Day 82: Auckland War Museum

Today I took myself into Auckland to visit the War Museum.  Not only are there a number of displays about wars and NZ's role in wars, there's also quite a bit about NZ in general and lots about Maori culture.  I only had time to have a look around the bottom floor of the museum - there are actually three floors, so I'll need to go back to see the rest.  The museum is currently running a promotion called "I AM Free for Autumn" (the AM stands for Auckland Museum.) If you can prove you are a resident of Auckland, you don't have to pay the suggested donation of $10.  Since I have a library card from the Manurewa Library, that means I don't have to pay!  Pretty sweet.  So I should really plan to go back there soon before they start making the donation mandatory again.  Here are some photos of some of the things I saw:

Above is a detail of the marae, a Maori style community house.  It's pronounced mah-RYE.  To go inside you were requested to take off your shoes, that's the tradition.  It was really beautifully carved inside, as you can see.  Below is a larger photo of the inside of the marae.  I think a marae would be used as a gathering place for a community event, like a funeral or a wedding.  People would just sleep out all together on the floor.  For that reason if you're sleeping like that you can call it "marae style," and people know what you mean.  Many communities will have a marae and you will often see signs directing you to the marae as you drive through a town.

Another cool thing that I saw was an old Maori canoe.  This canoe could have held 100 people.  It was also beautifully carved, very long, and really impressive.

Detail of the carving on the canoe:

This little building was used for food storage.  The carved figures represent the chief elder and other important people in the tribe.

It seems that all I took photos of was the Maori things.  I also saw an exhibit on things invented/designed/made in New Zealand and an exhibit on being a kid in New Zealand throughout the years. But I didn't take any photos.