Ancient Maori Warrior

I struggled with the blip photo, whether to close crop his face, which was very interesting, or to provide background and scenery typical of New Zealand, so in the end you can see I have done that. Still wondering which has better impact.

Maybe VIEW IN LARGE and it will give you a feeling of both!

Change of scene today, avoidance of earthquake demolition, traded for a step back in time on a school trip.
This man was the leader of the Maori group who greeted our children at an animal mini zoo. It was good for our Pakeha (white foreigners) to have some "cultural" experience, and they loved it. This was at the start where you are entering another tribes area of the forest, and there is uncertainty about what your intentions are. Shortly following this, the leader of our group is challenged and called forward to discern what is the progression of the meeting- community and sharing of a feast, or war... lucky for us we were not about to fight a war, as we definitely looked like the weak skinny white boys.
There are huge protocols surrounding greetings and encounters of two tribes and lucky for our youngish kids, our experience only lasted 90 minutes, and included a turn at Maori poi dance, and Haka which they were totally into, and not hours of speeches in Maori language which they definitely would not have been into!
(Or the mothers either ).