Wellington

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

WORDS: JACQUI GIBSON • IMAGERY: MIKE HEYDON

Parliament’s first dedicated Māori Affairs select committee room, Matangireia, celebrates its centenary

It’s a bright autumn day in Karori as Jim Schuster explains the steps involved in harvesting wild kiekie to the small crowd gathered around him.

For 19 years, Jim has tutored small groups as an advisor for the Māori Built Heritage Team at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

A former schoolteacher of Te Arawa descent, he travels the country from his home in Rotorua, passing on knowledge and techniques learned from his late mum and master weaver, Emily Schuster.

Today’s tutorial at Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, Wellington’s urban wildlife sanctuary, is a particularly special one.

A half-day practical lesson for around 30 invitees, it’s also the first-ever cultural harvest for Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne and a major milestone in a three-year conservation project led by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

In 2019 Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga was asked to assess and report on the condition of Parliament’s first dedicated Māori Affairs select committee room, known as ‘Matangireia’ (or ‘House in the uppermost heaven’).

The then Māori Development Minister Nanaia Mahuta wanted to check on the state of the 97-year-old room in her care, given that more than 25 years had passed since conservator Jack Fry had carried out any repairs. Had Matangireia been damaged since then? Was more repair work required?

Officially retired as Parliament’s select committee room in 1991, Matangireia features 110 carvings showcasing the mastery of Te Arawa craftsmen from Rotorua. On the walls are 16 tukutuku panels and several photos of prominent Māori MPs, including Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Māui Pōmare, who were responsible for the establishment of the room in 1922.

1 Jim Schuster, an advisor for the Māori

Built Heritage Team at Heritage New

Zealand Pouhere

Taonga, and wānanga attendee Louise

Wright inside

Matangireia.

2 The room’s plaster cornices by James

McDonald were modelled on those found in the

Dominion Museum and were painted black and red in 1955.

3 Wānanga attendees, representing Māori architecture, design, and marae arts, learn about taonga conservation.

A five-by-two-metre copy of Te Tiriti o Waitangi was installed on the east wall in 1955. Kōwhaiwhai cornices adorn the ceilings. The south wall, meanwhile, depicts the entrance of a wharenui to give visitors the sense of sitting in a traditional courtyard, or marae ātea, where important discussions typically take place.

Māori Built Heritage Team Director Ellen Andersen wrote the 2019 Taonga Conservation Condition Assessment Report. And together with Dean Whiting, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Deputy Chief Executive Kaihautū, and Jim, she led the staff and volunteers who implemented its recommendations over four months this year.

In the report, Ellen noted that up to 10 hours of restoration work was needed to repair broken kiekie stitches on the room’s tukutuku panels. All up, she estimated it would take up to 210 hours of restoration work to bring the room up to scratch.

“With projects like these, our role isn’t simply to find out what work is needed and to do that work,” says Ellen.

“It also involves passing on what we know and helping others to connect with the taonga through wānanga and getting involved in a more hands-on way.”

Jim’s workshop, which upskilled attendees and sourced valuable plant material for the tukutuku repair work, is just one example, she says; the project featured many more.

In May, Rotorua tohunga, whose tūpuna had blessed the room when it opened in 1922, were invited to travel to Wellington to close the room spiritually for conservation work and return to reopen the room when the work was completed.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Service Te Ratonga Whare Pāremata curatorial team, led by Tasha Fernandez, reframed and repositioned the photographs in the room and used Matangireia as their inspiration to commission an artwork by Zena Elliott now on display.

Between May and July, conservation wānanga for five architects and artists were held to pass on best practice and get them involved in the room’s conservation.

“It’s been great to see the different ways people have connected with Matangireia throughout this project,” says Dean.

“In the very early days, Matangireia would’ve been something of a touchstone to the MPs and communities who went there to lodge petitions and discuss issues of

the day. It would’ve been a place that, while looking familiar and feeling comfortable, was also an environment where Māori could assert their political ambitions and stand strong,” says Dean.

And it’s this rich heritage that continues to make Matangireia an important place today.

Labour’s Te Tai Tonga MP Rino Tirikātene agrees.

“It’s my ‘go to’ room when I need to greet special visitors such as kura students, for example, or when I need an extra-special place to make an announcement.

“Sure, I have a personal connection to Matangireia through my grandfather Eruera Tirikātene and my aunty Whetū Tirikātene-Sullivan, who were both MPs and feature on its walls. And, yes, I remember coming here as a child and sitting on the beautifully carved chairs and, years later, being awarded a cultural ambassador certificate by the then trade minister Mike Moore for playing in the Rātana band.

