NO WA! TENE! WHARE TUPUNA?
A Report on Ngati Awa Claim (Wai 46)
Commissioned by the Waitangi Tribunal
Jonathan Ngarimu Mane-Wheoki
School of Fine Arts
University of Canterbury
Christchurch
New Zealand
For the Waitangi Tribunal, Wellington
March 1993
n
No te iwi whiinui te whare nui, a Mataatua.
TIl
Contents
Whakaatu: Introduction
1
Nga Mihi: Acknowledgments
8
Abbreviations
9
Chapter I. Mataatua in Whakatane, 1870-1879
1.1. Historical Background
10
1.2. Why was Mataatua built?
12
1.3. The Original Site
20
1.4. Mataatua under construction
22
1.5. Mataatua completed
26
1.6. Mataatua Opened
28
1.7. Mataatua as Ethnological Specimen
31
1.8. Mataatua Dismantled
35
Chapter II. Mataatua Abroad, 1879-1925
2.1 The .Intercolonial Exhibition, Sydney, 1879-1880
37
2.2 The International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1881
40
2.3 The South Kensington Museum, 1882-1923
41
2.4 The British Empire Exhibition, Wembley, London, 1924
45
Chapter III. Mataatua Repatriated
3.1 The New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin,
1925-1926
47
3.2 Mataatua in the Otago Museum
50
Chapter IV. Provenance-A Question of Ownership
55
Chapter V. Stewardship of the Fabric
65
Conclusion
74
Bibliography
78
1
Whakaatu: Introduction
The task, as defined by the Waitangi Tribunal, was to produce "a report on
the history of the Mataatua Whare, ensuring that all relevant Government
files have been located and vetting any research reports provided by the
Ngati Awa (Wai 46) claimants") In following this instruction, while I am
aware that no whare whakairo has been the object of more intensive study
by scholars, government officers and various interest groups than this
particular example, I have found it necessary to reconstruct a history of
Mataatua in considerably more detail than has appeared hitherto in any
published record in order to identify and interpret the most pertinent issues.
My account of the building's history is as complete as I can make it, given
the extremely narrow timeframe within which I had to produce it. I am only
too aware of the fact that it would be possible, and desirable, to write a more
complete history of what is the oldest Ngati Awa whare tupuna in
existence.
For the present, however, I am satisfied that I have located most of the
relevant Government documents extant in New Zealand archival
repositories, mainly in Wellington and Dunedin, but it has not proved
possible to track down every last paper. One major holding of Maori Affairs
correspondence for 1879 and 1880 has, unfortunately, not survived, while
some of the documents listed in the Internal Affairs Registers in the
National Archives as having been carried forward to IA 13.127. Sub. No. 27,
a file which is deposited with the Museum of New Zealand, have been
misplaced, presumably through carelessness or unrecorded migration to
other files or failure on the part of previous borrowers to return them.
1
Waitangi Tribunal Concerning the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975 and the Ngati Awa Claim (Wai 46):
Directions to Commission Research, with letter from Jeanette Henry to J. N. Mane-Wheoki, for
Registrar, Waitangi Tribunal, 4 November, 1992.
2
There are annotations on several documents that refer to a file DM
[Dominion Museum] 18.4. Sub. No. 1 but this does not appear on the
archives list of the Museum of New Zealand. I am pleased that I was able to
examine files on Mataatua held in the Otago Museum where copies of some
of the missing Internal Affairs documents, and one or two of the originals,
were found.
On the Government side, the records, while incomplete, are nevertheless
fairly extensive. My reconstruction of Mataatua's "wanderings" is heavily
dependent on these official papers as well as what survives in the form of
reports and letters, published and unpublished, by Pakeha observers or
participants in the building'S history. Among the earliest of these
eyewitnesses were Herbert Brabant and Captain George Preece, respectively
Resident Magistrates at Tauranga and Opotiki. In March 1875 the Native
Minister, Sir Donald McLean (1820-1877), advised Ngati Awa that "All
arrangements they made with the Government respecting their lands would
be made through Mr Preece."l
Preece was to serve as the intermediary between the Colonial Government
and Ngati Awa in negotiating the loan of Mataatua for exhibition at the
Intercolonial Exhibition in Sydney. It was Preece who relayed to the
Government his understanding that Ngati Awa had gifted Mataatua to the
Government. Of the Ngati Awa chiefs, Wepiha Apanui was probably the key
figure in the negotiations for the whare' s release, but it is not always clear in
some of the documents whether the Apanui referred to is Wepiha or his
father Apanui Te Hamaiwaho. It is the son's voice which is heard, however,
if at second hand, in 'The History of the Carved House "Mata[altua",'
recorded by Preece directly from conversations with Wepiha, ["Mrs Preece
1 BFT, 13 March, 1875.
3
wrote it out as I translated it .... " 1] and published in the Appendices to the
Journal of the House of Representatives in 1879.2 In any attempt to establish
the provenance of Mataatua, therefore, a great deal hinges on what Wepiha
intended and Preece understood from the transaction which took place in
Whakatane in that year.
Once the whare had been secured for the Government, responsibility for
Mataatua fell to a succession of anthropologists and ethnologists employed
within the New Zealand museum world. At various times Ministers of
Native Affairs, Internal Affairs and Industries and Commerce; and
government representatives abroad, particularly in Britain, also played key
roles in determining Matatua's fate. The first of these figures was Dr [later
Sir] James Hector (1834-1907) who in 1879 was appointed executive
commssioner to the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition, and reappointed to
serve in that capacity for the International Exhibition in Melbourne the
following year. 3 At the conclusion of the Melbourne Exhibition, the Colonial
Secretary, John Hall, arranged for the whare to be presented to the South
Kensington Museum, through Francis Dillon Bell, the New Zealand
government's Agent-General in London.
During the course of an exercise documenting taonga in British museums
in 1916, Henry Devenish Skinner (1887-
) learned of a dismantled whare
whakairo which had been stored in the basement of the Victoria and Albert
Museum in London for thirty years. 4 This turned out to be Mataatua, the
treasure which had been gifted to the Imperial Government in 1882. After
1 George Preece in correspondence with Gilbert Mair, 6 December, 1922. Mair 6, MS Papers 92, folder
1 31A.ATL.
2 AJHR, 1879, GA., 1.
3 G. H. Scholefield, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, I (Wellington, 1940), 374-6.
4 Margaret Austen, Minister of Internal Affairs, 'Mataatua Meeting House in Otago Museum: Ngati
Awa Claim', Cabinet Committee on Treaty of Waitangi Issues. Date-stamped 17 May 1990.
4
Skinner's appointment as Lecturer in Ethnology at the University College of
Otago in 1919, the issue of Mataatua's repatriation to New Zealand was
pursued by Sir James Allen (1855-
), High Commissioner for New
Zealand from 1920-1926) The whare was erected as part of the New
Zealand Government's display at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924, after
which it was shipped back to the Dominion and erected at the New Zealand
and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in 1925. Skinner and Professor [later
Sir] William Benham (1860-
), who was Professor of Biology at the
University College, Otago from 1898-1937,2 were both instrumental in
securing Mataatua for the Otago Museum.
Up to this point the only published account of Mataatua was Preece's. Dr J. C.
Wadmore [MRCS, LRCP] a General Practitioner in Whakatane and officeholder 3 in the Bay of Plenty Maori and Historical Research Society during
the 1920s and 1930s, is extremely important as a later source of information
about the whare. 4 His accounts of Mataatua were based on "the testimony of
reliable Natives who saw the original building of this structure .... "5 In 1934,
for example, Wadmore advised Skinner that he had sought further
information about Mataatua from Mrs Emily Stewart, "the sister of the late
chief Hurunui Apanui".6 Wadmore had been collecting material towards a
publication on Mataatua when he died in 1941. His researches, carried
forward by W.
J. Phillipps, were ready for publication in 1946,7 but as funding
1 G. H. Scholefield, Who's Who in New Zealand (Wellington, 1941), 56.
2 ibid., 78.
3 In 1935 he was serving as Honorary Secretary ["Mataatua Papers", MONZ.]; Phillipps states that
Wadmore "had been for a number of years President"of the Society [Phillips/Wadmore, 2.]
4 See his entry on Mataatua ["The Maori House"] in the Official Record of the New Zealand and
clearly
South Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin 1925-1926 (Dunedin, 1926),36-37, which is
based on a manuscript held in the Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa. (Wellington,
1956).
5 Dunedin Exhibition Report, 37.
6 Wadmore to Skinner, 13 July & 143 July 1934. 'Mataatua-Various Papers'. MONZ.
7 Phillipps to Skinner, 11 June 1946. 'Mataatua-Various Papers'. MONZ.
5
was not immediately available, the book did not appear until ten years later.1
Although the Phillipps/Wadmore version of Mataatua's history is riddled
with misinformation, the work is still valuable in that it remains the only
detailed and scholarly analysis of the iconography of the carvings to date.
While an account of the building'S iconographical programme and an
assessment of the style and quality of the carvings is integral to the larger
history of Mataatua, I have adjudged it to be beyond the scope of the present
enquiry. There are also legal, political and moral aspects to the claim on
which I have not felt particularly well qualified to comment.
The people who actually carved and built and painted, and wove panels for,
Mataatua will be held in revered remembrance by their Ngati Awa
descendents. In the official documents, however, they exist only as shadowy
presences. Transactions between the tribe and the Colonial Government
seem mostly to have been conducted orally, although letters by Tiopira
Hukiki 2 from Kokohinau Marae [Te Teko] survive to demonstrate that, at
that time, at least one Ngati Awa rangatira was able to read and write. This
report attempts to render those shadows as more substantial figures so that
Ngati Awa's side of the story of Mataatua can be balanced against the
opposing institutional account which it is possible to document extensively
from existing archival material. Intriguingly, what emerges from the
exercise is that differing interpretations may be drawn from the same body of
historical material when it is examined against different timeframes,
conceptual frameworks, value and belief systems, and languages. It seems
inevitable that an ethnocentric account of the whare will be diametrically
oppposed to a Eurocentric one; in such circumstances the potential for
intercultural miSinterpretation and misunderstanding is considerable.
1
2
W. J. Phillipps & J. c. Wadmore, The Great Carved House Matatua of Whakatane.
1956.
Tiopira [Te] Hukiki of Pahipoto [lay reader, Anglican church]
Wellington,
6
After Mataatua had left Whakatane, Ngati Awa seem to have resigned
themselves to the probability that they would never see their whare tupuna
again. Nothing much would be heard from those who created the whare or
their descendents for more than a century. The present generation have
been galvanized into action, however, through their Trust Board (formed in
November 1980), to negotiate for its repatriation to Whakatane (as part of a
larger claim against the New Zealand government for the redress of
longstanding grievances, some of which date back to the 1860s).1 To this end
the Runanga
0
Ngati Awa have published two substantial research reports
in support of their claim: one by Tom Woods, Te Ripoata a te Tari Maori e
(1989), the other
pa ana ki te tono a Ngati Awa rno ton a whare rno Mataatua
by Hirini Moko Mead and others, Nga Karoretanga
0
Mataatua Whare
(1990). The first sets out to establish a legal perspective on the issue, while
the second places Mataatua more solidly within its historical context, and
brings moral and ethical considerations to bear on the subject. The claimants
refute the Government's assertions that Mataatua was either presented to
Queen Victoria or to Sir Donald McLean for the government of the day; or
that they relinquished ownership of the whare when it was given up for the
purposes of display at the Sydney Exhibition in 1879.
But why the long silence? As with other iwi, it seems to have taken four or
five generations for Ngati Awa to overcome their sense of powerlessness. In
1875 the Native Minister had firmly told them: "It is well you should
remember that the Pakeha can do anything he makes up his mind to do; be
satisfied on that point."2 And so it has seemed to Ngati Awa with respect to
Mataatua. However, the resurgence of Maori nationalism and culture which
1
2
See, for example, Hirini Moro Mead et ai, Te Murunga Hara: The Pardon. Research report No.1
(Whakatane, 1989, revised).
7
has been gathering force since 1975 has come to raise certain expectations
with respect to settlement of longstanding Maori grievances. Perhaps it
needed four to five generations for Maori to acquire the skills of their
colonisers in order to counter the effects of colonisation.
8
Nga Mihi
Rangatira rna, nga mihi ki a koutou katoa.
The present report acknowledges the wealth of material Ngati Awa's
researches have uncovered, and makes good use of much of it. At the same
time, however, this report seeks to establish an independent and impartial
position and-avoiding the aggrieved tone, emotive language and
anticipatory sense of success which permeate the claimants' second reportto focus on the issues of ownership and provenance examined critically
within their historical contexts.
I am most grateful to staff in the manuscripts section of the Alexander
Turnbull Library and the National Archives, and to Arapata Hakiwai and
Ross O'Rourke of the Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa, all in
Wellington, Dr Dimitri Anson of the Otago Museum, and Paul Bushnell,
Christchurch, for their assistance, and to Peter Muir, Lecturer in the Maori
Department, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, for checking a
translation for me; and to Buddy Mikaere for directing my attention to an
odd but extremely useful book. I also made good use of the Wellington
Public Library, the National Library, the Canterbury Public Library, and the
University of Canterbury Library.
Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
Christchurch, March 1993
9
Abbreviations
AJHR
Appendices to the Journals of the House of
Representatives
ATL
Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington
BPT
Bay of Plenty Times
IA
Department of Internal Affairs
MA
Department of Maori Affairs
MONZ
Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa
Ngati Awa 1
Te Ripoata a te Tari Maori e pa ana ki te tono a Ngati
Awa mo tona whare mo Mataatua. The Report of the
Department of Maori Affairs on the Claim of Ngati
Awa for the Return of Matatua House. Prepared by
Tom Woods and the Legal Division at head Office.
Information Booklet No.1. Whakatane, 1989.
Ngati Awa 2
Nga Karoretanga 0 Matatua Whare. The Wanderings
of the Carved House, Mataatua. Research Report No.
2. Whakatane, 1990.
ODT
Otago Daily Times
OM
Otago Museum, Dunedin
Phillipps
W,
Phillips/Wadmore
W.
J. Phillipps, Carved Maori Houses of Western and
Northern Areas of New Zealand. Wellington, 1955.
J.
J.
C. Wadmore, The Great Carved
House Mataatua of Whakatane. Wellington, 1956.
Phillipps &
10
CHAPTER I. MATAATUA IN WHAKATANE, 1870-1879
1.1
Historical background
Mataatua was built in Whakatane by Ngati Awa during a period of
reconstruction and reconciliation following a series of debilitating and
demoralising conflicts, first with the forces of the Colonial Government
from 1865, and then with Te Kooti's warriors in 1869.1 The second Ngati
Awa Report alleges that the tribal houses of the region had been destroyed
in the army's "scorch and burn" policy in 1865,2 but it is possible that the
predecessor of Mataatua was destroyed instead by government troops in
1867, along with a sacred tree called "Te Puhi-o-Mataatua", 3 which grew on
the
papa kainga
waka
near the site where, according to tradition, the Mataatua
was beached. 4 It may even have burned down on "the 9th March,
1869, [when] the European settlement at Whakatane was destroyed by Te
Kooti and his followers. "5 Two earlier houses are said to have stood on the
marae: they were Te Whare-o-Ranga-Tapu and Tupapakurau,6 respectively,
a "remote predecessor" and the "immediate predecessor".7
1 "On 9 March 1869, these warriors moved down from the Urewera Mountains. A detachment of sixty
men was sent to recruit among the Ngati Manawa, and perhaps to establish a base at Tauaroa,
while Te Kooti and the remaining 100 men marched to the Ngati Pukeko pa of Raupora, three miles
from
Whakatane. Te Kooti began by attempting to negotiate, but the garrison apparently suspected
him
of treachery and opened fire. He then besieged the pa, while detachments looted and burned
Whakatane village and Te Poronu mill, killing the French miller and two Maori women. But there
was no wholesale slaughter of civilians, and after a gallant resistance, the garrison of Raupora 'made
a sort of treaty with Te Kooti', and evacuated their pa. " James Belich, The New Zealand Wars and
the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. (Auckland, 1986,) 276.
2 Ngati Awa 2,12.
3 In the"History of the Carved House "Mata[altua" [AJHR, 1879, C.-4., p. 1], Preece states that it was a
rata tree. But Wadmore, in a letter to Skinner (undated, c. 1934, 'Mataatua-Varous Papers',
MONZ), is adamant that: "There was no 'rata'. I suppose they mean pohutukawa."
4 ibid. This was a time of terrible reprisals. See Belich, 128, re: "punitive and harsh land confiscations",
for Ngati Awa had been involved in the Tauranga Campaign and may have sent fighters to the
Waikato.
5 Editorial, BPT, 13 March 1875.
6 Mihi Takotohiwi, Nga Marae 0 Whakatane (Hamilton, 1980), 68. ".. .it remains undetermined
whether a succession of whare nui named Tupapakurau were built from the time of Toroa to the
year
1872." ibid., 69.
7 Phillips j Wadmore,3.
11
Hohaia Matatehokia,l a chief of Ngati Pukeko [who had been ensconced in
Whakatane since early March 1869, when they were forced to abandon their
pa at Rauporoa during Te Kooti's raids] is credited with the idea of building
an immediate replacement for the whare. 2 It must have been around 1869
or 1870 when he "consulted with Wepiha Apanui and other Natives and
with Major Mair. "3
However, the matter is said to have been left in
abeyance "for about two years, when the whole tribe took up the matter, and
decided to build a house and represent all their ancestors in it. "4 In March
1875 the Bay of Plenty Times reported that "Apanui [Te Hamaiwaho], the
old chief of Whakatane" had "begun the carving over five years ago,
assisted to a very great extent by skilled carvers and decorators from other.
tribes."5 A year earlier the Times had published an English translation of a
letter by Tiopira [Hukiki] which must originally have been written in Maori,
in which he states that "The month in which the house was erected was
March 1873."6 This must be a mistranslation from the original (which is
lost), and presumably refers to the date when work on the whare resumed
in earnest, for the house had yet to be erected. On 7 February 1874 Herbert
Brabant included in a letter to the Native Minister a request from Apanui to
let McLean know that the wharenui was ready to put up.
1 He was one of the Signatories of the Treaty of Waitangi, 16 June 1840. See: Miria Simpson, Nga Tohu
o Te Tiriti: Making a Mark (Wellington, 1990), 65.
2 AJHR, 1879, G.-4, 1; repeated by Phillips/Wadmore, 3.
3 ibid. See also Brabant's reference to "the admiration which this house (a great part of which was
carved by his own hand) has excited, and caused the old chief Apanui great pleasure ... " [AJHR, II,
1875, G.-lA, p. 4]
4 AJHR, 1879, GA., 1. Brabant, 1874, "the carving of the posts for which has occupied him and some of
his people for years."
5 BTP, 13 March, 1875.
6 BPT, 18 March, 1874.
12
1.2
Why was Mataatua built?
Although the most obvious explanation for the decision to rebuild was the
immediate need or desire to replace the whare which had been destroyedand perhaps to commemorate the recently destroyed sacred tree "Te Puhi-oMataatua" as well-other reasons have been advanced for the decision.
H. D. Skinner states that the whare "was built to be given as a dowry to
Mereana Mokomoko, who married Taipari, chief of Thames."l The
evidence for this assertion comes from Mereana as recounted by Gilbert
Mair in an article published in the Transactions of the New Zealand
Institute in 1897. 2 Skinner also states that when the carving for Mataatua
was completed "the pare was shipped to Thames as a forerunner."3
In August 1874 Brabant reported that: "Apanui's daughter (Taipari's wife)
has come down from the Thames and has brought two tons of flour as a
present."4 Her visit, and the extent of her koha, may indicate a personal
interest in this particular whare. In 1897 Mereana recalled that she had been
invited to return to Whakatane from Hauraki, together with her husband,
Taipari, and her father-in-law, Hotereni, in order to take Mataatua away,
"but before we could go Sir Donald McLean visited Whakatane, and
Ngatiawa, to show their aroha, gave him the house."s However, McLean's
observation, at the reception held in his honour in March 1875 in
Whakatane, that "Apanui has carried his long talked of design into effect;
he has built this large house in his old age, and has left a handsome work
whereby he will be remembered when he is gone from amongst you,"6 gives
1 q. Phillipps/Wadmore, 33.
2· The Building of Hotunui', Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 30 (1897).
3 q. Phillipps/Wadmore, 33. This is not mentioned, however, in Barton/Reynolds, Hotunui: The
Restoration of a Meeting House.
4 MS Papers 32: 1870-1876. ATL; q. Ngati Awa 2, 17.
S Mearana Mokomoko, liThe Building of Hotunui", Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 30
(1897),41.
6 ibid.
13
no indication that the whare belonged to anyone but the chief or the tribe. A
year later Brabant was reporting that work on a new whare was under way:
"... old Apanui has undertaken the carving of a large house for Taipari of the
Thames who has sent 100 pounds on account") This was Hotunui, the
whare now in the Auckland Museum.
At some point the building of Mataatua had acquired a larger and different
significance, a political one. It was now intended "to mend the breaks in the
tatau pounamu between Ngati Awa and Tuhoe" which had been breached
during the Te Kooti campaign,2 or, 'hs Captain George Preece, Resident
Magistrate of Opotiki, put it, "to reconcile the tribes Ngatiawa and Urewera,
between whom there existed much ill-feeling in consequence of murders
perpetrated by the latter tribe during the war."3 [The iconographical schema,
said to have been devised by Wepiha Apanui, to celebrate the ancestors of
Ngati Awa and its allies, is set out in Preece's "History of the Carved House
'Mata[a]tua'," and published in the Appendices to the Journal of the House
of Representatives in 1879. 4 ]
At one stage Mataatua was also proferred as a symbol of reconciliation not
only among iwi of the region but between those iwi and the Crown. In a
letter written by Tiopira on Wepiha Apanui and Patara Toihau's behalf, and
dated 4 October 1873,5 "The desire of the people above mentioned [Apanui,
Tamarangi, Rangitukehu and Kaperiere] ... that this house should be for
Queen Victoria," was conveyed to the Minister of Native Affairs, Donald
McLean (1820-77).
1 MS 32/171:1870-76. q. Ngati Awa Report 2,20.
2 NgatiAwa2,14.
3 "History of the Carved House "Mata[a]tua","AfHR, 1879, GA., l.
4
ibid.
5
BPT 18 March 1874
14
This stated intention has been interpreted by later writers as a completed
action. According to Dr
J.
C. Wadmore, for instance, Mataatua was
"presented to the late Queen Victoria .... "l The information is repeated by W.
J.
Phillipps [in a book on Mataatua co-authored by Wadmore] with an
embellishment: "In 1875, during a visit of Sir Donald McLean ... the
Whakatane Maoris presented this house to Queen Victoria .... "2 and again in
an article published in the Otago Daily Times in 1987, Richard Skinner (son
of Dr H. D. Skinner, the distinguished anthropologist who had overseen the
erection of Mataatua in the Otago Museum during the late 1920s).3 In
December 1969 G. S. Parke advised the Secretary of Internal Affairs that the
whare had been "given by the Whakatane people, albeit not unanimously,
to Queen Victoria".4 [This is followed by a statement that cannot be entirely
correct: "It was eventually given by her to the New Zealand Government,
for display at the 1925-6 Exhibition."s The Queen had died in 1901.] Although
the Ngati Awa Report accuses Phillipps and Wadmore of inaccuracy, bias
and misrepresentation,6 Wadmore's original account of Mataatua, first
printed and displayed in the whare when it was shown at the Dunedin
Exhibition in 1925, was said to be based on "the testimony of reliable Natives
who saw the original building of this structure."7 Since this was some fifty
years after the whare had been opened in Whakatane, it would hardly be
1
2
3
4
S
6
7
" .... and subsequently £200 was received by them in recognition of this unique gift." Dunedin
Exhibition Report, 36.
q. Phillipps/Wadmore, 4.
'How Maori Meeting House came to Otago Museum', Otago Daily Times, 13 November, 1987.
C. S. Park to Secretary of Internal Affairs, 9 December 1969.1A file, 1880-1969 'Mataatua'. Series 13.
127. Sub. No.27. Museum of New Zealand.
ibid.
Ngati Awa 2,19.
Copies of the handbill are held in the Mataatua file, Otago Museum. The statement was published
in the Official Record of the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin-19251926, 36-37.
15
(
surprising if the memories of Wadmore's informants were confused or hazy
about details of the building's history.
There is no evidence to show that Mataatua was presented to either the
Queen or the Native Minister at the time of his visit to Whakatane in
March 1875. Of the two letters published in the Bay of Plenty Times
in
March 1874,1 the first, written by Tiopira on behalf of Wepiha Apanui and
Patara Toihau, and addressed to McLean, is conciliatory in tone and the offer
seems genuine and sincere. But what did Ngati Awa intend by this gesture?
Had there been some prior informal (and unrecorded) exchange between
Ngati Awa and McLean to ascertain whether such a gift would be acceptable
before the offer was put in writing? Was it understood that if the gift were
accepted the whare
might be dismantled and re-erected elsewhere on
another site, perhaps even in England, as the Queen or her representatives
determined? Or had Ngati Awa intended thewhare
to remain in
Whakatane as a Queen's house in name only, as a symbol of their "loyalty
and goodwill"?
In his reply, (the second letter published in the Bay of Plenty Times ), H. T.
Clarke, the Under-Secretary for the Native Department, stated:
... you have heard Mr McLean's words in answer to that letter. .. Their
[the chiefs'] desire to present the house to the Queen is commendable,
and the Government appreciates your expressions of loyalty and
goodwill. With respect to the house, let the offer you have made
suffice. 2
1
18 March 1874.
2
ibid.
16
Although we do not know what McLean's response was or how it was
communicated-was it verbally or by letter?l- Clarke must be reiterating a
pronouncement already delivered by the Minister.
The question of what was intended by Ngati Awa with respect to Mataatua
and how it was understood by the Government is complicated by the fact
that information had to be translated between two languages (and two
conceptual frameworks). The Maori text of Clarke's letter has survived;2
Tiopira's letter, which must originally have been written in Maori, is
known only from the English translation published in the Bay of Plenty
Times. Could he really have stated in Maori that "the month in which the
house was erected was March 1873" when Mataatua was not completed until
late 1874 or early 1875? Given the timeframe of the whare's construction, he
would seem more likely to have stated that
work on the house had
resumed in March 1873.
