Kōrero: Canterbury region

Local iwi welcome guests at the Whakaata marae, attached to the Okains Bay Māori and Colonial Museum on Banks Peninsula, on 6 February 2014. The museum was opened in an old cheese factory in 1977 and a new whare taonga was built to house the extensive Māori collection. Each Waitangi Day there is a pōwhiri (welcome), speech and a hāngī, and the museum’s waka is paddled up the river. Although the Māori population of Canterbury is not large, Okains Bay is one place where Māori culture is respected and promoted.