“But to me, every Māori in Aotearoa connects to this room in some way, be it through the legislation debated here or the tūpuna represented on its walls. We all stand on the shoulders of those who’ve gone before us.”

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2 Hand-coloured photographic portraits of the first Māori MPs to receive knighthoods were hung in Matangireia in 1955.

Pictured is Sir Apirana Ngata.

3 Jim Schuster and Pouārahi Jasmine Hemi examine the tukutuku panels mended during conservation wānanga.

4 Jim Schuster with harvested kiekie. IMAGE: JACQUI GIBSON

In part, it’s this legacy that Ellen captured in a new book on the 100-year history of Matangireia published in time for the Parliamentary Service centenary celebrations around the room’s reopening in September.

Funded with the help of the Judith Binney Trust, Ellen’s book explores themes such as the room’s design features, the political and cultural aspirations behind the Māori built heritage within the room and Matangireia’s relationship with its larger replacement, Māui Tikitiki-a-Taranga, built in 1991.

“Matangireia is very much a single-style room, representing Ngāti Tarāwhai carving of Te Arawa,” says Ellen. “It was created at a time when people like Ngata were deeply concerned about the loss of the traditional arts and were advocating the use of Māori art and craft in Parliament.

“If you look at the records of the time, Ngata and Pōmare were saying things like: ‘Let’s see whakairo in the debating chamber. Let’s see it on the desks. Hey, what about the Speaker’s chair?’”

To achieve their goals, she says, the pair became members of the then Furnishings Committee at Parliament, which enabled them to decorate the room in a Māori way, using Māori carvers.

In 1926 Ngata went on to establish the Rotorua School of Arts and Crafts with one of the same master carvers who had worked on the room, Te Ngaru Ranapia of Ngāti Pikiao.

“Through that school, Ngata was able to successfully revitalise Māori arts and craft, which led to the wonderful range of styles you see in the new select committee room. Matangireia is where it all began,” says Ellen.

For Jim, whose great-great-grandfather Tene Waitere was a Ngāti Tarāwhai master carver, the past four months spent working in Matangireia and handing on his skills and knowledge to others have been pretty special.

“To me, walking through Parliament can feel a bit intimidating, if I’m honest,” he says. “You have to be vetted. There’s security scanning. Doors lock fast behind you. In contrast, Matangireia feels like a break away from all that. You can breathe easy in there because it looks and feels like home.”

But there’s even more to it, says Jim.

“It’s the effect of all the tūpuna who’ve set foot in there over the years. That’s what makes Matangireia special in my eyes. And then, for me, knowing kuia had their hands on the same tukutuku panels that my mum worked on and that I’ve been able to introduce to a whole new generation. Well, that’s another thing altogether. It gives me that same feeling I get when I walk into a wharenui. It’s that feeling that, at last, I’m home.”

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kiekie: fibrous native vine kōwhaiwhai: painted scroll ornamentation kuia: female elders kura: school mana whenua: those with tribal authority over land or territory mātauranga: knowledge taonga: treasures tohunga: experts tukutuku: woven latticework tūpuna: ancestors wānanga: events for the exchange of knowledge whakairo: carvings wharenui: meeting house

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CULTURAL HARVEST A TURNING POINT FOR ZEALANDIA TE MĀRA A TĀNE

In May the Māori Built Heritage Team at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga visited Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne in Wellington to harvest the kiekie needed to repair the Matangireia tukutuku panels.

Māori Built Heritage Team Director Ellen Andersen says the goal of the harvest was twofold: “We wanted to bring mana whenua – Taranaki Whānui ki te Upoko o Te Ika and Ngāti Toa Rangatira – and the Zealandia team into the project, and at the same time, we wanted to upskill attendees in the mātauranga associated with harvesting and preparing kiekie.”

Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne Chief Executive Danielle Shanahan says the exercise has changed the way the organisation now operates.

“It marked a turning point for us. For 20 years we’ve mostly focused on species protection. Now cultural harvesting is part of what happens here too.”

She says having a tangible connection with Matangireia is also special.

“To be part of the history of the room is incredible. Matangireia is 100 years old. It makes you think: will the kiekie fibres taken from here last as long? And what will Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne look like in another century?

“It’s likely that we will have some of our big forest giants coming through and starting to dominate – and, of course, we’ll have a stronger relationship with mana whenua and even more kiekie.”

Te Roopu Raranga o Manaia weaver and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Manager Archaeology Vanessa Tanner, who attended the workshop, says seeing kiekie up close and taking part in the harvesting process was “a weaver’s dream”.

