• On the East Coast of North Island, Claire recommends the beachside town of Te Araroa, home to the nation’s largest and oldest pohutukawa tree, called Te Waha-O-Rerekohu. According to Maori mythology, its red flowers represent the blood of Tawhaki, a spirit ancestor who died while showing his people the path to heaven. Traditional Maori bury the placenta of their newborns at the roots of pohutukawa trees, thus creating over the generations literal family trees. This particular one is thought to be around six hundred years old, and has twenty-two trunks. In the nearby town of Te Kaha, Maori Paul O’Brien and his family own and operate a home-stay called the Te Kaha Lodge. Evenings here include a welcome song and ceremony, a sunset soak in an outdoor hot tub overlooking White Island, dinner, and songs that last late into the night. By the end, everyone has become a chay, or friend, and many travelers extend their stay to work on Paul’s kiwi farm. While in the area, also visit the Millennium Waka, the war canoe New Zealand contributed to the international celebration in 2000. Built by the finest Maori craftsmen, it was never finished and sits on a beach, exposed to the elements. “It is absolutely breathtaking,” Claire says.
• The New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute in Te Puia, Rotorua welcomes visitors to their premises, where students from tribes across the country study traditional carving and weaving techniques. Maori concerts are held midday and a Mai Ora (song and dance feast) is thrown in the evening. You can also take a guided tour of the grounds, which include a habitat for New Zealand’s national endangered bird—the kiwi—and the neighboring Whakarewarewa Geothermal Valley.
• If traveling with easily awed children, consider the Tamaki Maori Village in Rotorua. Before you may enter, the village chief sends out a warrior to give your group a “challenge” to determine whether or not you’ve come in peace. Tribally painted and costumed performers then hold a grand powhiri, or welcome dance, and lead you to a meeting house for welcoming speeches. Afterward, you are free to walk the grounds to catch demonstrations of poi twirling, hand games, and chants. Join the other visitors in a sit-down traditional hangi feast, where baskets of meat, vegetables, and dessert are smoked and steamed atop hot stones beneath the earth. The evening concludes with a poroporoaki, or closing ceremony, of songs and speeches.
• A famous Maori legend tells of Pania, a lovely maiden who lived in the sea on the eastern coast of North Island. Because her stream had the sweetest water, a strapping young Maori named Karitoki sipped from it every evening. After weeks of gazing at him from afar, she finally stepped out of the water. Falling fast in love, they married on the spot and he whisked her off to his whare, or house. At sunrise, however, Pania’s siren friends called her back. After a heated fight, Karitoki reluctantly allowed his bride to spend her days with her friends and her nights with him. Later, however, a village elder remarked that if Pania ate cooked food, she’d be forever banished from the sea. That night, Karitoki slipped a piece into her mouth but she promptly spat it out and bolted for the sea. He chased her to the water’s edge, but she slipped from his fingers and he never saw her again. In 1954,> the Art Deco port city of Napier unveiled a 140-pound bronze statue of Pania on the Reef in commemoration of the sad tale. She’s since become a prized symbol of New Zealand, though she went missing for a few days in 2005. The police found her, however, and plopped her back on her pedestal.