Te Papa museum

Lovely wire sculptures outside Te Papa, the national museum of NZ. We spent most time on the 4th floor, where the history of the country is. Beautiful Maori carvings, replica of the Treaty of Waitangi which started modern New Zealand--once the English started paying attention to it. Interesting document, two versions were signed. One in English, one in Maori, slightly different from each other. So today they have to refer to both versions before they make decisions. Those have got to be interesting discussions!

There's a 1000 Families, 1000 Dreams initiative, to have 1000 Maori families speaking Maori by 2020 or so (I forget the exact date). As is usual with native societies, the language was taken out of schools so most modern Maoris don't speak it. But many signs are now in both Maori and English.