26 minute read
In safe hands
A Whanganui community has taken a hands-on approach to conserving its stunning Category 1 church
Frankly, it’s hard to say who in the Pūtiki church community put in the most elbow grease.
Was it the volunteers in highvis jackets who skilfully touched up dozens of ornately painted kōwhaiwhai panels while teetering on scaffolding erected metres above the ground?
Or was it the industrious team of cooks who turned out a tasty, near-constant supply of boil-ups, stews, trifles and jellies?
Put the question to church trustee and self-titled whipcracker Huia Kirk and she’ll throw her hands up and declare it an even tie.
“They were at it five days a week for six and a half months from six in the morning until four in the afternoon. You’d have to say it was an outstanding effort all round.”
The effort to which Huia refers is the final stage in a 10-year restoration project that’s breathed new life into St Paul’s Memorial Church, known locally as Pūtiki church, a Category 1 building in the Whanganui township of Pūtiki.
Back in 2009 the historic Anglican church had fallen on hard times. The roof was leaking. Water stains discoloured the walls. The faint smell of rotting carpet could be detected and the pīngao strands that held the church’s beautifully woven tukutuku panels together were starting to unravel.
St Paul’s Memorial Church, Pūtiki. IMAGE: MARK BRIMBLECOMBE
Raranga tutor Trina Taurua (foreground) and trust secretary Margaret Tauri rework a damaged tukutuku panel. Volunteer Kath Tahau repairs a Whanganui-amumu tukutuku panel. Kath Tahau and Trina Taurua at work. IMAGERY: GAIL IMHOFF
The Pūtiki congregation of around 40 people stood to lose a much-loved place of worship, while New Zealand stood to lose a one-of-a-kind church richly decorated in the Māori arts and crafts tradition.
Something had to give.
“We didn’t know exactly what was needed, but we knew we needed to do something or we’d lose it,” explains Huia over a cup of tea inside the Pūtiki Parish Hall.
Following advice from Heritage New Zealand contacts in Whanganui, Huia set up the restoration trust, became chair and set about fundraising for repairs.
The trust’s first task was to commission a conservation report from DLA Architects to identify the issues and recommend ways to address them.
Written by conservation specialists (the late) Wendy Pettigrew, Bruce Dickson and Dean Whiting (now Heritage New Zealand Director Kaiwhakahaere Tautiaki Taonga and Kaupapa Māori), the 2011 report recommended extensive renovations to the building’s interior and exterior.
It found the roof and electrical wiring needed replacing, the external walls needed painting, and new paving, insulation, fire protection and heating had to be installed.
Four years down the track, with $200,000 spent, the trust was ready to bring its efforts indoors.
Margaret Tauri, trust secretary, explains: “We didn’t want to contract out the second phase like we had the first. It wasn’t about trying to scrimp and save money by doing it ourselves – conserving the interior is what got us excited. That’s what we all wanted to be part of.”
All up, around 30 people volunteered in the project’s second phase, which included the renovation of both the church and parish hall interiors.
The Venerable Bernard Broughton opened the project with a karakia and oversaw the project tīkanga. Dean Whiting and Pouarahi Traditional Arts Jim Schuster advised volunteers on technique and sourced all-important materials such as kiekie, harakeke, pīngao and pāua shell.
Tutors and students from Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in Whanganui repaired original tukutuku panels.
Meanwhile, locals scrambled up scaffolding to repair the kākaho wall and ceiling panels and touch up decorative kōwhaiwhai rafters originally painted by Oriwa Tahupotiki Haddon and Jack Kingi.
Some volunteers got busy making kai in the parish hall kitchen, whipping up crowd favourites such as fruit pie and custard, roast pork and apple sauce and the weekly fish dish (reportedly a Friday favourite).
Others spent hours carefully cleaning 80-year-old whakairo with toothbrushes and soft cloths.
One volunteer took care of workplace acoustics by playing a kōauau as people worked around him.
Looking back, Margaret and Huia agree that a lot of perseverance, skill and aroha has gone into the restoration project.
“Sometimes people were quiet in their work and full of concentration. Other times the talk would fly about, punctuated by sudden bursts of laughter,” says Huia.
“I think one of the things I most enjoyed was the fellowship and listening to people strengthen their bonds to one another and to this place.”
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Both Huia and Margaret have strong personal ties to Pūtiki. Huia, of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi descent, traces her whakapapa to the original people of the Whanganui River. She is well versed in the community’s history and, at 82, still hosts tours of Pūtiki church for the local tourism office.