Subsequent negotiations between Ngati Awa and the Government over the
whare indicate that it had not been presented to Queen Victoria, and that
Ngati Awa had retained ownership. Thus, when the Secretary to the Native
Department wrote, "let the offer you have made suffice," he meant that the
generosity of Ngati Awa's offer of the whare as a gift to the Queen was so
convincing as a demonstration of their loyalty and goodwill to the Crown
that there was no necessity to carry it through.
As a symbol of reconciliation, the collaborative effort which saw the whare
completed was wholly effective. When seven hundred representatives of
the Mataatua confederation of tribes assembled "together in a spirit of peace
1
2
No report or letter has been traced.
MA 4/80 1874/164, 562-3. Archives.
17
and goodwill" for a hui with Sir Donald McLean [he had been knighted in
1874] on 9 March 1875-six years to the day since Whakatane had been
sacked by Te Kooti and his followers-an editorial in the Bay of Plenty
Times
reflected on the different atmosphere which now prevailed,
compared with five years earlier: "Where we had war and rumours of war,
we now have peace and tranquillity; instead of a constant apprehension of a
call to arms, we have a future of quiet work; and in the place of open
hostility, we have a kindly and reciprocal feeling towards our native friends
of every tribe. "1
Further afield, however, the chiefs' motives in building the whare were
under deep suspicion. McLean informed Ngati Awa, at the reception held in
his honour inside the whare
2
on 8 March 1875, that their "intentions have
been misunderstood by some tribes."3 Although Ngapuhi, for instance, had
been invited to attend the Ngati Awa hui with the Native Minister, they
told him that they baulked at the suggestion that Mataatua was "intended as
a place in which to discuss and devise matters intimately connected with the
welfare of this island"4-w hich they interpreted as foreshadowing yet
another call to take up arms against the Crown, and declined to attend.
[Indeed, no tribe outside the Mataatua confederation seems to have been
represented at the hui.] But in his annual report to the Native Minister in
1874, Brabant had already advised that "Ngati Awa do not appear, during the
past year [mid-1873 to mid-1874], to have been so much interested in political
questions as formerly."5
1 BFT, 13 March, 1875, 'The Visit of the Honourable Sir Donald McLean to Whakatane'
2 "...the house in which Sir Donald then sat...." ibid.
3 BFT, 13 March 1875.
4 ibid.
5 AJHR, 1874, C.-2.
18
The probability that Mataatua was built primarily to serve not only as a
wharepun i but as a whare runanga is indicated by a reference in the
summary description of Mataatua published in the Bay of Plenty Times that
"in the evening, the building is lighted by a large five burner chandelier,
besides sundry large reflecting lamps along the walls."l The possibility that it
was built as a whare runanga
accounts for the negative view which its
detractors were apt to hold about Ngati Awa's invitation to attend a hui in
the building.
Wepiha ... said that it appeared that a report had been set afloat by some
industrious mischief-makers to the effect that the house ... was
intended for bad, political and insurrectionary purposes. (This refers
to an old Maori custom of building carved houses at the opening of
which great questions, especially of war on neighbouring tribes, were
discussed and plans determined upon.)2
His strenuous denial of "evil" intentions was reiterated at the reception by
Te Hata and Hira Te Popo [whose exclamation, "none whatever", returned
dramatically in an echo from the hills immediately behind the whare].
Wepiha remarked that the hostility emanated, rather, from tribes "who
were jealous of the prestige of their [Ngati Awa's]
ancestors, which his
father Apanui was determined to restore. "3 He further observed that those
tribes had asserted that Ngati Awa were incapable of erecting such a whare
as Mataatua, implying that they were vexed to find themselves proved
wrong. McLean "knew quite well that a great many of the reports were
intended to humble the Ngatiawa, and keep them down; they persevered,
and 'Mata[a]tua' was the result."4
1
BPT, 13 March 1875.
2
ibid. 13 March 1875.
3
4
ibid.
ibid.
19
In 1897 Apanui's daughter, Mereana Mokomoko, recalled that she had been
invited to return to Whakatane from Hauraki, together with her husband
Taipari and her father-in-law Hotereni in order to take Mataatua away, "but
before we could go Sir Donald McLean visited Whakatane, and Ngatiawa, to
show their aroha,
gave him the house."l But McLean's observation that
"Apanui has carried his long talked of design into effect; he has built this
large house in his old age, and has left a handsome work whereby he will be
remembered when he is gone from amongst you,"2 gives no indication that
the whare belonged to anyone but the chief or the tribe. Mataatua was not
built as a residence for, or a monument to, Apanui. It is abundantly clear
that the patriarch, as the first carver to make a start on the work, hoped to
expedite the reinstatement of Ngati Awa's mana which had been so
grievously damaged by the recent conflicts, and by means of a fully realised
and superbly carved iconographical programme to send out positive and
optimistic signals to the people of the Mataatua conferation. Thus the whare
became a rallying point for tribal unity.
1
2
Mearana Mokomoko, "The Building of Hotunui", Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 30
(1897),41.
ibid.
20
1.3
The Original Site
There is some confusion in the Ngati Awa Report over the original site of
Mataatua /1 but this can be pinpointed fairly precisely. Much has been made
of the length and depth of the Whakatane River negotiable by shippingi
and of the echo resounding from "the precipitous hills of Whakatane
immediately in the rear of the large house just erected"/3 at the time of Sir
Donald McLean's visit [andl laterl that of Rewi Maniopoto4] to Mataatual and
competing sites have been proposed. 5 However, a manuscript attributable to
Dr
J.
C. Wadmore, and written about 1925 /6 states that "the predecessor of the
present meeting house at Whare-o-Toroa Pal just beyond the New Wharf, is
none other than the famous Mataatua whare runanga ... erected at
Whakatane somewhat behind the present building [my emphasis]"7
Certainly, Mataatua's convenient location close to the river basin would
have made the dismantling and loading of the whare a relatively
straightforward matter.
Wadmore's information about Mataatua came, as we have already noted,
from "reliable Natives who saw the original building of this structure .... "g A
few years later, however, he was to write to Skinner: "I think one would be
right in assuming the house was never erected at Whakatane-which is Mr
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
g
According to Mead, Mataatua was "erected on land that had been returned to Ngati Awa following
wholesale confiscations in 1866". See: Hirini Moko Mead, 'Tribal Art as Symbols of Identity', in Art
and Identity in Oceania, ed. Allan Hamson and Louise Hanson (Honolulu, 1990), 275.
Ngati Awa 2, 49 ff.See also: Anton van der Wouden, 'Where was Mataatua built?', Historical
Review, 40:2 (1992), 99-101.
ibid.
W. T. Parham, 'Rewi Maniopoto comes to Whakatane', Historical Review, 29:2, 1981.
Ngati Awa 2, 49 ff.
An entry on Mataatua ["The Maori House"] in the Official Record of the New Zealand and South
Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin 1925-1926 (Dunedin, 1926), 36-37, and ascribed to Wadmore,
is obviously based on this manuscript. Arapata Hakiwai, Kaitiaki Maori at the Museum of New
Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa, drew Anton van der Wouden's attention to the existence of this
manuscript [see n.4] but does not identify Wadmore as the writer.
IA file, MONZ.
Dunedin Exhibition Report, 37.
21
Geo. Graham's assertion." 1 The grounds for this apparent volte-face are not
given. Mihi Takotohiwi's researches show that: "Prior to the erection of
Wairaka House, three other wharenui are known to have stood on Te
Whare
0
Toroa (an earlier name for Wairaka)." We are told that "these
houses were Whare-o-Ranga-Tapu, Tupapakurau and Mataatua."2 This is
perhaps corroborated by a note,3 "Preece re Mataatua or Wairaka",4 on the
back of a letter (dated 6 December 1922), and in the same handwriting, by
George Preece, who, as Resident Magistrate in Opotiki, had negotiated with
Ngati Awa on behalf of the Colonial Government, for Mataatua to be
released for exhibition in Sydney in 1879.
Finally, for historic, symbolic and emotional reasons the Wairaka Marae site
seems likely because of its close proximity to the spot where, according to
tradition, the Mataatua waka was beached. The whare may commemorate
not only the waka but also the sacred tree, "Te Puhi-o-Mataatua", 5 which
had grown nearby, and had recently been destroyed by Government troops.
1 Wadmore to Skinner, 14 July 1934. Graham had suggested to Skinner [11 March 1930] that Maataua
had never been erected at Whakatane. Mataatua-Various Papers. MONZ.
2 Mihi Iakotohiwa, Nga Marae 0 Whakatane (p.6S), quoted in A. van der Wouden, 'Where was
Mataatua built?', Historical Review, 40:2, November 1992, p. 101.
3 MS Papers 92 Folder 13A G. Mair. AIL.
4 "I think I afterwards heard that Ngati Awa built a smaller house and named it as stated by you but
this was after I left Opotiki." [Preece, 6 Dec, 1922) First Wairaka meeting house, 1894 - burned down.
Second Wairaka meeting house, 1912.
5 "History of the Carved House "Mata[a]tua", AJHR, 1879, GA., p. 1.
22
1.4
Mataatua under Construction
Although the whare is thought to have had its genesis around 1870, and
carving was begun by Apanui Te Hamaiwaho at that time, work on
Mataatua resumed in earnest in March 1873, by which time the team of
builders and carvers may be presumed to have assembled. The whare is said
to have been designed by Wepiha Apanui,l who was also the chief carver;
construction of the building proceeded under the supervision of Paniora [Te
Whanau-a-Apanui]. The carvers included Tiopira Hukiki [of Kokohinau]
and Te Putere of Rangitaiki; Tikitiki [Te Whakatohea]; Mohetai [Tuhoe, Te
Urewera]; and Te Wikirihotu of Patuwai. 2 At the reception for McLean in
March 1875, Te Hata of Raukokore, "the principal chief of Te Kaha", also
described himself as having been "intimately connected with the erection of
the house, and had assisted in its operations."3
How much credence can be given to Dr Wi Repa's suggestion, contained in a
letter to Wadmore in 1934,4 and repeated in Phillipps and Wadmore's book,
that a team of Whanau-a-Apanui carvers completed the whare, is hard to
establish. 5 According to Wi Repa's informants, a team of carvers-Paniora,
Haha Mouhara, Heremia, Wi Taokuku, Wairua, Mihaera, Rura and
Teira 6-from Te Kaha, under the leadership of Matenga Peraro, completed
1 Phillipps/Wadmore,6
2 Hotunui was carved by a Ngati Awa team under the direction of Wepiha Apanui between 1875 and
1878. Members of the team included Rangitukehu te Wharerewa, Tiopora Hukiki, Te Putere and Te
Pirini. Gerry Barton & David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of a Meeting House (Auckland,
1985),5. "Te Tiki-o-Taumata''', The Spa, Taupo, was 'carved by the famous carver Wero and his
assistants somewhere about 1875'. 'There are some features of this house which appear to connect it
up with Mataatua ... and it is possible that Whakatane carvers also assisted Wero in the work.'
Phillipps, 184, 188. A group of seven Whakatane carvers was also engaged in the construction of
"Tumakaurangi", Opaea, Taihape, opened in August 1896. Te Wano was one of the leading carvers
in this group. Phillipps, 68.
3 BPT, 13 March 1875.
4 A typescript of this letter, with some statements and passages worded differently from the account
published by Phillipps and Wadmore is filed with the Otago Museum's Mataatua Papers.
5 Ngati Awa 2, 15.
6 The last six were sons of Ahiwaru, who had signed the Treaty of Waitangi. See: Miria Simpson, Nga
Tohu 0 Te Tiriti, 63.
23
the work after the original team was dismissed by Wepiha.1 However, the
suggestion that the new team-now led by Wi Taokuku as Matenga's
replacement-went to on Thames to "carryon the carving of Hotunui"2
does not square with accounts given either by Wadmore in 1925 or in a
recent published history of Hotunui. 3
If there were changes of personnel, this may have been due, at least in part,
to the fact that in 1874
Ngati Pukeko returned to their papa kainga up-
river,4 and were in dispute with Ngati Awa over their respective rohe. 5
[Their differences appear to have been resolved, however, by March 1875,
when Ngati Pukeko were fully represented at the hui
with the Native
Minister.]
Mataatua was, of course, erected in the traditional manner directly on a
levelled piece of ground, with the bases of the principal support posts sunk
into the ground. 6 [Ettie Rout was later to observe that the poutokomanawa
"had been shortened at both ends so that the plain part of the base, intended
to be sunk into the ground to a depth of some 2ft. 6 in., had been sawn off."7]
Its original orientation is said to have "conformed to the ancient rule that
the tahu must run north and south so that the spirits of the dead on their
way to Te Reinga would not have to cross it."8
1 Phillipps/Wadmore, 33.
2 Wi Repa in Phillipps/Wadmore, 33.
3 Cerry Barton and David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of a meeting House (Auckland, 1985),
5.
