Waka in the basement
Posted 12 October 2009 // Helen Rickerby
The waka, suspended above its tank (photo by Fin Bird)
The word got around at morning tea time: there was a waka (canoe) in our building. It had arrived earlier that morning, and was being welcomed with karakia (prayers).
In small groups, we were allowed to venture down and see it, so we set off down the stairs and through a maze of chilly corridors. And there it was, suspended above a tank and being carefully tended by conservator Dilys Johns.
Actually, it’s only part of a waka – the prow. It was found in the Hutt River, near Woburn, in 2006, and has been kept wet in a container ever since. Who made it, which iwi (tribe) they were from, or when they made it are all unknown. But it is thought to date from before Europeans came to New Zealand, so is at least 200 years old.
Apparently it was never completed, but I noticed that the inside of the waka had been worked to a very smooth surface. The outside was rougher, but that may have been due to sitting in the mud at the bottom of the river for so long.
It was this mud that Dilys – with the help of various interested and very keen Ministry for Culture and Heritage staff over the course of the day – was working at removing; gently scraping with ice-cream sticks, then hosing the surface. Once the mud is removed it will be submerged in a chemical – polyethylene glycol, or PEG. If it was just left to dry out, it would crack because it has been wet for so long. PEG will replace the water in the wood, so it can keep its shape and eventually be dried out.
This is the same conservation method that was used on the English warship the Mary Rose and the Swedish warship the Vasa. Like those ships, this waka prow may eventually end up as a museum piece. But, before then, it has to do two years of time soaking in its tank, and then around two years slow drying.
The arrival of the waka was the culmination of several months work by the ministry’s Heritage Operations unit, who had to put their thinking caps on to find a home that was big enough to house the enormous tank the waka is submerged in. Security and climate were also considerations – the room needs to be a constant temperature and preferably cool and dry.
You can find out more about this waka in this article in the Dominion Post, or in this piece on Māori Television’s news show Te Kāea (you’ll find it 9 minutes and 50 seconds in).