In 1938 she was one of the first babies baptised in the church, a year after it was consecrated.
Margaret’s late husband John Tauri was a descendant of Ngāti Tūwharetoa rangatira Wiremu Eruera Te Tauri, who brought Christianity to Pūtiki in 1836.
Every Sunday both women attend the bilingual church service at Pūtiki – Margaret as a lay reader and Huia in the congregation.
Dean Whiting, whose late father, artist Cliff Whiting, decorated Pūtiki Parish Hall in 1972, says the community’s deep connection to the church is part of what makes it special.
“People’s ties to Pūtiki church are intergenerational. It’s amazing.
“Personally, I remember coming here with Dad as a kid. Places like the Pūtiki church only really survive
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with a connection like that; where the connection to the community is hands-on.”
Huia and Margaret believe Pūtiki church is relevant to all New Zealanders. It’s among the most highly ornamented churches in New Zealand, for starters, says Huia, and it is one of only a few churches associated with the Māori arts and crafts revival kickstarted by Sir Āpirana Ngata in 1927.
“Almost every element of the interior reflects something of the customary Māori art form,” she says.
“Walk inside and you’ll see everything from geometric-patterned tukutuku panels that line the upper walls and roof trusses to the ceiling painted with kōwhaiwhai designs representing Whanganui bush flora.”
But it also tells an important story, she says, about the arrival of the Anglican faith in New Zealand.
Built in 1937, the church was the fifth to serve the people of the Pūtiki Mission Station, an early Christian mission established in 1840 on land that had been gifted by local rangatira. As such, adds Huia, the modest neoGothic building designed and built by Arthur J Cutler is a symbol of the church’s enduring legacy at Pūtiki.
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4 Trust secretary Margaret Tauri (left) and church trustee Huia Kirk. IMAGE: MARK BRIMBLECOMBE
Interior restoration lead volunteer Te Ariki Karamaene works on a ceiling kōwhaiwhai panel in Pūtiki church. Te Ariki Karamaene repairs kōwhaiwhai in the church hall. Restored tukutuku panels in Pūtiki church. IMAGERY: GAIL IMHOFF
According to a Heritage New Zealand report by Blyss Wagstaff, St Paul’s Memorial Church also reflects a uniquely Māori take on Christianity.
Published in 2019, the report says that the Māori community “imbued the very fabric of the building and its contents with their culture, traditions, artistry and memories”.
And it’s this rich combination of factors that makes this church one of New Zealand’s most important historic churches.
So, when can people visit Te Anaua Street in Pūtiki and see it for themselves?
“People can sign up for a guided tour at Whanganui’s i-SITE visitor centre in town or they can drop in on a Sunday morning,” says Huia.
“The doors are open every Sunday at 9am. Attend a service with us, then come next door to the parish hall for a cup of tea and a biscuit.
“We’re a pretty good bunch, with a pretty good sense of humour and way about us,” she adds.
“That way, you’ll see our special country church with people in it, enjoying it.
“You’ll see it as it really is.”
harakeke: flax
kākaho:
toetoe shoot karakia: prayer kiekie: vine kōauau: small flute
kōwhaiwhai:
painted geometric swirls
pīngao:
sand-binding grass rangatira: chiefs
raranga:
hand-plaiting technique
tikanga:
cultural protocol
tukutuku:
woven latticework
whakairo:
carvings
whakapapa:
genealogy
whare karakia:
churches
wharenui:
meeting houses
THE VISION OF SIR APIRANA NGATA COMES TO PUTIKI
The St Paul’s Memorial Church and Parish Hall communities in Pūtiki can thank Sir Āpirana Ngata for the stunning buildings that occupy their township. The interior decoration of both buildings reflects the vision of the Māori leader, politician and scholar who wanted to revive Māori decorative arts, such as fine finger weaving and traditional carving, to improve the social and economic wellbeing of Māori.
In 1927 Sir Āpirana opened the School of Māori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua and commissioned its students to decorate approximately 50 buildings throughout New Zealand, including wharenui and whare karakia. Many significant artists worked on St Paul’s, including nationally renowned master carver Pineamine Taiapa, who directed the whakairo carvers. These included Hoani (John) Metekingi from Pūtiki, who carved the church’s memorial font and baptistery canopy.