4 Herbert W. Brabant, R. M., Opotiki to the Hon the Native Minister, 25 May 1874, AJHR, II, 1874, C.2., No.8, p. 7, : "Of the Whakatane Natives, the Ngatipukeko have left their pa at Whakatane, and
gone again to reside up the river ... "
5 24 Sept 1874, letter from Assistant Native Secretary to Henry Halse re: dispute between Ngatiawa
and Ngatipukeko over boundaries of their respective tribes.
6 "From 1900 onwards the Department of Health, working through Maori councils, campaigned for
better health standards in meeting houses. The traditional sunken earth floor gave way to a raised
floor of wood or concrete. The windowless back wall was frowned upon and because of fire and
insurance difficulties, the thatched roof was replaced by corrugated iron." 'Trible Houses', in Historic
Buildings of New Zealand: North Island, ed. Frances Porter (Auckland, 1979), 68-69.
7 Ettie Rout, 127.
8 Phillipps/Wadmore,6.
24
The totara timber of which the whare was built is said to have come from
Pekapekatahi (where the present railway line crosses the Whakatane River
at Taneatua), and was procured from the riverbed, rough-dressed and rafted
down to the site. The tahuhu was of kahikatea obtained from Toki-o-Kiwa
bush, near Te Pahou, some five miles up the Whakatane River'! It is
reasonable to assume that appropriate rituals would have been perfomed in
the selection of timber and felling of trees, and during carving and
construction.2 However, "the dressing and carving of the timber was done
with pakeha tools and not with native implements, these being reckoned
too slow for the work. "3
Meanwhile, the weavers were collecting and preparing the fibres needed for
the tukutuku panels and the whariki with which the interior of Mataatua
was to be adorned. We do not know who these women were but at the
reception for the Native Minister in 1875 we are told that at the conclusion
of the formalities "two tables were laid out in the new building in European
style and ... the guests were waited upon by Mrs W[irope]. H[otereni]. Taipari
[Apanui's daughter, Mereana Mokomoko - Wepiha's sister], Mrs Wepiha,
and Apanui's youngest daughter."4 As women of mana they seem likely to
have been among the contibutors to Mataatua of the arts of Te Whare Pora.
Such was the sense of urgency and commitment with which Ngati Awa
tackled the enterprise that they even neglected their agriculture-or so it
appeared. In 1875 Brabant informed the Native Minister: "The Ngatiawa
1 ibid., 36-37.
2 See: Herbert Williams's account of Maori house building in Journal of the Polynesian Society; d.
also Elsdon Best re: ceremonies used by the Urewera tribes [Tuhoe], and Augustus Hamilton, 89, refs
to: J. White, Maori Customs and Superstitions; "The Appendix to Journals, House of
Representatives, G.-8, 1880; and C. 0 Davis, The Life of Patuone ..
3 Wadmore, Dunedin Exhibition Report, 37.
4 BPT 13 March 1875.
25
have not cultivated so extensively this year, having been engaged
throughout it in building a grand carved house."l On 7 February 1874
Brabant relayed a request from Apanui to McLean to let him know that the
wharenui
was ready to put up, but that he was afraid to ask the
neighbouring tribes to come and erect it, because he was unable to feed them
as a consequence of the crops being so poor. 2 It was stated that the Minister
had seen the preparations for the whare
(on a previous visit) and had
shown an interest in it, and this encouraged Apanui to ask for an allowance
of food. This appeal must have been successfuP for in his annual report of
May 1874 Brabant stated that: "A large party of visitors are now assisting
Apanui in putting up his house at Whakatane, the carving of the posts for
which has occupied him and some of his people for years."4 In August
Brabant further reported that:
The Ngatiawa at Whakatane are still engaged in building the large
carved house and most of the tribes on the Coast have been to assist.
Apanui's daughter (Taipari's wife) has come down from the Thames
and has brought two tons of flour as a present. "5
This must have ensured that there was sufficient food to cater for the "large
party of visitors" assembled in Whakatane for the building of Mataatua.
1
2
3
4
5
AJHR, 1875, G.-1A, 4.
Brabant reports to Native Minister 25 May 1874 [AJHR, II, 1874, G.-2, No.8, p. 7]: "I regret that the
crops have suffered a good deal from the dry summer, and 1 fear they will be somewhat
impoverished by the large number of visitors they are now entertaining to assist in erecting Apanui's
large carved house at Whakatane."
See: G. v. Butterworth, Aotearoa 1769-1988: Towards a Tribal Perspective (Wellington, 1988), 83:
'McLean ... relied very much on the influence of his officers and their personal visitations. His system
was unashamedly one of friendly persuasion and if he had to use force he used it very discreetly. His
preferred method was diplomacy strongly supplemented by gifts and payments."
q. Ngati Awa Report, 16. Check out original.
MS Papers 32: 1870-1876; q. Ngati Awa Report, 17.
26
1.5
Mataatua Completed
In 1875 Brabant referred to Mataatua as "a grand carved house, said to be one
of the finest in New Zealand." Magnificently carved and of impressive
dimensions, the whare must have looked resplendent on its site close to the
hills at the rear of the papa kainga.
The Bay of Plenty Times report of the Native Minister's visit to Whakatane
in March 1875 includes a summary description of the whare :
The building is 70 ft long by 33 ft wide, and the porch or verandah
some 13 ft wide. The interior is richly carved and decorated with
platted reeds. Around the sides are figures, splendidly carved and
decorated, representing the chiefs of a past age: the beams, rafters, &c.,
are all carved and ornamented, and present a very rich coup d 'oeuil.
The floor is covered with magnificent worked matting .... The porch,
which alone has employed about a dozen workmen for the last two
weeks, is very handsomely carved. Effigies of the leading living chiefs
(male and female) are on each side of the doorway and at each gable
end)
A photograph of the whare as erected at the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition
in 1879, and showing the poupou positioned on the outside walls, indicates
some degree of decorative colouration in the carvings. Photographs of the
surviving poupou in Ettie Rout's book, Maori Symbolism,
2
confirm this
impression. Apart from the moko of the figures of the pou tokomanawa
and the amo
whare,
(and the upper lip zone of the masks on the amo ) of the
as re-erected in the Otago Museum, which are picked out in a
contrasting (darker) colour, all the carving has been painted more-or-less
uniformly with the ubiquitous "museum red". This later overpainting has
recently been removed from one of the epa not reinstated with the building
but exhibited separately in the Otago Museum, to reveal once again a lively
coloration of "red and white ochre and black"3-the colours which had been
1
2
3
BPT, 13 March, 1875.
Ettie Rout, ibid.
27
noted when the carvings were cleaned in 1923 in preparation for Mataatua's
display at the Wembley Exhibition. (Even more striking is the orange, black
and white decorative coloration of the carvings in Hotunuil-the whare
carved at Whakatane by the Ngati Awa team between 1875 and 1878,
immediately following the completion of Mataatua)-gradually revealed by
the recent removal of the museum overpainting.)
The roof must have been thatched, and also the exterior walls clad, in the
traditional manner, but this is not documented.
1 Gerry Barton and David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of meeting House (Auckland, 1985), 5.
28
1.6
Mataatua Opened
According to George Preece, whose account of Mataatua was written in 1879
in consultation with Wepiha Apanui, "The house was completed in 1874."1
But the report of Sir Donald McLean's visit to Whakatane, published in the
Bay of Plenty Times, describes the hui he attended in March 1875 as "one of
ceremony at the opening of the large house 'Mata[a]tua'.
"2
Three months
later Brabant also mentioned McLean's having opened the whare.
3
Setting
aside the apparent discrepancy of several months between Preece's date for
the completion of Mataatua and that given for the opening of the whare,
the question arises as to whether any ritual clearance had been conducted in
accordance with protocol and tradition. None is reported in the surviving
documentation, but it seems unlikely that any Pakeha would have been
permitted to witness it, in any case.
In 1934 George Graham writing to H. D. Skinner declared that Mataatua had
"long since lost its mana - and it was never a 'whare-tomo' (duly opened
house)."4 But
J. c.
Wadmore was able to confirm, from interviews with
Ngati Awa who had witnessed the opening of the whare, that it had been
properly "tomo-ed" and lived in.5
At the reception for the Native Minister in 1875 we are told that at the
conclusion of the formalities "two tables were laid out in the new building
in European style, and ... the guests were waited upon by Mrs W.H. Taipari,
1 "HistOlY of the Carved House "Matatua" ", AfHR, 1879, G.-4., p.1.
2 BPT, 13 March 1875.
3 "Your having done so, and the admiration which this house (a great part of which was carved by his
own hand) has excited, and caused the old chief Apanui great pleasure ... " AJHR, il, 1875, G.-lA, 4.
4 Letter dated 12 July 1934. Mataatua, Various Papers, MONZ. cf. Elsdon Best re: ceremonies used by
the Urewera tribes [Tuhoe]. Also Augustus Hamilton, 89, refs to: J. White, Maori Customs and
Superstitions; "The Appendix to Journals, House of Representatives, G.-8, 1880; and C. 0 Davis, The
Life of Patuone.
5 Letter to Skinner, 16 Aug 1934. Mataatua, Various Papers, MONZ.
29
Mrs Wepiha, and Apanui's youngest daughter"l-a usage that would
probably shock people today. If Mataatua was completed in 1874, as Preece
stated,2 the whakanoa
cermonies could have been conducted weeks-
perhaps months-before the Minister arrived in Whakatane. However, the
Bay of Plenty Times
report states that the porch of the w ha re
"had
employed about a dozen workmen for the last two weeks" (i.e. from the last
week in February 1875), indicating a frantic effort on Ngati Awa's part to
complete the building in time for the hui
with the Minister and
representatives of the Mataatua federation.
McLean, his entourage, and "the large party of Ngaiterangi" from Tauranga
who had accompanied him on board the Luna arrived at the Whakatane
Heads "shortly before daylight" on 7 March, and there the ship rode at
anchor.3 Ngaiterangi went ashore but because it was a Sunday the resident
and Christianised Ngati Awa indicated that there would be no powhiri
until the next day.4 Early on Monday morning the Luna was taken into the
river estuary but McLean was requested not to land until Ngati Awa had
"completed their arrangements for his reception". Just after one o'clock, he
was informed by letter that all was ready.5 "Sir Donald and the officers
accompanying him" disembarked, and were led on to the marae by Te Hata
[Raukorore, Whanau-a-Apanui], "the principal chief of Te Kaha",6 not by
1
BPT, 13 March 1875. It is interesting to note that after the tapu had been removed from Hotunui in
1878 or 1879, and "the men had entered and eaten food in the house", three women-one of whom
was Mereana Mokomoko-were sent for to takahi te paepae .... and thus remove the enchantment
which debars women from entering a sacred house until this ceremony is ended." Mereana
Mokomoko, 42.
"History of the Carved House "Mata[a]tua" ", AJHR, 1879, G.-4., p.l.
2
3 ibid.
4 The Ngati Awa Report 2, 38, states that Ngaiterangi led McLean onto the marae. However, "the
resident natives intimated to their Maori visitors [who were already "safely landed"] that they would
not give them a formal reception till the Monday morning." [BPT, 13 March 1875.] I have taken the
account in the Times as indicating that Ngaiterangi were already on the marae when McLean was
led on-by the chief of another branch of the confederation.
5i bid.
6
BPT, 13 March 1875.
30
the Ngaiterangi who had sailed with him-they may may be presumed to
have been welcomed on to the marae that morning.
The newspaper report informs us that there were "about 700 natives on the
ground",l and it seems highly likely, since all the divisions of confederation
of tribes were represented, that the elaborate rituals of desacralisation had
taken place during the morning, after Ngaiterangi had been formally
welcomed. 2 When Hotunui was completed in 1878, Wepiha Apanui
"summoned a tohunga called Mohi Taikororeka from Opotiki to perform
the ceremonies called whai kawa
,3
and something very similar must have
taken place at the opening of Mataatua.
The whakanoa ceremonies would have taken place outside the whare but
the hui attended by McLean was held inside Mataatua, as the published
reference to "the house in which Sir Donald then sat" may indicate. 4 Thus
what he attended on 8 March 1875 was not the opening of the whare but a
reception held in his honour, following the opening.
1 ibid.
2
ibid.
3 Mereana Mokomoko, 42.
4 BPT, 13 March 1875.
31
1.7
Mataatua as Ethnological Specimen
Mataatua was in use as a tribal wharenui
whare
until 1879. For four years the
hosted tribal groups from Waikato, Maniopoto, Te Arawa and
Mataatua. The first great hui was held in Mataatua, in the presence of
McLean, on 9 March 1875,1 the day following his reception in the whare,
and six years to the day since Te Kooti and his followers had razed
Whakatane. In May 1875 Rewi Maniopoto and "a party of Waikatos (chiefly
Maniopoto)"2 were welcomed to the marae and given hospitality. A year
later F. E. Hamlin, the Native Officer at Maketu, reported that Ngati Awa
had hosted a hui
"in their new carved house" which was "attended
principally by Ngati Whakaue, but I believe a few of some other sections of
the Arawa also attended."3
In addition to its use for tribal tangihanga, Mataatua would have hosted
many of the hui
convened to consider matters appertaining to land
confiscation, justice, and other dealings between Ngati Awa and the
Colonial Government, but the reconstruction of a chronology of such events
lies outside the scope of this study.
Of immediate relevance to it, however, are the hui which must have taken
place inside Mataatua to consider a request from the Government for the
release of the whare for exhibition overseas.
