Maori Costume

The raw material for Maori clothing

The film starts off with a quick clip of the Te Puia cultural performance, where the girls come to the front and do the poi dance. As well as admiring the young ladies' dexterity, spare a glance for their skirts.

I'm no expert, obviously, but I suspect that back in the "good old days" the swirling fringe stuff was all that they wore and the black underskirt is simply a concession to modern prudery. However notice that the skirt appears to be made of drinking straws!

In fact it is made out of what the New Zealanders call "flax" - though whether it bears any resemblance to European flax I don't know. In the wild the stuff looks like a form of succulent. The Maoris take the leaves and simply scrape away some of the outer covering to reveal the fibrous interior. In the finished garment, made with the dried out leaves, the fibrous part is dark in colour and flexible while the leaf itself remains light-coloured and stiff.

I was intrigued to see the lady who demonstrated making the garment using a shell of some sort to scrape away the outer leaf. I asked her if that was just to be traditional or whether it was the most suitable tool to use and she assured me that it was the easiest tool and the one that carried least danger of injuring yourself!