“It was fantastic to get out on the boat under this huge cascading plant and watch Jim [Schuster] do his thing. It really was beautiful.” n

Whānau at Horoera following the launch of Ngā Tapuwae.

When a continual onslaught of thunderous rain pounded the North Island’s East Coast earlier this year, it left slips, road closures, power outages and an almighty mess in its wake. But these weather events also highlighted another ongoing danger for the region: that its history could be washed away. Back in the 1990s an idea was formed to map and record 36 pā sites dotted between the Pukeamaru Range and East Cape. The aim was to capture knowledge, and the physical clues that pinpointed the history of the area’s people, before they were lost due to erosion, bush regrowth, and animal and human activity such as development, vandalism and fossicking. Since then many sites have been recorded, almost exclusively due to the perseverance of a small group of passionate people. And now a new project is giving fresh impetus to the work as threats to these wāhi tapu ramp up due to factors such as the increasing severity of weather events. Ngā Tapuwae: In the Footsteps of our Tīpuna is a cultural mapping project that involves capturing archaeological information – such as the physical layout, size and features of wāhi tapu – alongside the mātauranga of the people to whom the sites are significant. Ngā Tapuwae was FOOTSTEPS through time launched by Te Whānau a Hunaara and Te Whānau a Tarahauiti at an event in January at Wharekāhika Hicks Bay, which included a site visit to Rangitāne Pā at Horoera. Tarahauiti was a son of WORDS: NIKI PARTSCH Hunaara, illustrating the close connection between the whānau involved with the project. And A new project as the lightest whisper of rain drifted over the capturing the descendants of Hunaara stories and as they made their way up to Rangitāne Pā, the archaeological experience evoked deep features of emotions. For many this was the first time they significant had been on the land sites on the where their ancestors were buried. East Cape Amongst the small is part of crowd was Hal Hovell, who is the Cultural and realising a Ecological Advisor for wider kaupapa Te Runanganui o Ngāti Porou. He also shares conceived decades earlier the title of Project Lead for Ngā Tapuwae with Michelle Wanoa.

1 Hal Hovell delivers his presentation during the final wānanga at Horoera.

2 Julie and Rei Kōhere.

3 Matarehua Pā site at

East Cape.

IMAGERY: JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE

“The East Coast is, archaeologically speaking, a blank screen, meaning that very few of the hundreds, if not thousands, of sites in the area … show up, for example, on

Now aged 70, Hal has almost 40 years’ experience working all over the East Coast, but his knowledge of the area goes back even further. Hal remembers a fascination with the maps and papers left behind by his surveyor grandfather and hunting in the hills with his father and uncles, who would use ancient pā site tracks and old stone boundary markers as reference points.

Later, while working as a Department of Conservation ranger in the 1980s, Hal often retraced the footsteps of his elders, and it was during this time that he witnessed the deterioration of the physical clues that pinpointed the history of his people. He knew that soon there would be nothing left – and that something needed to be done.

Also at the Ngā Tapuwae launch was Rei Kōhere, who is Deputy Chair of Te Runanganui o Ngāti Porou and farms whānau land at East Cape. Aside from farming and his governance roles, Rei spent 10 years as Senior Māori Heritage Policy Advisor at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

It was discussions between Rei and Hal during the 1990s that kicked off the kaupapa to map 36 pā sites between East Cape and the Pukeamaru Range. Mapping of these sites was considered so important to Ngāti Porou that it was included as part of negotiations for its 2010 Treaty settlement

Initially, Hal managed to secure Department of Conservation funding for a brief cultural survey of archaeological sites, and a few hundred sites were surveyed before the money ran out. After this, Hal spent much of his own time gathering and recording information, including oral histories from elders.

Also involved in the mapping of Rangitāne Pā alongside the locals on the day following the launch of Ngā Tapuwae were archaeologists Pam Bain, who is Manager Regional Services at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and New Zealand Archaeological Association Treasurer Danielle Trilford.

The work is a passion for them both. Pam has been involved with mapping sites as an archaeologist in the area since the 1980s and has driven the road north from Gisborne to remote townships like Wharekāhika Hicks Bay hundreds of times.

“I have been so privileged to be involved with this kaupapa, where the archaeology is wrapped in whakapapa, which is what cultural mapping is about,” says Pam.

Danielle met Hal in 2016 while working on a roading contract for the Gisborne District Council, where she expressed her surprise at the lack of recorded archaeological sites in the area. So she applied for some funding so she and Hal could get to work, which at one point involved recording 60 sites in just four days. Much of their subsequent work has been done with little or no funding, with Danielle using her leave and spare time to support this kaupapa.