On 24 August 1877 Sir Francis Dillon Bell, speaking during the course of a
parliamentary debate, recalled that the Maori dimension in New Zealand's
contribution to the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876 had been
1 ibid.
2
"During the past month the house has also been visited by the chief Rewi Maniopoto and a party of
Waikatos (chiefly Ngatoimaniopoto)." Brabant to McLean, 1 June 1875 [AJHR, II, 1875, C.-4, 4]. See
also: W. T. Parham, 'Rewi Maniopoto comes to Whakatane', Historical Review, 29:2,198l.
3 AJHR, 1876.
32
favourably received, and wondered if New Zealand would participate in the
forthcoming Exposition Universelle in Paris) Six days later he moved that
"it is desirable that a Royal Commission should be appointed to commence,
without delay, the preliminary work necessary for representing the colony at
the Paris Exhibition,' and the motion was agreed to.2
Towards the end of 1877 or early in 1878, Mataatua must have been the
venue for a hui convened to consider the Government's request that the
whare be given over for exhibition at the Paris Exposition Universelle of
1878. Since Ngati Awa had been advised in 1875 that "All arrangements they
made with the Government respecting their lands would be made through
Mr Preece,"3 it was to be expected that he would be deputed by the
government to negotiate for the release of the whare.
In 1922 Preece recalled that: "The government wrote to me .. .in 1878 asking
me to try and buy a carved house to send to the Sydney Exhibition."4 Fortyfour years later, Preece's memory, understandably, is not entirely reliable,
but the date, 1878, seems likely, even if he confuses the Paris Exhibition with
that in Sydney.
A change of goverment, however, left little time for adequate preparations
for a New Zealand display at Paris, and in January 1878 the New Zealand
Gazette advised that New Zealand would not be taking part in the Paris
Exhibi tion. 5
1
2
3
4
5
New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 25, 1.
NZPD, 25, 121.
BPT, 13 March, 1875
Preece to Mair,
New Zealand Gazette, 3 January 1878; AJHR,
1879 II, H.-5.
The Paris Exhibition.
33
On 3 February 1879 Preece was asked to ascertain whether "the Carved Maori
house that was to have been obtained for [the] Paris exhibition"l would be
available as part of New Zealand's contribution to the Sydney Intercolonial
Exhibition later that year. 2 Two days later Preece is recorded as having
advised that he had arranged with the "Whakatane natives" to give a whare
-unidentified by name at this point but presumed to be Mataatua-to the
Government. 3 Towards the end of the month the Commissioners
responsible for co-ordinating the New Zealand exhibits expressed their
desire to include "a Maori carved house".4
Preece's advice to the Government respecting the availability of the whare
seems to have been somewhat premature. Certainly, the time-frame of two
days between the Government's overture and Preece's response would not
have permitted the matter to be properly considered at a hui of tribal
representatives. On 18 March 1879 he wrote requesting the Government to
telegraph the Whakatane chiefs, asking them to allow the whare to be
released for exhibition in Sydney. In an immediate reply (on the same day),
Preece was directed to negotiate with the chiefs on the Government's behalf,
and was given discretionary powers to ensure that the whare would be
secured for the purpose stated. 5
At some point during the next two weeks the Ngati Awa chiefs hosted a hui,
presumably in Mataatua, to consider the Government's proposal. Wepiha
told Preece that the matter would be deliberated at a "full meeting" of the
tribe. The proposal was bound to arouse controversy. "Tiopira [representing
AJHR 1879,H-13, 10.
2 Notification of the Exhibition had first been published in the New Zealand Gazette on 26 April 1878.
3 There is a reference to a letter dated 5 February 1879.AJHR 1879, H-13, 10.
4 AJHR, 1879, H-13, 11.
5 Maori Affairs Telegram Book, MA 5, 18. Archives.
1
34
the Pahipoto interest in the whare ] of Kokohinau," for instance, "opposed
the gift but old Rangitukehu joined the Ngati Awa .... " After the hui had
arrived at its decision, which cannot have been unanimous, Preece was
summoned, "and at a meeting at Whakatane it [Mataatua] was handed over
to me on behalf of [the] Government as a gift."l According to Phillipps and
Wadmore, there "was some dissatisfaction at parting with the house" to the
extent that " some women encouraged the men to prevent the gift by
stealing and concealing the tahu."2 On 1 April 1879, however, Preece advised
the Government that he had "received possession of the carved House
which the Whakatane Natives have given .. .for the purpose of being
exhibited at the Sydney Exhibition".34
1 Preece to Mair, 6 December 1922. MS Papers 92, Folder 13A, G. Mair. AIL.
2
3 MA 79/2479. Maori Affairs Register, 1879. Archives. On 10 April 1879 Preece advised that the "Maori
house had been delivered by [the] Natives."AJHR, IT, 1879, H-13, 12.
35
1.8
Mataatua Dismantled
During the next few months Preece was responsible for making the
neceesary arrangements for the whare
to be dismantled and shipped to
Tauranga and thence to Wellington. He sought permission to employ a Joe
Merritt to "take the building to pieces and mark each piece with a number to
fit in with a plan, and to ship it with all reeds and inside work."l According
to Preece, Merritt "did his work well."2 Preece suggested that "as the Natives
had made such a handsome present that two of the chiefs and two tohungas
should be sent to Sydney to re-erect it there,"3 and even offered to
accompany them at his own expense provided that he was given leave to do
so. However, the Government declined the offer, and "refused the
employment of natives to re-erect it [Mataatua] in Sydney".4
On 25 July when Preece advised that he had "proceeded to Whakatane for
the purpose of taking down the carved house "Mataatua","5 he had already
been on the job for some time, and the whare 's carved timbers and
tukutuku panels 6 were already on their way to Wellington via Tauranga.7
Mataatua left Whakatane on the steamship Staffa. According to a Bay of
Plenty Times
report, "its departure from Whakatane was signal for the
natives to turn out en masse."8 This must have been an extremely
1
Preece to Mair, 6 December 1922. MS Papers 92, Folder 13A, G. Mair. ATL.
2 ibid
3 ibid.
4 ibid. Likewise, when it was suggested that a haka be performed in Mataatua, after the whare had
been reconstructed and opened at the Exhibition, Dr Hector was informed that the "Government
cannot approve of Haka by Captain Ferris and party of Maoris in carved house." IA 5.6., 1879, 854,
Archives, and Alexander Cumming, Secretary of the Intercolonial Exhibition was also advised that
the "New Zealand Government cannot approve proposal to exhibit Maori haka in carved house." G.
S. Cooper, IA 5.6, 1879,919, Archives.
5 MA 79/1407, Maori Affairs Department Register, 1879. Archives.
6 The thatched roof and exterior wall cladding are presumed, from their bulk, fragility and the fire risk
they posed, not to have been freighted to Australia with the carvings and tukutuku panels.
7 Brabant, 26 July 1879.79/3136. Internal Affairs Register 1879. IA/3/1/33. cf. also BPI, "The S. S. Staffa
which arrived at seven o'clock last night brought a large Maori whare."
8 Quoted in van der Wouden, 'Where was Mataatua built?', Historical Review, 40:2,
36
emotional occasion for Ngati Awa, and we can imagine their mixed feelings
of sorrow and pride-and the weeping of the women who had tried in vain
to prevent the whare from leaving-as the ship departed.
They fired three volleys as the Staffa drew away from the rude stone
wharf, which were answered by Captain Baker by a salute from his
ship's gun and also by hoisting and dipping the British ensign. 1
At Tauranga, Mataatua was transhipped onto the S. S. Stella
2
Wellington, there to be transferred to the S. S. Wakatipu.
for delivery to
3
Mataatua's
"wanderings" had begun.
1992, p. 100.
1 ibid.
2 "the 'Stella' will be at Tauranga in three weeks. She cannot enter Whakatane but could anchor and
lie off the harbour if you can get the house taken off to her. If this is not feasible ...you will probably
be able to arrange to send the house there [to Tauranga]." Colkonial Secretary to Preece, 19 May
1879, IA Outward Letterbook, 1879. IA 4/4/44,660,79/1944.
3 AJHR, 1880, H.-SA, 8.
37
CHAPTER II. MATAATUA ABROAD, 1879-1925
2.1
The Intercolonial Exhibition, Sydney, 1879-1880
The Exhibition Commissioner for New Zealand had undertaken to see to
the despatch of the whare from Wellington, and its erection in Sydney)
When Mataatua arrived in Sydney, "Some delay was occupied in putting up
the Maori house, as the executive Commssioner for the Exhibition wished it
to be placed on a site that was, until a very late day, occupied by workshops,
so that it was not until the middle of October that the erection was
commenced."2 [The Exhibition had been formally opened on 17 September,
1879.] And it was not until the middle of November that "the whole of the
New Zealand exhibits were in thorough order."3
According to a progress report issued by the Executive Commissioners for
the Exhibition, lithe space occupied by the Maori house in the Exhibition
grounds" was 3000 [square?] feet. 4 With the New Zealand flag flying above it,
the building attracted "a good deal of attention". A copy of Preece's account
of the "History of the Carved House 'Mata[a]tua' " was placed in the porch. 5
At the conclusion of the Exhibition, the Committee of Awards announced
that the whare, as "an excellent example of Maori architecture", had been
accorded the honour of a First Special Merit Award. 6
The purchase of a whare had initially been proposed as Ita legitimate charge
against [the] exhibition vote") Although Mataatua had not, in fact been
1 Letter of Sydney Exhibition Commissioner, 25 February 1879. IA Register 1879, 2171-end, IA 3/1/32.
Archives.
2 AJHR, 1880,2, H.-5, 2.
3
ibid.
4 ibid.
5 ibid., 4.
6 ibid., H.-SA, 11.
7 Telegram to Dr Hector, 12 February 1879, lA/5/6, Telegrammes, 1879, 630. Archives.
38
purchased, the New Zealand Commissioner now had to reconstruct the
whare in as economical manner as possible.
Finding that it would cost at least £700 to erect in the ordinary manner
as a Maori house, the walls were reversed so that the carvings showed
on the outside; and the total cost, including painting and roofing with
Chinese matting, was reduced to £165.1
From a Ngati Awa perspective, the result would have seemed peculiar,
inauthentic and disrespectful. Doubtless, had tribal experts accompanied
Mataatua to Sydney and been involved in its reconstruction, as Preece had
recommended, the building would have been erected differently. In terms of
conservation, and considering that the whare was now under the care of the
New Zealand Government, the exposure of the carvings and tukutuku to
the heat and humidity of a Sydney summer for the duration of the
Exhibition was potentially disastrous.When Sir James Hector wrote to New
Zealand's Colonial Secretary on 2 April 1880, after the Exhibition had closed,
he reported that lithe carvings are much decayed".2 The main purpose of this
communication, however, was to ascertain what the Goverment's
intentions now were with respect to the whare.
Four courses were seen to be open for the "disposal" of the building: first,
that it could be returned to New Zealand; second, that it could be sold in
Sydney or presented to the New South Wales government for erection in
the Domain-in response to the Colonial Secretary for New South Wales's
request that the whare be left "in the botanical gardens"3; third, that it could
be forwarded for display at the forthcoming Melbourne International
1
ibid.
2 Sir James Hector to Colonial Secretary, 2 April 1880, 80/1473, IA file, 1880-1969, 'Mataatua', Series 13.
127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ.
3 Hon. Sir H. Parker, Colonial Secretary,Sydney, to Colonial Secretary, New Zealand. 80/2006. IA file,
1880-1969, Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27, "Mataatua". MONZ.
39
Exhibition; and, fourth, that it could be forwarded to London for display in
"the proposed Colonial and Ethnographic Museum."l John Hall, New
Zealand's Colonial Secretary, decided that the whare should be shown at the
Melbourne Exhibition,2 where the colony's arts and industries would be
more comprehensively represented than at Sydney, even though there was
"no suitable site for its erection, and the only course would be to work in the
carvings as a part of the decorations of the New Zealand Court"}
1 Sir James Hector to the Colonial Secretary, 2 April 1880. 80/1473, IA file, 1880-1969, Series 13.127. Sub.
No. 27, "Mataatua".MONZ.
2 John Halt Colonial Secretary, Memorandum (undated), 80/1473; and telegramme, Hall to Parker, 5
May, 1880, 80/2006, IA file, 1880-1969, Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27, "Mataatua". MONZ.
3 Hector to Colonial Secretary, 2 April 1880. IA 13.27.127. Quoted Ngati Awa 2, 74.
40
2.2
The International Exhibition, Melbourne, 1880-1881
A Progress Report dated 11 June 1880 advised that "The exhibits which were
to be forwarded to Melbourne have been packed."l The International
Exhibition, which ran from October 1880 to April 1881, was housed in a
massively scaled building that originally covered a
twenty acre site. 2
Expenditure of only £52 is recorded against the "Maori house", presumably
as the cost of a partial re-erection only.3 Further research will be required in
order to determine the location of Mataatua in the exhibition complex, the
precise nature of its display, and its reception by the authorities and the
general public.
On this occasion the whare does not appear to have attracted any awards,
and this may be due to the possibility that the carvings and tukutuku panels
were already looking rather shabby.
