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Te Ara – The Path – Toki

This Toki is full of significance and meaning. A 21st gift for a young man that is loved and cares for others.

The main concepts are of the toki itself to represent the leadership and courage it takes to stand up and be yourself. The wave on the front represents the outdoors as well as tika, or righteousness and staying on the ‘the path’. The Koru on the rear represents the wearer and the backbone of it is his path heading into the unknown future. The three lines that join his path represent his close whanau and their support as well as the people he connects with on his journey and cares for and supports through his natural leadership.

The design process for this was excellent. Some really good ideas bounced back and forth around the design during the journey to the final concept. You can see the variety of designs that came up to represent the main concepts to tika – the right path, whanaungatanga – connection with people, and rangatiratanga – leadership.

Here are the work in progress shots. I also got a few videos of the carving of the designs on the toki.

The other parts of the slice of pounamu also went with the toki for future taonga for the whanau. This is such a cool concept to have the taonga that are connected by the fact that they are from the same pounamu and were sitting side by side for ages before they were carved.

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