Weaving and shoes

I spent last weekend and most of this week at the International Indigenous Librarians Forum (IILF) down at Otaki, on the coast just north of Wellington. The conference was fantastic with delegates from Australia, Canada, mainland US and Hawaii plus a huge local contingent. We had a local association meeting first and then 4 days of speakers and workshops.

One of the really interesting things from me was the cultural aspect. It's the first time I've been to something with such a strong cultural focus. A lot of the formal bits (welcome, introductions, thank you's) were in Maori and other traditions were also adhered to; no shoes worn inside, every day started with a prayer or blessing. Although my Maori language skills can best be described as 'basic tourist' I coped ok and lots of people also gave a translation for our international guests which was a big help. I learn how to say thank you in 5 languages; Maori, Cree; Squamish; Anishinabe and Hawaiian.

The place were the conference was held was a Maori university/Marai where they run classes but also residential schools. We slept marai style on campus - all in together on matresses on the floor. Luckily someone had thought about how prepared people might be for this and we got ear plugs in our registration package along with programme, name tag and all the usual stuff.

As you can see from the title of this post one of the courses taught is the traditional craft of weaving and there are examples of the student's work all over campus. Below are 2 cloaks (one with Pukeko feathers and the other with flax ends), part of a mat and a basket.

I also got quite fixated on the whole shoe thing (no big suprise) so I have a lovely collection of photos like this...

As you can see we started out really neat, then we started to spread out a bit and by the end of 5 days any old corner would do.