Russell Has Mäori Blood .
His great-grandmother was Mäori.
Russell Crowe,
a toatoa
(reckless) motuhake
(independent)
toa (warrior) kaiwhakaatu (actor)
In a series of great canoe migrations
over 1000 years ago, the Maori left their homeland
in the central Pacific to settle in Aotearoa, land of the long white
cloud - New Zealand.
They are the Tangata Whenua, the people
of the land.
Link to information about the
Mäori
film "Once Were
Warriors" Thanks,
Jolene
Russell leading the
cast & crew of POL in the Haka, a Maori war challenge,
in Ecudor Spring 1999 at a soccer match.
"Ka mate ka mate, ka ora ka mate ka mate, ka ora tenie te tengata, puhuru huru nane e piki mai, whaka whiti te ra hupanei, hupanei, hupanei kaupanei whiti te ra."
In English:
"There is going to be a fight between us. May it mean death to you and
life to us. We will fight on so long as the daylight lasts, or until
our side is vanquished. We are here to continue the battle, either to
be killed or to be victorious."
Thanks, Kim, for keeping this around
Maori
Culture on the Net
Maori
At War
Maori Songs
Maori
Legends
NZ Library Links
Maori
and English Terms
Maori
Ritual Chants
The
Town of Russell in NZ
Maori
History Link
Ta Moko carved stone by Reece Rongonui
The Maori Flag:
Black represents Te Korekore the realm of Potential Being. The long darkness from whence the world emerged. It represents the heavens. The male element is formless, floating and passive
White represents Te Ao Marama the realm of Being and light. It is the physical world, where symbolises purity, harmony and enlightenment.
White also symbolises purity,harmony enlightenment, and balance. The Koru, curling frond shape, represents the unfolding of new life, that everything is reborn and continues. It represents renewal and hope for the future.
Red represents Te
Whei Ao, the realm of Coming into Being. It symbolises the female
element. It also represents gestation. Red is Papatuanuku,
the Earth Mother, the sustainer of all living things. Red is the colour
of earth from which the first human was made.
Hinepau, the Maori woman with the sunset red hair and the greenstone coloured eyes is a weaver, but all of her weaving is inside out or back to front. Is she a witch? The rest of her tribe think so, so she is sent away to live on her own in a hut surrounded by a hundred flax bushes. There she sits all day weaving the patterns of nature into her weaving.
Meanwhile, back in her village a great meeting house is built but no care is taken to say the proper prayers and give thanks to the gods of the forest for providing the huge trees that are needed to construct the new building. On the night of the grand opening of the meeting house the volcano, at whose feet the village nestles, erupts and the next morning the whole tribe wakes up to find the countryside, for as far as a bird can fly, has disappeared under a thick blanket of ash.
Is it their punishment to die slowly of hunger and thirst?
Hinepau, the outcast, saves her people in an unexpected way and in doing so she commits the ultimate sacrifice.
The heroine in this story, inspired by Gavin Bishop's Maori ancestry, carries his mother's name, and old family name which goes back hundreds of years. And like some of his family, she is Ngati Pukeko (Ngati Awa) from near Whakatane, on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.
Written and illustrated by Gavin Bishop ISBN 1 86943 1994 New Zealand Children's Picture Book of the Year
"Here am I, here am I, here am I quickly moving by
the power of my karakia for swift movement,
Swiftly moving over the earth,
swiftly moving through the heavens,
the swift movement of your ancestor Tanenuiarangi
who
climbed up to the isolated heavens,
the summit of Manono, and there found Io-the-parentless
alone.
He brought back down the baskets of knowledge,
the basket named Tuauri,
the basket named Tuaatea,
the basket named Aronui.
Portioned out and planted in Mother Earth,
the life principle of human beings comes forth into the dawn,
into the world of light."
From the Maori Understanding of Knowledge
Thanks for visiting..haera ra - farewell
