How to make a Ukutangi

 Term 2 in class 27th May 2021, before we went to the planetarium our other teacher Whaea Raechel taught us how to make Ukutangi. The class happy to make one also most of the class thought it was going to be really really easy but when got into the whole class including me needed help everyone was Whaea Whaea Whaea can you help me, please. It was just a shamble, When I was doing it, it was very very very hard. 

How to make a Ukutangi

How to make a Ukutangi

Do you know how to make a Ukutangi or puoro, as some people call them? Well, I call them Ukutangi. We made Ukutangi in class with our teacher. Ukutangi is a traditional Maori music instrument; it can be used to make music to worship our God.  Also, they have been used to send messages, marking the stages of life and call out to our Atua (God). This one fact that inspired the Maori used the Ukutangi for the Ukutangi can calm people down. The Ukutangi kind of sounds like an old kuia at the marae crying. You need certain ingredients to make a Ukutangi. The ingredients are: Air drying clay and water to keep it moist and so it doesn’t go hard. In this explanation, if you go further on reading it will show you how to make a Ukutangi. 

Starting off your Ukuktangi 

Firstly, our teachers sliced the clay into pieces, there were two different colours of clay: red and white. Our first instruction was to get our clay and half it into two even parts rufly. Then, we had to grab one of the clay halves and roll the clay into an imprint of your pums, then grab one of the halves again and imprint your thumb into the clay and use your indexes and your middle finger to pinch the sides of the clay and rotate it around. You need to keep rotating it until you get thick big sides after you've done that and repeat the same thing to the other half. 

Second part off making an Ukutangi

After, you’ve done molding your Ukutangi into a bowl kind of shape then you grab a toothpick and etch the rim of the bowl. When you have done the etching of both of the bowls then you combine them both together then smudge the line until there is know line. Use your pinky finger like a drill and poking it through the top, poke it through but not right through just until you can get to the space. 

 

You’ve made it

Finally, you’ve finished your Ukutangi! Make some noise by blowing half your breath in and half out.Now you can have fun and enjoy this traditional gift. Make some noise and teach others how to make a Puoro! There’s your Ukutangi done.