Years later, in 1972, Dr Cliff Whiting, Māori artist and Whanganui district advisor on Māori arts and crafts, drew on the vision of Sir Āpirana to decorate the Pūtiki Parish Hall, applying traditional Māori artforms to the hall’s walls and simultaneously giving those same artforms a modern twist. n RETURN TO CONTENTS
Backed by a local street map, this photograph of a 1940s fire engine used by the Waikanae Volunteer Fire Brigade was part of a display at the Kāpiti Coast Museum in the 1990s.
WALK ON
WORDS: KAY BLUNDELL • IMAGERY: BRAD BONIFACE
Writer Kay Blundell takes a journey down heritage- rich Elizabeth Street in Waikanae, exploring its most interesting heritage sites and uncovering stories from her own neighbourhood along the way
Kāpiti Coast has one of the highest growth rates in the country, with new subdivisions exploding across farmland, swampland and once sleepy beachside holiday settlements that previously supported many Māori villages.
Amid all this ‘newness’, however, there is significant heritage, for example in the buildings in central Waikanae’s Elizabeth Street that I drive past several times a day.
Although I had some knowledge of their historical significance, I have found that exploring their back stories has given me a greater understanding of how Māori and Pākehā worked together to develop the town during colonial times.
My exploration starts on the corner of Elizabeth Street and the former State Highway 1. Waikanae’s smart railway station, painted bright green and white, was opened in 2011. A plaque on the platform describes its history.
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8 The railway line at the entrance to Elizabeth Street was opened in 1886.
St Luke’s Anglican Church was relocated to Elizabeth Street by bullock wagon in 1898.
Parishioners embroidered colourful cushions for the church.
Native timber captures the building’s rich colonial history.
Kāpiti Coast Museum, founded in 1984, began life in 1906 as the Waikanae Post Office.
A large whaling pot from Kāpiti Island.
Historical photographs and household bric-a-brac dating back to colonial times.
Musical memorabilia and historical telephony and communication equipment.
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In 1884 officials from the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company met with local Ngāti Toa/Te Ātiawa chief Wiremu Te Kākākura Parata, also known as Wi Parata, and other Māori to negotiate the passage of the railway through the district. Wi Parata said it would bring “great good to our people” and agreed to give the land for the right-of-way on the condition that all trains stopped at Waikanae.
The Wellington-Manawatu railway line between Wellington and Longburn, near Palmerston North, was opened in 1886. As settlers clustered around the new transport link, the village became known as Parata Township.
In 1908 the private railway was sold to the government. Deregulation in the 1980s resulted in the closure of the station, but it was reopened in 1991 when New Zealand Rail introduced the weekday Capital Connection service between Wellington and Palmerston North.
In 2004 the Greater Wellington Regional Council announced that the electrification of the Wellington suburban rail network would be extended from Paraparaumu to Waikanae. A new station was subsequently built in Waikanae and opened in 2011.
Crossing the railway lines into Elizabeth Street, the first building you come to is historic St Luke’s Anglican Church. According to a plaque outside the church, Wi Parata, who donated the land, built it in 1877 on the Tuku Rākau marae, about halfway to the beach. As settlers moved inland he instigated its relocation by bullock wagon to its present site in 1898.
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11 A copper-plate print depicts Kahe Te Rauo-te-rangi, who swam from Kāpiti Island to the mainland in 1826, with a child strapped on her back, to warn her tribe about a war party’s arrival.
A large bust of Wi Parata overlooks the Parata urupā next to St Luke’s Church.
A stained-glass window in St Luke’s Church features Wi Parata and Octavius Hadfield standing alongside St Luke.
Upon entering the church, my first impression is of the warm glow emanating from the native timbers, carved oak prayer bench and stained-glass window, capturing the essence of its colonial history.
The memorial window, designed and manufactured in England, depicts colonial missionary Octavius Hadfield, Wi Parata and St Luke the Evangelist.
The depiction of Hadfield and Parata together is interesting because in 1877 Wi Parata took Hadfield and the church to court over a gift of land that was not used as a school as intended. The far-reaching case, Wi Parata v Bishop of Wellington, was lost, however, when the Treaty of Waitangi was ruled a “simple nullity” by Chief Justice Sir James Prendergast.
Parish manager Hazel Nugent describes what she loves about the historic church.
“I just love the fact there is so much story behind it. It’s not just a church building; it is steeped in local history. When I came you could smell the wood – there is just something about it,” she says.
The building has been extended over the years to be twice its original footprint and now incorporates a hall.