At the conclusion of the Exhibition the Executive Commissioner reported
that the "maori house has been forwarded to the Agent-General for New
Zealand in London. "4
1
2
AJHR, 1880, 2, H.-SA, 11.
The Heritage of Victoria: The Illustrated Register of the National Estate (South Melbourne, 1983),
39; Asa Briggs, Victorian Cities (Harrnondsworth, 1963), 298-299.
3 AJHR, 1880, 2, H.-S, 11.
4 AJHR, 1882, HSA.
41
2.3
The South Kensington Museum, London, 1882-1922
On 22 April 1881 John Hall [the Premier] wrote to [Sir?] Francis Dillon Bell,
New Zealand's Agent-General in London, advising him that Hector had
been directed to send Mataatua from Melbourne to London. Hall had also
asked for photographs of the whare to be sent to Bell "with instructions for
its re-erection in London."l The Premier thought that the building "would
form a desirable feature in the Colonial Annexe to the Museum, South
Kensington,"2 and Bell was directed to make the appropriate enquiries.
In October Bell advised New Zealand's Colonial Secretary that he had been
in communication with the South Kensington Museum authorities "who
will accept the offer of [the] House, and set apart a good site for its erection."3
The following month this transaction was formally concluded between the
Agent-General and the British Government Science and Art Department
through the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education. 4 By this time
the two ships bearing the "47 packages"5 in which the whare was packed had
arrived in England. 6 [Mataatua's official accession number was 422-1882.7]
On 22 March 1882 the Lords gave orders for the erection of the whare at the
Museum. Bell advised the New Zealand Government that he had arranged
for the "several sections in which the house had been shipped" to be
delivered to the site. 8 It was erected, as Bell later informed the Colonial
1
2
3
D. Hunter to Mr Cooper (undated), 80/2323, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ.
John Hall to F. D. Bell, 22 April 1881, 80/2323, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ.
Bell to Colonial Secretary, 4 October 1881, 81/5138, 80/2323, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ.
4 C. F. Duncombe, Science and Art Department, Whitehall, to F. D. Bell, 26 November 1881, 82/199,
IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ.
5 [Sir James Allen] Re; Maori Exhibit, Extract from memorandum, 23 November 1922. IA file.MONZ.
6 Bell to Sir Francis Sandford, Secretary, Science and Art Department, Whitehall, 14 November 1881,
82/199, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ.
7 Ettie Rout, Maori Symbolism; Being an Account of the Origin, Migration, and Culture of the New
Zealand Maori as recorded in certain Sacred Legends. London, 1926, p. 126.
8 Bell to Colonial Secretary, 5 April 1882, 80/2491, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ.
42
Secretary, "in a very good position close to the entrance of the South
Kensington
Museum. "1 According to Ettie Rout, the whare
was
reconstructed in the Museum quadrangle "but owing to a mistake during its
erection the carvings which should have been inside were put outside the
house, so that the building was really put up inside out".2 If Mataatua was
built with the carvings on the exterior this must have been because the
workmen were simply working from the photographs provided by Hall
(through Bell) of the whare
as it had been erected in Sydney. In 1937,
however, Eric Maclagan, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, was to
state that Mataatua was "erected in the grounds with the carvings reversed
to protect them from the weather. "3
In October 1883 Bell informed the
Colonial Secretary of "some circumstances connected with the use to which
it [the whare ] has since been put, respecting which it will be necessary for
me to communicate with the Executive Authorities of the Museum"4 but
does not reveal the point at issue.
The whare stood on the Museum site for only four years, for, as Maclagan
records, "the land was required for building purposes in 1886 and the house
was taken to pieces and stored."s Mataatua had been erected "on the section
on which one wing of the Victoria and Albert Museum now stands."6
In April 1897 Lieutenant-General Pitt-Rivers requested that the whare
might be handed over to him "on perpetual loan or otherwise" for his
1 22 October 1883,83/5388, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ.
2 Rout, ibid.
3 Eric Mac1agan [to H. D. Skinner?], 3 May 1937. IA Folder "Mataatua Various Papers", Museum of
New Zealand: Ie Papa Iongarewa. A report published in the Evening Post, 31 March 1923, suggests
that it was "very doubtful if the whole structure was put up. Probably the posts and rafters of the front
part were put in position."
4 Bell to Colonial Secretary, 22 October 1883,83/5388, IA file, 1880-1969, Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27.
MONZ.
5 Eric Mac1agan [to H. D. Skinner?], 3 May 1937. IA Folder "Mataatua Various Papers", MONZ.
6 Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
43
Museum at Farnham in Dorset. 1 This was approved by the Museum
authorities on the grounds that there was "no space available for its
exhibition and it was a work rather outside the scope of the [institution's]
collections."2 However, in refusing permission, the Agent-General for New
Zealand announced his intention of pursuiung the matter of the whare' s
disposal as soon as possible} and agreed to arrange for its removal and
storage. In May 1899 the possibility of erecting Mataatua at the Crystal Palace
in Sydenham was canvassed but in the end the Museum agreed to store it"stacked up in a corner of the museum cellar"4-until the New Zealand
Government could take it over.s The whare was inspected by Sir Walter
Buller in 1900.
In September 1902 the Agent-General, the Hon W. P. Reeves advised the
Secretary of the Board of Education that he had "received instructions from
my Government" to ascertain whether the Imperial "Government" wished
to retain the building, and if not, suggested that it be returned to "the
Colony". In 1906 the Agent-General was informed that the Museum "still
held it at his disposal," and the matter was raised again in 1909. An officer of
the Agent-General called to inspect the whare in January 1910;6 two months
later it was suggested that it be shown at the forthcoming "Festival of
Empire" at the Crystal Palace, but in 1911 Makereti [Maggie Papakura]
"brought the village of Whakarewarewa with its carved houses to the White
City for the Festival of Empire in the Coronation year."7
1
2
3
Maclagan, ibid.
This is from an account supplied by the Victoria and Albert Museum to Dimitri Anson, November
1987, and filed with the Mataatua Papers, Otago Musuem.
4 Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
5 ibid.
6 ibid.
7 Makereti: The Old-Time Maori (Auckland, 1986), 22.
44
During the course of a study-tour documenting New Zealand material in
British museums in 1916 and 1917, H. D. Skinner was shown a "stack of
ageing timbers which had some relativity to New Zealand" in the Victoria
and Albert Museum) Although it was through Skinner that the timbers
would eventually be returned to New Zealand and re-erected in the Otago
Museum, it is probably worth noting that W. J. Phillipps in 1957 recorded a
conversation in which Pine Taiapa told him that Te Raki of Ngati Whakaue
had, in 1917, in an audience with King George V requested the return of
Mataatua. 2
It was 1922, however, before Sir James Allen, New Zealand's High
Commissioner in London,
agreed
to receive the
whare on his
Government's behalf. 3 In November 1922 the Sun newspaper reported that
the authorities of the Victoria and Albert Museum were willing to see the
Maori house returned to New Zealand, and that there was a suggestion that
it could be erected at the forthcoming Wembley Exhibition. 4 "If this house is
not required for the British Empire Exhibition," Sir James remarked, "I shall
require directions as to its disposal."5 Mataatua was, however, requested for
the Exhibition.
1 Richard Skinner, 'How Maori Meeting House came to Otago Museum', ODT, 13 November 1987.
2 I am grateful to my colleague Ngapine Allen for drawing this to my attention, and for
indicating the source as W. J. Phillipps, Notes, 28 March ---6 April 1957. Canterbury
Museum Archives.
3
4
5
[Sir James Allen] Re: Maori Exhibit, memorandum, 23 November 1922. IA file. MONZ.
The Sun, 25 November 1922.
[Sir James Allen] Re: Maori Exhibit, memorandum, 23 November 1922. "In your letter of the 23rd
September, you mention a 'Maori Pa' whereas Major Belcher refers to a 'Maori Museum' If a pa is
to be established, a good deal more space would be necessary than is available." IA file. MONZ. See
also: New Zealand Times, 24 Jan 1923: "As already reported.... a Maori house named "Mataatua",
which was forwarded to England in 1881...had been made available .... The High Commissioner left it
to the decision of the New Zealand authorities as to whether this house should be utilised at the
exhibition."
45
2.4
The British Empire Exhibition, Wembley, London, 1924
In 1924 "Mataatua" was re-erected at the British Empire Exhibition at
Wembley Park in London, where it was seen by tens of thousands of
visitors, including King George, Queen Mary and the Prince of Wales.
Two years previously there had been a suggestion that the New Zealand
contribution to the event might be either a "Maori Pa" or a "Maori
Museum",l but Sir James Allen soon announced his hope that "a really
good specimen of a Maori whare will be obtainable and erected in the New
Zealand area. "2 H. D. Skinner and T. E. Donne (resident director of the New
Zealand Government Tourist Office) are said to have secured the whare's
"release from the Victoria and Albert Museum and sufficient finance to
cover erection costs at Wembley."3 After the carvings had been "thoroughly
cleaned, repainted and oiled", the whare was "quite ready for transport to
and erection at the British Empire Exhibition. "4 Eric Maclagan, the Director
of the Victoria and Albert Museum, recalled that "the small amount of
restoration which was necessary before the house could be re-erected [at the
Wembley Exhibition of 1924] was carried out by Major [R.] Dansey and Te
Kiri. "5 [Interestingly, the New Zealand Government had decided, contrary to
the Exhibition's intention to "have the British Empire represented in its
peoples as well as its products and manufactures," that there would be no
Maori representation, from a desire to promote an image "of the Dominion
being 'up-to-date' in every respect and that the inclusion of Maoris would be
likely to dispel this suggestion."6]
1
2
3
4
5
6
Sir James Allen] Re: Maori Exhibit, memorandum, 23 November 1922. IA file. MONZ.
New Zealand Times, 5 January 1923.
Richard Skinner, ODT, 13 November 1987.
Sir James Allen, Progress Report No 3, 18 May 1923. MONZ.
Eric Maclagan.
Progress Report, MONZ.
46
As erected at the Exhibition, Mataatua seems to have been roofed with
thatch,1 and the side walls were either also thatched or, possibly, "covered
with asbestos sheets" painted "a reddish brown colour."2 Because the
original tukutuku panels had long since disintegrated, "stencilled tukutuku
panels "3 were installed inside the building.
At the conclusion of the Exhibition, a memorandum stated: "It has been
agreed that the majority of the exhibits now at the New Zealand Pavilion at
Wembley, as deemed appropriate, will be loaned by the Government to the
Dunedin Authorities and shown in the Government Pavilion." 4 Mataatua
was dismantled and shipped back to New Zealand in time for the South Seas
Exhibition at Dunedin in 1925.
1
2
ibid,
ibid.
McDonald, Acting Director, to J W Collins, Secretary of Industries and Commerce, 29 April 1925,
and Collins to Skinner, 15 June 1925, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ
4 Memorandum: J Hislop to the Director of the Dominion Museum, 11 September 1924. q. Ngati Awa
Report 2, 86.
3
47
CHAPTER III. MA TAATVA REPATRIATED
3.1
The New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin,
1925-1926
The New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition opened on 17
November 1925, and closed on 1 May the following year. It was the fifth
International Exhibiton to be staged in New Zealand, and the third in
Dunedin. 1 The idea was first mooted informally in 1921, and by 1923 it had
been resolved to hold "an Exhibition which would eclipse anything
previously held in New Zealand, and which would be a symbol of New
Zealand's spirit, typifying the resources, enterprise and progress of the
Dominion. "2
The "famous carved Maori Meeting House, a building of great historic
interest"3 was erected to "the west of the Fernery" which was situated behind
the Festival Hall in the Exhibition grounds. 4
J.
W. Collins, the Secretary of
Industries and Commerce, invited H. D. Skinner from the Otago Museum to
superintend the erection of the whare,
suggesting that "the interior
arrangement as planned for Wembley be adhered to, i.e. to have large
photographs set in position over the stencilled tukutuku panels."5 Collins
thought that some of the carvings might require "repair or renewal", and if
1 The Dunedin International Exhibiton was held in 1865; the Christchurch International Exhibition in
1882; the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibiton (in Dunedin) in 1889-90; and the Christchurch
International Exhibition in 1906-07.
2 C. E. Thompson, Official Record of the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition,
Dunedin, 1925-1926 (Dunedin, 1926), 9-10.
3 Thompson, 3; and plates, 'Architectural Lay-Out of the Exhibition' and 'Key to Buildings,' between
pp. 32 and 33.
4 Thompson,36.
5 McDonald, Acting Director, to J W Collins, Secretary of Industries and Commerce, 29 April 1925,
and Collins to Skinner, 15 June 1925, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ
48
so, "Mr Skinner is to provide the necessary material from his own Museum
in Dunedin. "1
The work of erecting Mataatua was undertaken by the contractors Fletcher
and Love, under Skinner's supervision.2 Their estimates for the work
totalled £350, including the provision of wall plates, the ground plate, posts,
rails, braces and pegs, purlins, outside rails, sarking, forty-five asbestos
sheets, concrete, malthoid, labour and sundries. No provision had been
made, however, for thatching. 3 By August 1925 expenditure on the whare
had already reached £370, and the contractors had indicated that it the figure
for the complete work would be £400. 4 It looked "quite presentable" but had
yet to be completed. 5
It was at this point that the Otago Museum authorities offered "to repair all
carvings[,] clean all [the] woodwork, renovate [the] paintwork and take over
administration [of MataatuaL without cost to the Government after [the]
contract [had been] completed,"6 provided that the Government handed the
whare over to the Museum.
