Further details about the "whare" aspect of my username

I wrote my first introduceyourself post here some 23 days ago. Since then I've come along in leaps and bounds with my Steemy experience, thanks primarily to the wonderful people in #TeamNZ and the Minnow Support Project. I wanted to expand on my previous introduction by mentioning here a little more about my New Zealand heritage, which I only touched on briefly in my original introduction.

Although I don't have any Māori blood myself, I am particularly keen on the Māori culture, especially when promoting my love of New Zealand to people from around the world. I was raised in suburban Auckland, and from childhood I learned a little of the culture and tikanga of the indigenous population. But it wasn't until I moved out of Auckland and to small-town New Zealand that I really came to understand and appreciate it. While living in the Bay of Plenty district I often visited a couple of the local marae there, including Te Reretukahia in Katikati, and Otawhiwhi in Bowentown, Waihi Beach. The latter is my "home" marae now, as I was whāngai'd into the Ngai Tauwhao hapu of the Ngāi Te Rangi iwi there, by Kemureti Taikato.

The image above is a stylised, fictionalised image of a generic marae, patterned after my memories of both Otawhiwhi and Te Reretukahia, and other marae which I have visited over the years. I created this image myself in Minecraft, and I now use it everywhere as my user avatar and as my profile wallpaper. The large "A-frame" building at the back is the wharenui or meeting house. To the right of that, the building with the light tan coloured roof, is the wharekai or dining hall. The grassed area in front of the wharenui is known as the marae ātea where the powhiri or welcoming happens. In front of that, obscured by the big tree in this image, is the waharoa or gateway. The visitors to the marae will assemble at the waharoa and be "called onto" the marae with a karanga, and met by a kaiwero, a Māori warrior who will offer the visitors a challenge to ensure that they come in peace. The covered and uncovered seating in the marae ātea are then used by the tangata whenua (locals) on the left facing the wharenui, and the manuhiri (visitors) on the right. When everyone is seated (customarily with males seated in front of females), the whaikōrero or welcome speeches begin. Business may be concluded out in the marae ātea if it is brief and the weather is conducive, or the parties may move into the wharenui to conclude their business. Afterwards, refreshments are served in the wharekai.

As you can see, there is a lot more to this image than just some random Minecraft world that I use as my avatar. A lot of thought has gone into the layout, and it is built to respect and honour the culture of the New Zealand Māori people.

EDIT: I've just been informed that I'm not allowed to use the introduceyourself tag more than once. I apologise for making this n00bie mistake. My original introduceyourself post was over 7 days ago and was made at a time when I was still so new to Steem that I really didn't know what to say, so I figured that I would just add to it later, not knowing about the lock-in of the posts at that point. I have now changed the first tag of this post to #introducemyself instead, hoping that this will comply with the rules. Again, I do apologise, there was no malice intended, it was an honest n00bie mistake.

EDIT: Hmm, no amount of editing this post seems to be able to remove it from the introduceyourself tag now. I'll have to go back to my advisers in #TeamNZ and find out what to do. I am trying to make this right, and I apologise for the ongoing problem I have inadvertently caused.

EDIT: I've just spoken with @suesa in steem.chat, who told me that there is no way to edit a post's first tag once someone has commented on it, and no way to delete it either, so it looks like I'm stuck with a post here that violates the rules. Great. Sorry, I tried to make this right. Downvote away. 😔

^{_{The textual content of this post is licensed as a Free Cultural Work using a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license, which grants all the four freedoms listed in the definition of free cultural works, including: ① The freedom to use and perform the work; ② The freedom to study the work and apply the information; ③ The freedom to redistribute copies; and ④ The freedom to distribute derivative works. This license places three key restrictions on those freedoms: ⑤ 𝐍𝐨 𝐃𝐑𝐌 𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐏𝐌: You must not restrict access to the work using technical measures, or otherwise attempt to impose limitations on the freedoms above; ⑥ 𝐀𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧: You must give proper attribution to the author (𝓣𝓻𝓲𝓼𝓺𝓾𝓮𝓵𝓦𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓮) and retain the license notice; and ⑦ 𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐲𝐥𝐞𝐟𝐭: You must release derivative works under an identical or similar license. The most recent copy of the text of this license notice (with markdown) can be found on Hackmd.}}