Student's Maori cloak ruffles a few feathers in USA

Northlander Sarah Smith, 32, has become the first Maori to take a degree from the City University of New York.

With 208,000 students enrolled in degree programmes and another 200,000 enrolled in continuing education courses at campuses in all five NY boroughs, it is America's third-largest university.

Ms Smith graduated from Hunter College wearing a handmade cloak of feathers and shells that had travelled more than 14,162km but almost could not get past inspection at Kennedy International Airport, the New York Times reports.

Fifty people in Ngati Kuri made the cloak to celebrate her achievements, and her parents carried it from New Zealand to New York, so that at Radio City Music Hall, where Hunter held its graduation ceremony, she stood out among the about-to-be graduates in Hunter-purple robes.

She said the tribe had sought permission from the New Zealand Government to use the feathers of three protected species, each of them figuring in the story of the cloak.

There are feathers from the kiwi to symbolise stability, she said -- their feet are planted firmly on the ground because they do not fly.

There are the feathers from the kuaka, also known as the bar-tailed godwit, a migratory bird that goes from the southern hemisphere to the northern, as she has already done. Then the kuaka returns to the southern hemisphere, as she intends to do. And there are feathers from the wood pigeon.

When the undergraduates left the dressing room -- normally used by the Radio City Rockettes chorus line -- Ms Smith's assigned seat was on the main stage, to let the audience see the cloak.

President of Hunter Jennifer J Raab even had her stand up and turn around.

The cloak was blessed before it left New Zealand, but that did not ward off what Ms Smith diplomatically called a "complication with customs".

When her parents, Graham and Nettie Smith, arrived at Kennedy Airport last week, they told customs officials about the cloak and handed over a sheaf of documents, including a fumigation certificate.

Hunter officials said Ms Smith had been assured by the US Fish and Wildlife Service last month that the cloak could be brought into the country. The inspectors at Kennedy, however, refused to release it. It turned out that the kiwi is an endangered species and the kuaka is covered by an international treaty.

It took calls from the likes of Senator Charles E Schumer to get the cloak to graduation, Ms Raab told the crowd.

Ms Smith enrolled at Hunter after visiting New York and tracking down a friend who was dancing with a Maori group represented by a Hunter graduate, Bess Pruitt.

Ms Pruitt, two sisters and a brother all graduated from Hunter, and in 2002, after Bess Pruitt's 50th reunion, Ms Smith decided to enrol.

On Thursday, her mother, who had never visited New York before, marvelled at Radio City and the excitement of her daughter's graduation, so far from home.

"I didn't expect anything like this," Mrs Smith said. "This is just magic. I never thought it would end up like this."

- NZPA