5/5/2004: Maori warrior protests
 

http://cellar.org/2004/nzprotest.jpg

The guy's name is Tama Iti, and he's challenging officials yesterday at Parliament grounds in New Zealand, along with 10,000 or so other protestors. About 50 of them were dressed like him, in flax skirts and carrying spears.

Their beef: they're Maori warriors. They stake claim to some of the shoreline that the government is proposing should simply be public coast.

Are they trying to build a casino or something?

i think i could take him.

The people around him sure don't seem to be scared of a modern-day warrior.

That's because he brought a spear to a probable gun-fight.

This is New-Zealand. They disbanded their army, probably due to boredom.

"Secret Service" type guy on the right is most certainly ready to react with an appropriate level of force if need be.

I wonder where this coastland is exactly. So much of New Zealand is undeveloped coastline. It's everywhere.

history lesson about the maori

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/%7Eenternz/images/mok.jpg

At the website Lumberjim posted the link to:

"For clothing, they harvested a fairly broad-leaved ground plant called flax, thinned the leaves and made fabrics and ropes from the fibres. They augmented their clothing with the skins of dogs, and hundreds, sometimes thousands, of birds feathers,"

"Men needed to be dressed in a short beard at the chin, hair done in a topknot, and a string from waist to penis. "

String? OUCH!

"There was no shortage of food - birds, insects, grubs, bats, rats, dogs, eels, fish, mussels, berries, pollen, cabbage tree roots, nikau shoots, watercress, fungi and even earthworms."

Oh, an early version of Atkins!

"Including, at one time, the now vanished Moa, a large flightless bird"

I think this is a picture of it!

Gosh, what a stunner he is. I know a few people just like him in real life, scary. :joint:

And the world just yawns...

What's the story on the hand gestures most of the guys behind him are doing?

the hand signals are a very old and secret signal.....it means, " i'm leaning on my cane"

Fair enough. But why are they all doing it the same way?

they're not. two of them are left hand on top, one is right hand on top. this is how you stand when you have a cane, and you're watching a maori try to look like mike singletary.