Waitangi Day: Kotahitanga on display as hāngī feeds 10,000 people at Te Tii Waitangi Marae

As the country discusses the concept of kotahitanga (unity), marae and whānau across Te Tai Tokerau have demonstrated what true unity can achieve.

Under the guidance of renowned chef Joe McLeod, ringawera (kitchen hands) have spent days preparing enough hāngī to feed at least 10,000 people at Te Tii Waitangi Marae - in the same way it was served when the whare tūpuna first opened.

It marks the beginning of Waitangi Week celebrations.

"Everything is done in the classical manner, tūturu kai Māori o te ao tawhiti," McLeod said.

"The only difference is back then, they ate on the ground. Now we've got tables and marquees. But the logistical challenges of catering for that many people are still the same - you need hands, you need ingredients, you need to get it here."

With only seven weeks to pull everything together, McLeod, his team at E Kai Māori, and hundreds of helping hands prepared massive amounts of kai.

"We've got a one-and-a-half tonnes of lamb, one-and-a-half tonnes of beef, one-and-a-half tonnes of pork, three tonnes of vegetables, and half a tonne of fish to be spread out amongst 860 rourou and 20 what we call 'waka ika' just for the fish."

But no smoking or steaming cookers were involved in this kaupapa.

"The kai is being prepared in the same way our ancestors did it - the food will be placed inside rourou baskets to be cooked in the hāngī," McLeod said.

"Each of the baskets will be filled in a specific way and placed in the hāngī pit - first we place the pork in which is followed by the beef, then the lamb and the vegetables are placed on top of the baskets."

From harvesting kai to weaving rourou baskets and coordinating hundreds of volunteers, the sheer scale of the operation was massive.

It all came together with the help of hundreds of volunteers across the motu.

Pou Tāhuhu at Rangatahi Ora, Shaquille Shortland, was among the volunteers, and said the kaupapa had brought people together.

It was a true display of this year's Waitangi values: manaakitanga (hospitality) and kotahitanga (unity), he said.

"We put out a call for volunteers and for people to come and help. And a lot of our volunteers ended up being rangatahi, past students, whānau that we've met through other kaupapa that we are running."

He saw the past four days preparing as a way to connect and bring people together.

"We had all the help of all the whānau from different marae, as well as the master weavers who came in and just showed everyone how to do that mahi."

Iwi taketake (indigenous) whānau from Musqueam and Langara University in Vancouver (First Nations Canadian) had also been part of the mahi, learning alongside Māori weavers and whānau in an exchange of cultures.

"They're getting the full-on experience, coming out to Tauwhara Marae and actually learning the entire process - learning the harvesting, the preparing, and then the actual weaving of all the rourou kai that you're seeing here."

With whānau Māori embodying manaakitanga, Shortland said, "They said they felt more at home here than at home".

Reviving traditional kai Māori

For Tōhunga Tumau, chef McLeod, his mahi of serving up to 10,000 hāngī using traditional methods is part of a broader kaupapa: to reconnect Māori with their culinary whakapapa.

"This is classical Māori cuisine. It's one of the healthiest ways to eat - it's clean, organic, and cooked with rongoā herbs. No one else is doing it like this anymore, but we are bringing it back."

The hāngī was laid in six large pits overnight, with up to 2000 meals cooking in each. The first batch would begin to be lifted at 7am, ensuring kai was ready for the pōwhiri and morning celebrations.

By 8:30am, McLeod said, the team would begin distributing or 'powerlifting' the kai, with 10 service points across the marae site, each handling about 600 kilos of food per round.

"That's a lot of food, but we have an army of people running food for each station."

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