. We went to Waitangi, about 50km north of here, to see the day's events.

The day starts with a gathering of traditional wakas (war canoes) on the beach. There were ten this year; the biggest, 'Ngatokimatawhaorua' (remember that the initial 'N' is silent, and 'wh' = 'f'; after that it's easy) seen below, has 80 paddlers plus chiefs standing up. 

Ngatoki is made of three hollowed-out Kauri tree trunks lashed together, and is 70 years old. Maori canoes were of much greater variety and size than those in the rest of Polynesia because of the wide range of trees available here. Kauri is the second largest tree species in the world.

The sternposts are elaborately carved, with each one unique, often inlaid with mother of pearl as here:

 The crews are not all male, but few look as fierce as this lot decked out in warpaint. Facial tattoos, once commonplace, are an unusual sight nowadays.

Having disembarked, hakas are performed on the beach. Even when done ritually and ceremonially this is an exciting spectacle if viewed up close and personal. Done for real, with weapons wielded by people who mean business, it would be simply terrifying. The facial expressions are quite amazing:

This event is not merely a tourist attraction; it is a real gathering of the tribes performed for their own benefit and is of course much the better for it.

The Treaty of Waitangi is an amazing thing, and interestingly is a live topic here in NZ at present after more than a hundred years of neglect. The history is fascinating, if you like this sort of thing. When the Europeans arrived Maori were living in a state of near perpetual Stone Age warfare like the rest of Polynesia. In the early nineteenth century some enterprising Maoris went to Sydney and bought muskets. They returned home and the internecine Musket Wars started. More than 500 battles were fought between 1800 and 1830; 18 000 Maori were killed out of a total population of about 100 000. This, and a threatened French annexation, led the Chiefs to petition Queen Victoria for protection. A British Resident, James Busby, was appointed in 1832. He encouraged the Maoris to unite, and in 1835 they proclaimed their independence - which was recognised by the UK government. Further French threats and a further request from the Chiefs led to a Lieutenant Governor, RN Captain William Hobson, being appointed in 1839 with instructions to negotiate a treaty to cede sovereignty to the UK. The Treaty of Waitangi was written in English over four days by Busby and Hobson in Busby's Residence. Neither Busby nor Hobson had received training in the writing of treaties. They had no model to follow, and it shows. The treaty was then translated into Maori overnight (!) by the local missionary and his son. Both were fluent Maori speakers but had no training as interpreters. Their task was made harder by the fact that hey had to invent a number of new Maori words to cover European concepts in the draft Treaty that had no equivalent in Maori - important ideas like government and sovereignty. They failed to do so adequately, and perhaps not surprisingly in the circumstances the Treaty reads very differently in the two languages. This has led to an often acrimonious debate about the exact terms of the Treaty which continues to this day. Waitangi Day is now an occasion for all New Zealanders to celebrate the founding of modern New Zealand and also, sadly but understandably, a time to protest the legion of Treaty breaches by the Europeans.

Here is Busby's original house from 1835, now restored as a museum. It was prefabricated in New South Wales and shipped over because there was no means of building a local house at the time - no roads, no sawmills, no bricks, no nails, no mortar!

Nearby is a modern Maori meeting house in traditional style, erected in 1940 to celebrate the Treaty's centennary. It is in constant use, here with a top class local group performing a more gentile style of haka before going to the national competition later this month:

And finally here is the national flagstaff, located on the lawn outside Busby's house on the site of the marquee in which the Treaty was signed on 6 February 1840. Note the February weather!

The large flag is the white ensign of the Royal New Zealand Navy (like a UK white ensign, but with the four stars of the Southern Cross in red). This signifies the important role played by the RN at Waitangi. The flag lower left is that of the United Tribes of New Zealand, used as the national flag following the Declaration of Independence in 1835. The Union Flag flies lower right, and the modern NZ flag from the top of the pole. The view from the flagstaff is truly lovely, looking out over a wide expanse of the Bay of Islands where we arrived in NZ last November. A beautiful spot.