“The East Coast is, archaeologically speaking, a blank screen, meaning that very few of the hundreds, 3

1 Chris Paringatai (right) with daughters Heni (centre) and Maumahara

Paringatai-Walker.

2 Michelle Wanoa reports on the Ngā Tapuwae project. IMAGERY: JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE

if not thousands, of sites in the area have been officially recorded. This means that the locations do not show up, for example, on maps used by the council for project planning,” she says.

A handful of children have also been involved with the mapping over the years.

Teenaged sisters Heni and Maumahara ParingataiWalker remember mapping with their cousins and their mum, Chris, from a young age. Latasha Wanoa, who is the daughter of Project Lead Michelle Wanoa, also recalls visiting sites from a young age, and beginning mapping at age nine. Now aged 22, she has a bachelor’s degree and is the Ngā Tapuwae Media and Communications Manager.

Speaking at the launch, Latasha described the cultural mapping of Rangitāne Pā as offering “a small glimpse into the richness of our history here”.

Hal says documenting the area’s wāhi tapu was always considered a race against time, but that urgency is increasing. In particular, the desire to map more than 30 pā sites is “keeping me awake at night”.

One such site is Hungahungatoroa Pā, which was first partially mapped in 2017 (see ‘The next chapter’, issue 149, Winter 2018), and “a site of lasting significance both locally and for all Ngāti Porou,” according to Rei.

As part of the 2017 mapping of the pā, Hal invited groups from two local schools to join them. Many of those rangatahi were descendants of the people who had connections to Hungahungatoroa Pā.

The students learned many things from the experience, including how the pā site became protected as part of the Pukeamaru Scenic Reserve

REVITALISING VULNERABLE MĀTAURANGA

Ngā Tapuwae has been funded by a Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga grant that was provided as part of the government’s Te Awe Kōtuku funding package. Offering $20 million of investment in the arts, culture and heritage sectors over two years, Te Awe Kōtuku supports iwi, hapū, whānau and hapori Māori to protect mātauranga Māori from the impacts and ongoing threats of Covid-19. Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga received a portion of this funding ($2 million) for a work programme to support the revitalisation of vulnerable mātauranga Māori in two areas: ancestral landscapes and Māori built heritage. n

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following objections to plans to plant the area in exotic forest during the 1980s. In December 2020, an application was made to add the Hungahungatoroa Pā site to the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero as a wāhi tapu.

At the mapping of Rangitāne Pā in January, the group carried their equipment up the steep hillside and along a narrow ridge, watched by a herd of chestnut horses grazing in the grassy paddocks below.

The purpose of the day was to record as much detail as possible of the features of the pā, including its palisades, house sites, food storage pits and terraces, and once at the top of the site Danielle advised on undertaking the work.

Among the group navigating the uneven ground were members of the next generation of whānau connected to the land, who are crucial to maintaining the momentum of this work, such as University of Waikato graduate Hinemaia Dewes.

As Pam noted on the day: “I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been to climb all over these hills – always with someone from the whānau.”

Later, cooled by a strong breeze that lifted sharply up the steep hills, the group took a moment to enjoy the magnificent view of the turquoise ocean grinding along the coastline. Also evident on the flat land below, however, were the tracks of a bulldozer, highlighting the vulnerability of such sacred sites.

Further mapping – of Matarehua Pā at East Cape – was carried out as part of the project in March. The ancestral home of Te Whānau a Tarahauiti, the pā is sited on a low terrace, making it more accessible than both the Hungahungatoroa and Rangitāne sites. However, obstacles such as trees, uneven ground and thick tussock still had to be negotiated.

It is anticipated that master’s degree students, particularly those affiliated with the area, will base their research on cultural mapping in the area as part of the ongoing kaupapa. Hal also hopes to see the completion of mapping at Hungahungatoroa Pā soon, because “the way the river is going now, we’re going to lose some [of the site]”.

And importantly, say the project’s leaders, great care is being taken to ensure that the information and mātauranga recorded during the project remain in the first instance within the control of the whānau and hapū to whom they belong.

So the work continues. “I made a promise to everyone,” says Hal, “that I would get this done.”

hapori: group, community hapū: sub-tribe kaupapa: project, initiative or principle mātauranga: knowledge rangatahi: young people wāhi tapu: site of sacred significance wānanga: place of learning whakapapa: genealogy

1 Whānau Hunaara and other attendees at Horoera.

IMAGE: JOSIE MCCLUTCHIE