Toia mai, Te Waka! The haka pohiri brings the manuhiri onto the marae.
After those doing the karanga have woven the rope,
the haka pohiri pulls on the canoe of the manuhiri, hence the reason ´Toia mai te
waka´ is used at so many powhiri. Often at a
tangihanga those doing the powhiri will hold greenery in their hands. The greenery
should be specially chosen ensuring that the leaves have a light side and a dark
side, representing light and darkness or life and death. The leaves remind us
that life is linked with death, that life and death are interwoven.
The
call of the haka pohiri likens the arrival of the
group of visitors to the safe arrival of a canoe, with its paddlers and
passengers, to the shore. The canoe is dragged safely to a resting place onto
the shore. Likewise the voices of the haka pohiri
symbolically represent the rope by which the visitors are pulled safely onto the
marae. So, from the gates the rope platted voice of
the Kai Karanga intertwines and twists to give
greater strength to the voices of the haka pohiri,
strengthened still further by the Kai Whakaatu. As
long as there are people and the marae, the rope
represented by the voices of people is a rope that ties and pulls people
together. It stretches from the past, appears in the present, and disappears to
serve future generations.
Acknowledgment to those
who have passed on Once the manuhiri have
approached the puku, they pause and with the tangata whenua bow their heads for two or three minutes in
remembrance. Immediately after, at a given sign, the manuhiri move to take up the seats provided with the
speakers sitting in the front row of seats.
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