The writers of a haka telling the history of the land in Koutu hope it will bring out more family stories of the area.
Raimona Peni and Ricky Bishop, both teachers at Te Kura Kaupapa Maori o Hurungaterangi, wrote Te Parewhakaara for the opening of the Koutu Youth Space at Karenga Park this Sunday.
Mr Peni said he hoped the Koutu haka, which highlights landmarks and stories of the Rotorua suburb, would encourage families to share what they knew about the history of the area, and make people look at the land through new eyes.
He said the pair had tried to keep the haka as specific to Koutu as possible using kiwaha (colloquialisms) from the area.
The haka highlighted the names of pa and whare that stood in the area in pre-European times. "The majority of the whanau from Koutu are descended from the families who lived in those whare."
The haka also talked about Te Arawa warrior Rangitihi.
"Everyone knows the story of Rangitihi and how his head was split open in battle and he bound it together himself with a vine and continued fighting. We are all descended from him, and we need to pull and bind Rangitihi's descendants back together. If we can't rebind our families like Rangitihi rebound his head, we can't be strong."
He said the haka also included the expression "Edor Edor", a greeting used by people from the area. He hoped Koutu people would keep the haka alive and it would inspire others to write haka and songs.
"Wouldn't it be cool if Waikite Rugby Club picked it up and took it on as their haka? Then Whakarewarewa Rugby Club might go away and start writing their own haka. That's what is going to be great about this."
He said rangatahi (young people) who spoke te reo Maori needed to be encouraged to write new material.
"No one is really writing new songs. We all do the same old waiata and haka that everyone has done for years, and because we do them so often, there's no passion except when we perform them at poroporoaki (eulogies). We are really not doing justice to our reo."
He said the generation he was seeing through his teaching was clever with words. "Their reo is fantastic. They learn new words and then find new ways of using them, the way our koroua (elders) used to play with words.
"They have this beautiful vocab and when they write they can explain exactly what they see, hear, smell and feel. They can express with words the sounds of the birds before the sun rises and the different sounds of birds after the sun comes out. They can describe perfectly the difference between the breeze in the early morning and in the afternoon. That's te reo Maori," he said.
Mr Bishop, who holds the youth portfolio on the Tumahaurangi Trust, said he hoped the Koutu haka would engage youth from the area and give them a new appreciation of where they lived.
"It's got a lot of historical significance so hopefully they will see it as a taonga (treasure). Hopefully it won't just be used at the opening but at birthdays, weddings and any occasion when Koutu whanau get together."