Pupils were served food cooked in a hangi, a traditional Maori pit oven, dug in school grounds on Monday.
Manawa Enterprises teachers and partners Kopua Waititi and Ana Pene, of Sunnyvale, who tutor kapa haka and te reo in the school, cooked the hangi for about 170 pupils and 30 adults.
Miss Pene said she was a former pupil of the school and her father Boyd Pene cooked a hangi in the school 23 years ago.
Cooking the hangi brought back ‘‘nice’’ memories.
School principal Steve Hayward said nearly 40 pupils arrived at school before 5am to watch iron be heated in a large fire, dragged into a pit with cages of food and covered with wet sacks and soil.
The food was dug from the pit about 1pm and served in the school hall.
A hangi used to be cooked in the school about every five years, but the tradition stopped 23 years ago.
The school had been wanting to restart the tradition but it lacked people with the expertise, he said.
The ‘‘sharing of kai’’ was a way to celebrate Matariki — the Maori New Year.
The hangi was provided to pupils free of charge because people gave food, money and time, he said.
Plumber Peter Wright, who had worked at the school, gave half a sheep, a 10kg trumpeter fish and 30kg of chicken drumsticks, he said.
Mr Hayward expected the ‘‘fantastic’’ hangi to be a regular event.
Pupil Kairi Vehikite (5) said it was her first hangi and she enjoyed the lamb the most.
‘‘It’s so yum.’’
Comments
Totally awesome. This is what it is all about keeping things like this going, year after year something to let the children look forward to, but a nice gesture would be to always invite the founder or there immediate family who started it 23 years ago to be part of it. totally awesomeness at it best, I just wish our school in the 70's early 80's (Riselaw Road) had something like that.