For the duration of the Exhibition, a handbill offering descriptive notes of
the whare written by Dr Wadmore of Whakatane, was displayed in
conjunction with Mataatua.7
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
q. Ngati Awa Report 2, 86. Not sighted by author but presumed to be amongst the IA papers,
MONZ.
Thomspon, 37.
F. Johnson (local officer-in-charge) to Secretary, Department of Industries and Commerce, 27 June
1925, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ.
Collins to Tradboard [telegram], 5 August 1925, On 10 September 1925, IA file 1880-1969, "Mataatua",
Series 13.127. Sub. No.27. MONZ.
ibid.
Copy of telegram from J W Collins, quoted in letter from J Hislop to the Director, Dominion
Museum, 6 August 1925, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 12.127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ.
'Mata-atua. Carved Maori Meeting House. Dr Wadmore has kindly supplied the following notes'.
Copy in 'Mataatua. Misc.' file, Otago Museum. This was subsequently published in C. E. Thompson,
Official Record of the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin, 1925-1926
49
(Dunedin, 1926), 36-37. See also: Wadmore to Skinner, 15 June 1934 ['Mataatua-Various Papers',
MONZ: "Can you tell me whether my description of this house as exhibited at the Dunedin
Exhibition is still used for the information of visitors."]
50
3.2
Mataatua in the Otago Museum
In July 1925 negotiations for the transfer of Mataatua had already begun
among three parties: the Under-Secretary for Internal Affairs, Mr J Hislop:
the Curator of the Museum of the University [College] of Otago, Professor W
Benham; and the Director of the Dominion Museum, Mr J Allan
Thompson. They discussed the possibility of handing Mataatua over to the
Otago Museum "on permanent 10an"1 at the conclusion of the Exhibition.
Benham wrote:
As each of the other large museums in the Dominion has a
representative Maori house on exhibit, I should be very glad if you
would see your way to arrange that, when the Dunedin Exhibition is
closed, this Maori House be handed over by the Goverment to this
museum.2
Hislop sought Thompson's views on Benham's request 3-presumably
because the Dominion Museum would have been the obvious ultimate
destination for a treasure now perceived as being the Government's
property4-and asked him to "let me have what information you have in
your possession relative to the Maori house in question". After due
consideration, Thompson recommended that Mataatua should be presented
to the Otago Museum "for the following reasons":
(1)
The Dominion Museum already possesses a much finer Maori
House [Te Hau-ki-Turanga], in addition to an inferior one.
(2)
The Otago Museum has no Maori House, and is unlikely to get
any further opportunity of acquiring one. It is desirable for the
Government to spread Museum facilites as widely as possible
amongst the New Zealand public.
1
ibid. Hislop to Benham, 14 July 1925, advised that "the matter is being looked into and you will be
advised"; Hislop to J Allan Thompson, Director of the Dominion Museum, 14 July 1925, asks for his
views on Otago's request; Thompson to Hislop, 16 July 1925, recommends that no decision be taken
until he has had an opportunity to inspect the whare ; memorandum from Minster of Internal
Affairs, 18 July 1925, recommends that Dr Benham be advised that a decision would be given before
the closure of the Dunedin Exhibition; Hislop to Benham, 23 July 1925, Minister's recommendation
relayed.
3 Hislop to J Allan Thompson, Director of the Dominion Museum, 14 July 1925,
4 Hislop to the Hon Mr Bollard, 8 August 1925,
2
51
(3)
The space required for such large objects as houses in a new
building is very great; as it is desirable ultimately to show
Samoan and Fijian houses in the Dominion Museum for
comparison with the Maori House, it is unwise to saddle the
collection with a third Maori house. In addition a present
saving will result from handing the house to the Otago
Museum. 1
Thus in August 1925 it was decided to present Mataatua to the Otago
Museum at the close of the Exhibition, provided that the Museum agreed to
repair all carvings, clean all woodwork, renovate paintwork and take over
administration after the work was completed. 2 On 18 August the University
authorities accepted "the gift of the Maori house" from the Department of
Internal Affairs on conditions laid down by the Minister involving the
payment of about £40. An eleventh-hour bid to the Prime Minister in 1927
from the Reverend Charles Fraer, Vicar of Phillips town, writing on behalf of
the mana whenua at Tuahiwi,3 for Mataatua to be erected adjacent to their
whare runanga, was unsuccessful.
Because the relocation of the whare was contingent on the completion of a
new wing at the Museum, Mataatua remained on the Exhibition site at
Logan Park. 4 The building was dismantled in in 1927, and the carvings
placed in storage, "while the rest of the structure will be removed and
similarly stored. "5
On 6 September 1928 Apirana Ngata reported to the Minister of Internal
Affairs, the Hon. Maui Pomare, that Rapata Peene had written on behalf of
the "Mataatua people," asking "that they should be employed in erecting the
1 J Allan Thompson to Hislop, [?] August 1925,
2 ibid.
3 Reprinted in Ngati Awa 2,92.
4
5 Otago University Museum Report, 1927, p.2.
52
carved house Mataatua wherever the Department may decide to have it."l
Their request was not acceded to. On 11 September 1928 Ngata again
enquired about "Mataatua" and was informed by the Minister that the house
had been given to the Otago Museum.
By 1929, with the new wing nearing completion, the Museum authorities
advised:
In the lower Hall will be erected the Maori collection, and at the east
end the forepart of the Maori house will project into the hall, the body
of the house being outside. Arrangments have been made for a skilled
carver to repair the damaged slabs, and to fill the spaces bewteen them
when erected, with raupo or other suitable materiaL .. the house will
reproduce as exactly as is possible the great meeting house of the race. 2
In 1930 the Otago Daily Times
reported that the Maori house, which had
been Ita strong attraction at the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition,"3
was being re-erected in the new Willi Fels Wing of the Otago Museum,
"under the direction of Mr. T. A. Chappe-Hall, the well-known Auckland
Maori carver"4 -a Pakeha, in fact-who had recently worked on the
restoration of the Ngati Awa/Ngati Maru whare Hotunui. 5 Although work
on Mataatua had begun only in February and the reconstruction was to take
more than two years to complete,6 the whare featured in the opening of the
new wing on 16 October 1930. A newpaper report describes how
Sir Frederick Chapman cut a broad, white ribbon placed across the
doorway leading into the Maori house, and there emerged from it
four stalwart members of the Native race-Messrs J. Erihana, J. Parata,
J. Martin and G. Karetai.7
1
2
3
4
Ngata to Minister of Internal Affairs, 6 September 1928, 83/5388,
Otago University Museum Report, 1929, p. 4.
ODT, 22 August 1930.
ibid.
5
6
7
Gerry Barton & David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of a Meeting House (Auckland, 1985).
ODT, 13 November 1987.
Undated newspaper clipping, probably ODT, October 1930. OM. See also Otago University
Museum Annual Report, 1930, p. 4.
53
Although Hall was a "very good reproducer of Maori artcraft", George
Graham, in a letter to Skinner in 1934, regretted that the "restoration work is
not of Maori workmanship-otherwise it depreciates the restored house as
an ethnological record. "1 He reminded Skinner that Maori artists were
available: "There are several very efficient tukutuku workers I know of. Te
Wharetoroa of Ohinemutu & Paki Te Amohaere here of Takapuna."2
Graham had written to Skinner in February 1930 to inform him that
[Gilbert] Archey would obtain kakaho reeds from Maori at Tuakau and
kiekie from the locality of Paerata for the restoration of Mataatua. According
to Skinner's son, Richard, reconstruction of much of the tukutuku paneling
was carried out instead by groups of local women conscripted by Mrs H D
Skinner from the ranks of the Friends of the Museum. 3 These are said to
have included Mary and Dora De Beer and Mrs Elespie Forsyth, daughters of
pioneer Jewish merchants in Dunedin. A group of Ngai Tahu womenMesdames Karetai, Ellison and Parata-also worked on the tukutuku under
the close supervision of Chappe Hall. 4 But surviving correspondence
between Hall and Skinner during the years 1931 and 1934 suggests that Hall
may have executed a good deal of the tukutuku himself. Having already
made the panels for Hotunui at the Auckland Museum, he thought that he
might also be able to execute the panels for Mataatua in Auckland and have
them shipped to Dunedin. In 1934 he advised that he had just packed the
tukutuku
for the east end of Mataatua, "which will leave Auckland on
Friday and should reach Dunedin by the end of February."s
1
George Graham to H. D. Skinner, 12 July 1934. Folder "Mataatua, Various Papers". MONZ.
2
ibid.
3
4
ODT, 13 November 1987.
S
ibid.
From a summary of correspondence between Hall and Skinner. Mataatua file. OM.
54
Graham hoped that when the work was completed that some effort would
be made to "have some Ngati Awa & [Ngati] Maru[tuahu] representatives at
the formal opening."l But just as Ngata had advised in October 1930 that a
drop in the price of butterfat would probably prevent Ngati Awa from
travelling to Dunedin for the opening of the Museum's new wing, so it
seems unlikely that they would have been able to afford to travel to
Dunedin for whatever ceremony was held to mark the "restoration" of their
whare tupuna.
For Chappe Hall, who was now "on the wrong side of sixty years of age," the
work had come to end. In March 1935 he informed Skinner that he was "out
of a job and looking for one, but Maori work is not in much demand."2
1
2
George Graham to H. D. Skinner, 12 July 1934. Folder "Mataatua, Various Papers". MONZ.
Hall to Skinner, 14 March 1935. Mataatua Papers. MONZ.
55
CHAPTER IV.
PROVENANCE-A QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP
For nearly forty years Mataatua's presence in the Otago Museum remained
unquestioned until
Affairs, M.
J.
24 November 1969, when the Secretary for Internal
McMillan, wrote to the Director of the Otago Museum,
informing him that a Mr R. Dodds of Whakatane had written enquiring
about the legality of the ownership of "Mataatua".1 G. S. Park, Assistant
Anthropologist, responded on 9 December, stating the Museum's rights of
ownership.2
On 16 November 1980 the Ngati Awa Trust Board was formed in
Whakatane, just over one hundred years after Mataatua had been
dismantled and exported for exhibition at the Intercolonial Exhibition in
Sydney. The repatriation of their tribal house from the Otago Museum
immediately became an integral part of a larger claim by Ngati Awa against
the New Zealand Government for the redress of longstanding grievances,
and their representatives have been extremely vigorous in their pursuit of
what they seem confidently to expect will be a favourable outcome.
Numerous meetings have been held, and a great deal of correspondence
exchanged over this one matter.
On 6 September 1983 Ngati Awa met the Hon. Ben Couch, Minister of Maori
Affairs, at Wairaka Marae, and the repatriation of Mataatua was an essential
part of the case put before him. Other meetings with Government Ministers
followed. A delegation met the Couch's successor, the Hon. Koro Wetere, to
put the case to him on 15 August 1985, and the Hon. Peter Tapsell on 18
1 Correspondence: Keith Holyoake, Minister of Internal Affairs to R. Dodd, 24 November 1969,
responding to letter dated 10 November 1969; G. S. Park, Assistant Anthropologist, Otago Museum
to Secretary for Internal Affairs, 9 December 1969. IA 13.127.27. MONZ.
2 G. S. Park to the Secretary for Internal Affairs, 9 December 1969. IA 13.127.27. MONZ. See also: Ngati
Awa 2, 95-6.
56
January 1988, when Ngati Awa attempted to enlist his support
for the
return of Mataatua. Two months later Tapsell forwarded to Ngati Awa a
response from the Minister of Internal Affairs, Dr Michael Bassett, outlining
the position of his Department concerning the ownership of Mataatua, in
which he advised that he was satisfied "that the legal owner is the Otago
Museum both by legal prescription and by transfer assignment from the
previous legal owner-the Minister for Internal Affairs acting for the
Crown."l
Meanwhile, Ngati Awa had stepped up their campaign by turning their
attention to the Otago Museum, the present custodians of the whare. On 30
November 1985 representatives of the Mataatua tribes, Te Whanau-aApanui, Whakatohea, Ngai Te Rangi, Ngati Ranginui and Ngati Awa,
meeting at Taiwhaea Marae, Whakatane, discussed the idea of supporting a
delegation to go to Dunedin to press for the return of the whare. On 17
November 1986 Hirini Mead met the Museum's Maori Committee and was
advised that the tribes of the South Island would disavow any claim on, or
interest in Mataatua, and stand aside from Ngati Awa's conversations with
the institution. A second delegation from Ngati Awa visited Dunedin in
1987 and met the Museum's Board of Trustees.
The following year, the chair of the Otago Museum Trust Board reiterated
the view "that the Museum's acceptance in 1925 of what remained of the
meeting house 'Mataatua', as a gift from the New Zealand Government,
was in good faith and was a legally correct transaction."2 This may well be a
reasonable interpretation of the transaction, but the point at issue is whether
the Government of the day was the owner of the whare,
1
2
and was thus
57
entitled to convey the property to another party. A memorandum dated 8
August 1925, from
J.
