It's forecast to be cloudy when the sun rises on Jan. 1 in Gisborne, New
Zealand
By Patrick Graham
National Post
GISBORNE, NEW ZEALAND - The walls shook, heavenly strobe lights flashed snapshots
of the surrounding mountains and flooding rivers turned the sea a greyish
brown.
"It sounded like God whispering next to your ear," said a young Maori man
with a ponytail and dark sunglasses, who was cleaning up deadfall from a
recent storm.
A few days before 10,000 worshippers are scheduled to meet here to hold the
first Christian service marking the new millennium, the heavenly signs are
not auspicious. In addition to huge storms, pop star David Bowie has now
cancelled a concert, a millennium monument lies unfinished, and the locals
are wondering what else can go wrong in this small city on the east coast
of New Zealand that will be the first significant population to see the
millennium dawn.
For the last several months many of Gisborne's population of 30,000 have
been gearing up for the city's millennium party, giving the downtown a facelift
and erecting tents on the beach where the Christian worshippers will watch
the sun rise.
The millennium festivities will include Maori welcoming ceremonies and local
surf-punk bands. Headlining the event will be native daughter and opera star
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
As workmen rushed to clean the debris from the latest storm off the beach,
across the road Gisborne's ambitious monument to the millennium remained
unfinished. So far only 10 metres of the proposed one kilometre-long Millennial
Wall, designed by Winnipeg architect Alex Katz, have been built.
Made of black granite tiles set into curving segments of reinforced concrete,
the wall is reminiscent of a wonky version of Washington's Vietnam memorial.
It was supposed to have had one million names inscribed on it, but so far
there are only 8,000. Something of an enigma to locals, it is meant to last
1,000 years. Having your name inscribed on the wall costs $29.95.
Although a stronghold of Maori culture, Gisborne (pronounced Giz-bin) has
special significance for Christians, who are expected to be coming in droves
to usher in the new millennium.
"In the New Testament, Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem until
they received power from God and take the message to the uttermost part of
the Earth," said Norm McLeod, pastor of the pentecostal Elim Church here.
"The uttermost nation from Jerusalem is New Zealand. And Gisborne is the
uttermost city -- I feel it has spiritual significance."
Despite its pull for Christians, Gisborne has retained the strongest expression
of pre-European-Maori culture in New Zealand.
And, despite blaming the Europeans for almost wiping out their civilization,
taking their land and introducing a host of diseases, many Maori say they
will also celebrate the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Christ.
Two hours north of Gisborne on the top of Mount Hikurangi -- a sacred site
for the Maori and the first piece of any major land mass to catch the millennium
dawn --Maori are erecting a traditional sculpture made of 85 tonnes of carved
wood with a cement base. In Gisborne, a host of waka, or traditional canoes,
will be welcomed ashore after Dame Kiri finishes singing on a glass-backed
stage on New Year's Eve.
"Everybody else is celebrating --why should we ignore it?" said Te Aturangi
Nepia-Clamp, a Maori artist who helped carve one of the ocean-going canoes
that recently sailed down from the Cook Islands to participate in the ceremony.
Wearing a bright flowered shirt and dark sunglasses, Te Aturangi said he
saw no reason why Maori shouldn't celebrate 2000 years of Christianity, even
if it is the inhabitants of Christendom whom they blame for destroying a
culture they are trying to revive. He is the son of a Maori mother and a
Pakeha (white European) father, and says he strongly identifies with his
Maori ancestry.
"Certainly [the millennium] represents the birth of Jesus, but for me it
represents the time we're keeping today," he said. "We're celebrating that
our culture is still intact -- that we have survived."
Like Te Aturangi, Pastor McLeod is also part Maori and part Pakeha. Leaning
against an old Oldsmobile, he told the story of a Maori prophecy that predicted
the coming of the Pakeha and their god, whose son had been killed.
"The prophecy said he was good but that the Maori people would still be in
darkness, still be oppressed -- and it came true," he said. "We try and bring
the Gospels, not the culture. Paul said be a Roman to the Romans and a Jew
to the Jews."
Or, presumably, a surfpunk to the surfpunks.
For even modern pagans will be crossing cultures on the morning of the
millennium. Mike Strong, who runs a local radio station, a bar, and books
bands in Gisborne with names like HDU (High Dependency Unit -- "Pink Floyd
for the millennium"), plans to abandon the European DJs, French sound system
and the bands he has brought in for Gisborne's New Year's Eve party. Like
many others here, he plans to wander down to the beach for the Karanga, a
Maori song designed to determine whether people arriving come in peace or
war.
"It's a spine-tingling sound," he said.
The music will drift across the bay where Captain James Cook first landed
in 1769 and was attacked by the Maori, several of whom were killed.
But despite the preparations, there may be problems at the turn of the
millennium. In addition to the other mishaps plaguing Gisborne's big millennial
celebrations, now the weather reports are calling for clouds on millennium
morning -- so the first rays of sun may be hidden.
It's possible that New Zealand may live up to its original Maori name, Aotearoa,
which means "land of the long white cloud" --sometimes translated as "land
of the wrong white crowd."
National Post
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