The Tree Cries Less & Bleeds Less When Cut at Dawn...

The RUTU Drum Masters of thee Cook Islands event is centred around the making and drumming of tokere (slit gongs) and pa'u (membrane drums). One of the things Master drum maker Ota Tuaeu and I did starting two weeks ago, was to acquire some of materials and tools required for the making of the drums. RUTU!'s in-house taunga (cultural expert, master of cultural ceremonies, researcher, ukulele master etc) Ma'ara Maeva suggested a aka-tapu i te rakau ceremony which is a cultural ritual for consecrating the wood, tools and other materials before the drum making process begins.

Taunga (master of ceremonies) Ma'ara Maeva

According to Taunga Ma'ara (based on his experience and research) our Polynesian ancestors believed in mauri ora, the living energy or  life force that existed in all living and natural things such as trees. As the sun rises it contaminates the energy of a new day with the burdens and tribulations of everyday living. Dawn straddles the chasm between PO (night) and AO (day) and therefore is the precise moment (in the day) when the life force is uncorrupted. 

The drum making wood and tools

"Hence, the tree cries less and bleeds less when it is cut (for our drum making purposes) at dawn" says Taunga Maara. Here's a short video of the akatapu-anga i te rakau ceremony that was held on Tuesday, earlier this week--at Master drum master and maker Ota Tuaeu's house--in Mangere. Excuse the video editing and out-of-sync dialogue.RUTU!'s go-to camera-people were unavailable and your humble RUTU! blogger is no Steven Spielberg. The ceremony was held at 6am. Sunrise for that particular Tuesday was predicted to occur at 0650, according to Internet sources, in case you were wondering...