A large bust of Wi Parata looks out over the 50 or so headstones that stand in the urupā of the Parata whānau on the northern side of the church. Some of the graves date back to the 1800s and many headstones bear the surnames Parata, Barrett, Higgott and Ropata.
One of the most recent headstones honours a direct descendant of Kākākura Parata, long-time Kāpiti Island resident and local character Fredrick Haumia Leo (Boysie) Barrett, who died in 2019.
The next historic building up Elizabeth Street is the brightly painted Category 2 Kāpiti Coast Museum, which began life as the Waikanae Post Office in 1906.
Housed in a wooden Edwardian building with doublehung windows, the museum was founded in 1984 by a group of radio enthusiasts. It now contains a large collection of artefacts dating back to 1840, including treasures from the local pioneers, early photographs, clothing, tools, music, telephony and New Zealand
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military memorabilia. Static displays include a 1930s New Zealand kitchen.
One of the first objects to catch the eye is a large whaling pot from Kāpiti Island dating back about 150 years.
“It’s wonderful working with artefacts,” enthuses Museum Management Committee Deputy Chair Norma McCallum. “I see artefacts and also the people behind them – the woman who made bread in that bowl, the man who used that phone, the guys who collected radios. I walk around and feel they are there.”
One of her favourite exhibits is a photograph of a painting of a young Māori woman, Kahe Te Rau-o-terangi, who swam 11.2 kilometres from Kāpiti Island to the mainland in 1826, with a child strapped on her back, to raise the alarm when Ngāti Toa were attacked by a war party.
“She was a woman of great mana, who later signed the Treaty of Waitangi,” says Norma.
Leaving the quaint cottage and heading up the road, I come to a small brick garage painted white with ‘1923’ emblazoned on the façade.
The plaque outside states it was originally Priddey’s Bicycle Shop, owned by Mr Priddey. The garage was developed behind the bicycle showroom, with the building also being used to run a taxi business and tearooms.
Bruce Lawrie now leases the building, running Lawrie Motors.
The owner of a 1937 Chrysler and a member of Steam Incorporated, Paekakariki, Bruce values the history of the building.
“I work on a lot of modern cars with modern gear but also have a lot of old tools and work on old vehicles.”
Some of the machinery dates back more than 60 years, including a 1940s valve-refacing machine, used to grind valves in the motors of old vehicles such as
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Eastside Foodmarket opened as a post office and general store in 1894.
Eastside Foodmarket owner Vinesh Veeran, with son Dhruv, says many people share memories of the store.
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WI PARATA: MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
It was during the 1860s that Wiremu Te Kākākura Parata became involved in politics, and in 1871 he was elected to Parliament as the member for Western Māori – a seat he held for two terms. On 4 December 1872 he was appointed to the Executive Council; Parata and Wi Katene (appointed a month earlier) were the first Māori to hold this position. n
SOURCE: WWW.TEARA.GOVT.NZ/EN/BIOGRAPHIES/2P5/PARATAWIREMU-TE-KAKAKURA
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A TOMO MARRIAGE
Queenie Rikihana, of Te Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, has close relatives buried in the Parata urupā and describes how her parents’ tomo, or arranged marriage, came about.
She says her mother, a shy young woman from Waikanae, went to a funeral in Ōtaki. Queenie’s mother and grandmother sat on one side of the room and her grandmother urged her daughter to go and sit next to a handsome young man sitting on the other side of the room.
“The whole tribe watched. Two days later, in the dead of night, a black taxi left Ōtaki with seven men and nine bottles of whisky on board to meet Mum’s family in Waikanae and the deal was done,” she recalls.
Queenie, whose father was a member of the Korokī hapū of Ōtaki iwi Ngāti Raukawa, says there were many arranged marriages at that time, which helped to heal rifts between tribes. n
Morris Minors and once a standard piece of equipment in mechanics’ workshops.
“I am loath to chuck some of this old stuff out – once it’s gone, it’s gone,” he says.
Across the road is Eastside Foodmarket, which opened as a post office and general store in 1894. It offered postal services until 1907 and later incorporated a lending library, drapery and groceries.
Vinesh Veeran now owns the dairy and neighbouring café. A brightly coloured mural on the eastern exterior wall of the store features grocery brand labels from yesteryear, including Rinso, Reckitt’s and Bell Tea.
“People have their wedding photos taken in front of it. Both buildings are historic. It means a lot to me.
“A lot of people come to see the store – some knew it 50 to 60 years ago. There are a lot of memories. We have had earthquakes, but the building is still standing.”
