Food for thought: Reviving tradition

Film-maker and conversationist Rawiri Paratene (left) and Te Aturangi Clamp, the New Zealanders behind an ambitious project to preserve the ocean and voyaging knowledge and skills of past generations.

The Faafaite, a traditional double canoe built in New Zealand, after its official launch and blessing in Papeete. The canoe would be used to revive traditional Polynesian voyaging skills.

THE SOUTHLAND TIMES

Reporter Sonia Gerken is in Tahiti to cover the two Southland boys competing in the International Secondary Schools Culinary Challenge.

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Another link was forged at the weekend in New Zealand's bond with French Polynesia when a traditional double canoe was blessed and launched for the first time in the waters off Tahiti.

The canoe Faafaite, made by Salthouse Boat Builders, in Auckland, is part of a project spearheaded by Te Aturangi Clamp and New Zealand actor and conversationist Rawiri Paratene to revive the traditional skills and knowledge of Polynesian voyaging.

The canoe's launch comes eight months after an agreement was signed in Auckland to form the group Pacific Voyagers, a pan-Pacific network of voyaging societies.

It includes members from American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Tahiti, Tonga and Samoa.
Mr Clamp and Mr Paratene were in Papeete on Saturday (local time) for the launch, and agreed it gave them a great deal of satisfaction to see the canoe in the water.

Also at the ceremony, by coincidence, was Tuwharetoa paramount chief Tumu Te HeuHeu with a New Zealand delegation to the UNESCO World Heritage forum, on Maupiti Island, this week.

Mr Paratene, best known for his role in The Whale Rider, told those gathered at the ceremony it was a great honour to be there.

"She (the canoe) will truly bring unity and goodness wherever she sails."

The Faafaite was not an empty gift but a vision for the future, he said.

The canoe would be part of a fleet of seven, from the South Pacific including New Zealand, that will sail from Tahiti to Hawaii next year to take part in a waka pagent to make a stand for conservation of the oceans.

The pageant would focus on ocean noise pollution – noise generated by shipping traffic, seismic exploration and military sonar, Mr Paratene said.

On her return to Tahiti, the Faafaite would become a marae to educate future generations on traditional methods of navigation and voyaging, he said.

He paid tribute to Dieter Paulmann and the Okeanos Foundation, an international philanthropic organisation, which aims to protect the ocean environment and marine life.

With a hull built from fibreglass, the Faafaite was one of a new generation of canoes, Mr Clamp said.
Another canoe, of exactly the same design, had returned at the weekend to New Zealand from the trial run to Samoa and Tonga.

During its maiden voyage it had struck 7m swells and 40km winds and came through with flying colours "so we know it has been tested," Mr Clamp said.

» Sonia Gerken is in Tahiti as a guest of  Tourism Tahiti for the international secondary school culinary competition, in which Southland Boys' High School is competing. She staying at the Intercontinental Tahiti Resort

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