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Overview
This poi was used by Teina Davidson for kapa haka practice. It was a gift from her mother in 2012. Teina attended Ngā Mokopuna o te Tai Tonga from birth along with her siblings. Kapa haka is one way the family connects with their Maori culture and heritage, something that is extremely important because the children are growing up in Auckland city away from their cultural roots.
The poi was collected to represent some of the key moments and everyday life of then three-year-old Teina Davidson, who is part of Te Papa's collecting contemporary New Zealand childhood project. This is an ongoing project that includes children in the University of Auckland's Growing Up in New Zealand research.
This poi was made by visual artist Ngahina Hohaia. Hohaia was raised at Parihaka, in Taranaki. In the 1860s, the village was engaged in a campaign of non-violent resistance to European occupation of confiscated land. A government military operation invaded in 1881 with leaders Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi imprisoned. Hohaia's work reflects on the pain and sorrow endured by the people of Parihaka.
This extract originally appeared in Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2024).
This extract was authored by Katie Cooper.
Ngahina Hohaia was raised at Parihaka and within the wider tribal communities of Taranaki. The influence of her upbringing is evident in many of her works, which speak defiantly back into the oppressive colonial history of Taranaki and the continuing impacts of the land confiscations on the descendants of Taranaki. Hohaia draws inspiration from the Taranaki tradition of poi manu – the ceremonial use of poi that maintains the rhythmic timing of recitation of whakapapa genealogy and karakia incantations while the movement of the poi carries the storyline.
Hohaia’s works are often shown en masse as large installations, the symbols on the poi creating an embroidered narrative drawn from the oral traditions of Parihaka.1 The shackled hands on this poi speak to histories of dispossession and colonial aggression, met with resilience and non-violent resistance. The poi is made from a recycled, 100 percent New Zealand wool blanket, a material Hohaia uses to reference the imbalance of wealth and power acquired through colonial violence. As Hohaia has written of her poi manu artworks, they ‘in part become a by-product of the New Zealand economy built on the alienation of Māori land’.2
1 As discussed by Raureti Te Huia, ‘Mobile Unit. Māori History’, Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (ngataonga.org.nz/collections/ catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=236113, accessed 22 March 2023).
2 See, for example, a discussion of the rūnanga at Kihikihi in Whetu o te Tau, 1 September 1858, p. 2.