One plaque just east of the store catches my eye before I leave the street: a photo of a small corrugated-iron shed called ‘Bank/Bootmaker/Hairdresser’. This was the smallest bank in the country when it opened as a Bank of New Zealand in 1907, measuring 1.98 metres by 2.43 metres. It was also a men’s hairdresser, a bootmaker and repair shop, and was used for a dressmaking business.
As I return home, I marvel at the wealth of history on my doorstep and realise just how important it is to preserve the rapidly growing town’s rich history.
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ACROSS THE water
On a journey to a further understanding of te ao Māori, archaeologist Brigid Gallagher travelled to the Society Islands to explore some of its marae, including the great Taputapuātea on the island of Ra’iātea – regarded by many as the homeland of Māori
WORDS: BRIGID GALLAGHER
Ka mua, ka muri – walking backwards to the future.
Any archaeologist would probably agree this wellknown whakataukī aptly sums up our working lives. We study the physical world of people and places that went before, in a modern-day environment.
Every day at work as an archaeologist I look back to look forward. Researching the past, excavating the land, talking to the people, protecting for the future. With hope.
In Bay of Plenty where I mainly work, development is happening at unprecedented rates, with huge tracts of land and past cultural landscapes destroyed under the pressure for new housing.
With each cut of the whenua, the sheer intensity with which Māori used these fertile lands is evident: large, expansive archaeological landscapes with whole areas of rua, whare, taonga and kōiwi. Yet apart from maunga and terraced pā, most of these lie silent.
I am not tangata whenua. I am a Pākehā female, with no whakapapa to this land, but I have been brought up to respect the stories of the places from which the early voyagers came. And after nearly eight years of virtually back-to-back archaeological investigations, a whole lot of questions about te ao Māori are swirling in my mind – all of them influenced by what archaeology has unearthed. Who were Māori prior to colonisation? What was life like before Christianity arrived, and how did it change traditions? Did Māori bring a template in their minds of the process of setting up new marae? And before they
View of the reef around Moorea on the flight from Ra’iātea across Moorea to Tahiti-Nui. IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
On the water taxi from Ra’iātea’s capital, Uturoa, to Taha’a, with Ra’iātea’s rocky interior behind.
The transport hub of Uturoa, with Taha’a in the background. IMAGERY: SUPPLIED
set off on the long voyage to Aotearoa, would Māori have recognised the archaeology I am digging up today?
Last September the universe aligned to help me explore these questions further. When our elder daughter was offered a chance to spend a week at a school in the Society Islands town of Taravao – located where Tahiti-Nui (big) becomes Tahiti-Iti (small) – I, my partner Raysan and our nine-year-old daughter decided to fly out with her to Pape’ete, Tahiti.
We had no idea what to expect – cocktails and overthe-water bungalows or what we had actually come to find: evidence of a society from which Māori originated.
We took the opportunity to take the 45-minute flight to Ra’iātea, the island that many regard as the homeland of Māori. Home of the great marae Taputapuātea; the school of traditional ocean navigators and tohunga; the place where James Cook met Tupaia, who guided him across the Pacific using traditional voyaging techniques; and, for some Māori, the final resting place of a person’s soul after the long voyage to Te Rerenga Wairua/Cape Reinga and back across the oceans to Hawaiki.
We arrived in Ra’iātea’s capital, Uturoa – a 15-squarekilometre port town in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The capital sits on a shared lagoon with the motu Taha’a just a 20-minute taxi-boat ride away.
The resort island of Bora Bora is in easy view past Taha’a, and the low-lying Huahine sits due east. During our time here, all four of these islands were referenced as significant departure points for waka known in New Zealand; just up the road, for example, is the Tainuu marae, with one of the oldest ahu on the island.
Flying in, we could see the wharf area buzzing with small craft and outriggers – the local equivalent of a central bus station. These islands were meant to be seen and accessed from the water and we discovered the joy of travelling by outrigger between Ra’iātea and Taha’a on our last morning, instantly connecting the construction of the craft with waka.
I now realise how important the reef is to these islands, and what an adjustment Māori needed to make to the more open marine environment of Aotearoa – adapting fishing lures and looking for protected places to make their first settlements.
