Kia ora e te whānau.

On Wednesday the 15th of November we had two visitors that came from Ōtepoti, Dunedin. They were from the Otago Museum. They taught our year 5/6’s in Te Pouahi about harakeke, tikauka and muka.

We got to make muka. This is when you get a kuku shell (mussel shell) and scrape the harakeke so you can reveal the muka. We then plaited the muka. In the photo below you can see us testing how strong the plaited muka was. There was 30 kg of weights in the bucket before the muka started to break.

We also got to put a very fine slice of harakeke on a glass slide to look at up close on a microscope.

Nga mihi

Elsa & Ava

Te Pouahi