They surely would have found little comfort in the weather. In our time in the Societies the temperature
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ahu: ceremonial platforms
kōiwi:
human remains kōrero: talk maunga: mountains motu: island rua: crop storage pits
tangata whenua:
a person/people of the land taonga: artefacts
te ao Māori:
the Māori world
tohunga:
experts/priests
whakapapa:
family ties
whakataukī:
proverb whare: buildings and homes whenua: land
did not drop below 30°C, and I realise now how cold Māori must have felt. Through return voyaging it would have become clear that things such as pure coconut oil were redundant in Aotearoa; by the time it arrived, it would have been a solid block. Mine still is.
But visiting Taputapuātea marae was the real goal of this trip. And there is something special about it, something intangible. Taputapuātea, which opens straight onto the sea, incorporates huge slabs of coral that stand upright, creating a sea wall around the perimeter of the marae.
But what struck me immediately was that the predominant building material was volcanic stone. This is markedly different from marae structures in Bay of Plenty, which were built primarily from earth and wood, but is not so different from the cultural complex at Ihumātao next to Auckland Airport and cultivation mounds found north of Auckland.
The use of volcanic stone to create ahu, floors, benches for offerings, stone back rests, and raised gardens and planting mounds is constant in the Society Islands. Taputapuātea was situated on the tip of an underground volcano, so stone was a readily available material. Volcanic stone was also available in New Zealand, but the abundance of large hardwood trees may have brought about a change in materials’ use.
Taputapuātea, like other marae we visited on our trip to Ra’iātea, Taha’a, Moorea and Tahiti, was built using volcanic stone and river cobbles to create not just simple rectangular ahu as focal points; Mahaiatea marae on Tahiti, for example, was formed as a stepped pyramid, measured by James Cook as being 79 metres long at the base and 13 metres high, although it now exists as a very large pile of rubble.
I couldn’t help but think of the great terraced pā of New Zealand’s Papamoa hills and Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill).
But as far as we can tell using archaeological methods, Māori did not build terraced hillside pā until between 200 and 300 years after leaving the Societies. Another marae, Arahurahu on Tahiti, is impressive as a reconstructed ahu, but unlike pā in New Zealand it functioned as a ceremonial complex.
While at Taputapuātea we had the good fortune to meet Jacques, an English-speaking historian who works there, and who explained that the marae we see today is in its later form.
It ultimately became a seat of royalty on the island, but the site has a long history and has had many phases of development, much like we find on New Zealand marae sites today, and it is difficult to know when changes happened.
An archaeological team undertaking restoration work was on site the day we visited. Unfortunately the site archaeologist was at lunch during the visit, but I spoke with the tangata whenua working with
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A stone platform at Taputapuātea marae. IMAGE: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
Tallulah (9), Brigid and English-speaking historian and guide Jacques at Taputapuātea. Archaeological restoration work in front of the main ahu at Taputapuātea. The large coral slabs along the boundary of Taputapuātea and the water. IMAGERY: SUPPLIED
One of the oldest ahu on Ra’iātea is at Tainuu marae. IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
him. Although there was a language barrier – my French isn’t so good – it was clear that as they restore the platforms, older archaeology is often discovered, as had happened that day.
We spent about an hour with Jacques. He apologised for his French name, explaining that one of his greatest concerns is the lack of Tahitian being spoken across the islands and he predicted its loss unless this is rectified.
His passion for re-establishing long-term cultural connections across the Pacific was evident. He spoke of the effects of colonisation on communities, the subjugation of the local Tahitian culture over time, and the resurgence he desired.
As in New Zealand, so many archaeological and other places of past cultural importance have been abandoned and forgotten, left isolated or just not been needed. People’s lives have moved away from the country and into urban spaces. When I asked Jacques where the people once lived, he waved towards the rampant lush hillsides – away from the marae, further up the hill, where nobody goes anymore.
In Moorea we went into the hills to look at some of these everyday living spaces. Clustered together are the remains of ahu, gardens and fare (whare), positioned on either side of small streams flowing down the mountains. While the ancestors would have lived in the domain of the gods, high up on the cloud-covered peak, you and I would have lived here in its shadow.
It seemed an apt end to our trip that at the last marae we visited we found a summary of archaeological work by Professor Roger Green. He was one of my teachers at the University of Auckland when I started this journey of learning about te ao Māori as a 19-year-old.
Also walking about the sites that day were Wayne Morgan of Whakatāne and his wife. We stopped to kōrero and I asked him why they had gone there. He was on a journey, he said, to see the places he had heard so much about; where the Mataatua waka had come from, and to walk in the footsteps of his ancestors.
Mā mua ka kite a muri; mā muri ka ora a mua – those who lead give sight to those who follow; those behind give life to those ahead.
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