Hislop, Under-Secretary of Internal Affairs to the Hon.
Mr Bollard, the Minister, states that the "Maori House is the property of the
Government,"l but no legal instruments transferring the ownership of
Mataatua from Ngati Awa to the Government in 1879 appear ever to have
been drawn up.
How did the Government come into the possession of Mataatua?
Three competing explanations have been advanced for the building's
provenance. First, the whare was gifted to Queen Victoria by Ngati Awa;
second, Mataatua was presented outright by the tribe to the Colonial
Government; third, it was only lent to the Colonial Government for the
purposes of display at the Sydney Intercolonial Exhibition of 1879. Each of
these assertions will be closely examined in turn.
In February 1879 information was sought from Preece about a carved Maori
house that was to have been obtained for the Paris Exposition, and whether
it might now be available for exhibition in Sydney.2 Evidently, he had
previously negotiated with Ngati Awa over the possibility of displaying
Mataatua at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1878, and for that reason
was approached again and requested to purchase a whare as part of the New
Zealand Government's contribution to the forthcoming Intercolonial
Exhibition in Sydney.
1 IA file, 1880-1969, Mataatua, Series 13.127. Sub. No.27. MONZ.
2 3 February 1879 AJHR 1879, H.-13, 10.
58
Funds were earmarked for that purpose. In February 1879 Dr Hector, the
executive commissioner for the Sydney exhibition, was informed by
telegram that:
Colonel Whitmore thinks purchase of Maori House is a legitimate
charge against exhibition vote and thinks something has already been
paid on account for purchase of one of the houses. Also that you
should be able to decide which house is the best to purchase guiding
your decision perhaps by any further report from Mr Preece and from
the fact whether or not either has been particularly purchased
already.1
Thus it was that at their meeting on 24 February 1879, the Commissioners
resolved to "exhibit a Maori carved house, provided that the Government
conclude all negotiations for the purchase of the house from the Natives."2
Many years later, in 1922, Preece recalled his efforts to purchase a whare.
Well I tried the Whakatohea at Opape. They would not sell then I
tried Wepiha Apanui, he said we won't sell but we will consider the
government's proposal and let you know after we have had a full
meeting because the Pahipoto are interested in it, they sent for me
after their meeting and said they had decided to present the house to
the government. Tipiora of Kokohinau opposed the gift but old
Rangitukehu joined the Ngati Awa and at a meeting at Whakatane it
was handed over to me on behalf of Government as a gift. They
would not sell. 3
On 5 February 1879 he advised that he had "arranged with Whakatane
natives to give [the] house to [the] Government",4 and on 18 March he
requested the Government to telegraph the Whakatane chiefs formally
asking them for the Carved House for the Sydney Exhibition. 5 In an
immediate reply, Preece received his instructions:
I am directed by Honble Mr Sheehan to request you will be good
enough to write in Maori in his name to the Chiefs concerned in
Whakatane Carved house the following message - viz. - "Friends,
1
12 February, 1879, Aurelius M. Smith for the Agent General in a letter to Dr Hector. IA 5 6
Telegrams, 1879, 630. Archives.
2 AfHR, 1879, H-13., 8.
3 Preece, 1922 letter.
4 AfHR, 1879, H-13, 11
5 [79/1026) Maori Affairs Department Register, 1879. Archives.
59
salutations to you. I have received from Captain Preece the news
about your carved house. The object of the Government is to show
the world the work which the Maori people were capable of doing in
the erection of carved dwellings even a long time before the arrival of
the Pakeha. This is my word to you - Do you consent that
Government shall have the house for this purpose. Friends let this
request of mine find favour with you, and your work will be
approved by all the people of the Island. If you agree Captain Preece
will make all necessary arrangements. From your friend John
Sheehan." I am also directed to add that you may alter this message as
you may deem necessary to meet the case, so as to secure the object in
view. W. Morpeth for CIS [?] Agent GeneraI.1
In April 1879 Preece confirmed that he had "received possession of the
Carved House which the Whakatane Natives have given to the Govt. for
the purpose of being exhibited at the Sydney Exhibition."2 In July, however,
he advised "having proceeded to Whakatane for the purpose of taking down
the carved house 'Mataatua' a present from the Maoris to the
Government".3 Whether Ngati Awa had formally (and legally) gifted
Mataatua to the Government in perpetuity or had temporarily "presented"
it solely for the purpose stated, is difficult to determine from the surviving
documentation, for most of it lies on the Government's side, and it points to
a failure to deal with the tribe with the requisite degree of precision.
Transactions between the Government and the tribe seem largely to have
been conducted under "gentlemen'S agreements," concluded orally,
presumably because few Nagti Awa chiefs were able to read and write.
Tiopira was the notable exception.
At a hui
in Mataatua on 9 March, 1875, for example, the Minister of Native
Affairs had promised Tuhoe with respect to their concerns over their land,
that "they should have the substance of what he had just told them in
1
2
3
18 March 1879 MA 5 Telegram Book, 18. Archives.
Letter 79/1407,1 April 1879. Maori Affairs Register, 1879. Archives.
Entry in Maori Affairs Department Register, 1879.
60
writing lest there should be any future misunderstandings. "1 But when the
Premier, Richard John Seddon, attended a hui
in Whakatane nineteen
years later, Tiaki Rewiri, seeking redress from the Government over the
lease of a parcel of land negotiated in 1876, recalled that "At that time there
were no written agreements."2 More recently, the Premier was told, "the
Minister agreed [in 1889 or 1890] that we should have it [a particular site] for
a landing place, but we received no document showing we have a right to
that place. The promise of the Minister [Mr Richardson] was not reduced to
writing. "3
The discretionary power with which Preece was invested in conveying
messages between Ngati Awa and the Government raises once again the
possibility of misunderstandings arising from the necessity of having to
translate the Government's overtures to Ngati Awa into Maori, and Ngati
Awa's responses from Maori into English. The Government had wished to
purchase a whare to show at an international exhibition but the tribe with
which it was negotiating had declined to sell. Instead, the tribe had offered to
make the house available for the Exhibition and this gesture had been
interpreted by the Government's agent as a "present", as a "gift", and this
message was conveyed to the Government. What was the Maori word or
expression used by those with whom Preece negotiated the release of
Mataatua which gave rise to his understanding that the whare had been
1
2
3
BPT, 13 March, 1875. G. V. Butterworth, Aotearoa 1769 - 1988: Towrads a Tribal Perspective
(Wellington, 1988),80, speaks of McLean's "patient diplomacy". Resident Magistrates provided an
essential link between the Central Government and local Maori communities. Again, "McLean in
fact relied very much on the influence of his Officers and their personal visitations. His system was
unashamedly one of friendly persuasion and if he had to use force he used it very discreetly. His
preferred method was diplomacy strongly supplemented by gifts and payments." His contingency
expenditure in 1871-2 was £34,000. ibid., 83.
Pakeha and Maori. A Narrative of the Premier's Trip through the Native Districts of the North
Island of New Zealand during the month of March 1894. Wellington, 1895, 46.
ibid., p.47.
61
presented to the Government? What was the context in which that word or
expression was used?
As a reciprocal gesture, Preece recommended "that the Govt. should give the
Ngatiawa's some substantial recognition in return for same."l A month
later, G. S. Cooper wrote requesting an account of the whare ; "When this is
received the question of granting compensation to the tribes interested will
be taken into consideration".2 His additional note that "Colonel Whitmore
directs me to add that the house is stated not to be equal to the anticipations
that had been formed of it"3 seems to signal an intention to determine
"compensation" at a reduced level. [It is interesting to note that in 1923 an
enthusiastic correspondent for the Evening Post dcleared that "If any
ethnologist had the ambition and opportunity to purchase it £40,000 would
probably not satisfy the owner."4] The matter had still not been settled seven
months after Mataatua had left Whakatane. In February 1880, Morpeth (on
the Under Secretary's behalf) wrote to Preece asking what "would be a fair
amount to send the Natives as a gift, in return for their present of the House
in question,"5 and Preece had responded by recommending £300 as "the least
sum that could fairly be paid. "6
It may have been through this unconscionable delay that Ngati Awa began
to entertain second thoughts about their "present". Perhaps they had begun
to appreciate that what the Government had understood by their gesture, as
against what they had intended, made it unlikely that they would ever see
their whare again. [No records exist of any arrangements for the return of
1
2
Entry in Maori Affairs Department Register, 1879
G. S. D. Cooper to Preece, 25 August, 1879. 79/3017: IA
3
ibid.
4 45
Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
5 12 February, 1880. MA 4 28, General Maori Letterbook,
6 MA Register, 1880,80/847. Archives.
Outwar4 Letterbook, 479.
4
259. Archives.
62
Mataatua to Whakatane.] It was at this point that Apanui and his associates,
through R. S. Bush (successor, as Resident Magistrate in Opotiki, to Preece,
who had transferred to Napier)l, and in a letter [untraced]2 to the Native
Affairs Minister, dated 8 June, 1880,3 attempted to persuade the Government
to exercise its original option to purchase the whare. The letter's "repeated
request for the sum of £3000 for Mataatua"4 indicates that Ngati Awa had
not regarded their "present" of Mataatua to the Government as a "gift" in
perpetuity. However, the tribe was informed that:
The Government did not say it was buying that carved meeting
house. Also it did not understand it was to be purchased by them but
you (aU) were giving the house to the Government to be sent to
Sydney so that all the people of the world may see the ability of the
Maori in the construction of carved houses. 5
This statement reiterates the Government's original object of using the
whare "to show the world the work which the Maori people were capable of
doing in the erection of carved dwellings even a long time before the arrival
of the Pakeha," when Ngati Awa were asked: "Do you consent that
Government shall have the house for this purpose."6
Lewis reminded Apanui that
£300 had been given by the Government not as payment for the house
but as a gesture of the good faith of the Government for your
magnificent gesture in giving that house to be displayed. But the
Government does not agree with your request for payment?
1 26 July 1880 Lewis (under secretary) to R S. Bush RM., Opotiki: a response to Apanui's request for
£3000 for Mataatua, which Bush had forwarded on 17 July. MA 4 28, General Maori Letterbook, 669.
2
3
4
Written by Tiopira?
The letter is cited in T. W. Lewis's reply, dated
5
MA 4 85 Letterbook, pp. 431-2. Archives. I am grateful to Peter Muir [Ngati Mamoe], Maori
Department, University of Canterbury, for translating this letter.
18 March 1879 MA 5 Telegram Book, p. 18. Archives.
MA 4 85 Letterbook, pp. 431-2. Archives. I am grateful to Peter Muir [Ngati Mamoe], Maori
Department, University of Canterbury, for translating this letter.
6
7
23 July 1880. MA 4 85 Letterbook, 431-2. Archives.
ibid.
63
A payment was made. In 1922, Preece writing to Gilbert Mair recalled that
"Bush gave Tiopira and the opposition people £300 but Ngati Awa people
would not participate, this is only hearsay as I was in Napier. "1 The
"opposition people," including Tiopira of Kokohinau [Te Teko], were those
who had "opposed the gift" [but "old Rangitukehu joined the Ngati Awa
and at a meeting at Whakatane it was handed over to me on behalf of
Government as a gift. They would not sell"].2 Ngati Awa at Whakatane, the
principal owners of Mataatua, received nothing. Dr Wadmore was in error
in stating that they had received £200. 3
Once the Government had taken possession of Mataatua it behaved as
though it were the owner of an unencumbered property-a property at its
disposal. The Government having declined to purchase the whare, nothing
more was heard from Ngati Awa on the matter. The fate of Mataatua did not
feature among the issues raised at a hui attended by Premier Seddon at
Whakatane in 1894.4 In that year, in fact, a new whare runanga
had been
erected on the marae,s the first since Mataatua was dismantled fifteen years
earlier, and an indication, perhaps, that Ngati Awa had resigned themselves
to the probability that Mataatua would never return.
When Mataatua was returned to New Zealand, Rapata Peene wrote to
Apirana Ngata, informing him that Ngati Awa were "anxious that they
should be employed to erect the carved house Mataatua wherever the
1
Preece to Mair, 6 December 1922. MS Papers 92 Folder 13A. MONZ?
2
ibid.
3
4
Dunedin Exhibition Report, 36.
'Pakeha and Maori: A narrative of the Premier's Trip through the Native Districts of the North
Island.' [AJHR II, 1895, G.-I.]
"I think I afterwards heard that Ngati Awa built a smaller house and named it as stated by you but
this was after I left Opotiki." Preece letter 1922. cf. Takotohiwi, 70: The "first Wairaka house was
opened in 1894."
5
64
Department [of Internal Affairs] may decide to have it."l One wonders why
Ngati Awa did not petition the Government at that stage for the return of
the whare to Whakatane, given that many people who had witnessed both
the construction and opening, and the dismantling and departure, of
Mataatua were still alive, and were, indeed, the very people whom Dr
Wadmore was consulting in connection with the early history of the
building. Had they long since resigned themselves to accept that the
Government was, what it had long represented itself to be, the legal and
outright owner of the taonga ?
Certainly, that was the view of the Otago Museum authorities when they
made their approach to the Government while Mataatua being erected as an
exhibit at the Dunedin Exhibition. In July 1925 Professor W. Benham, the
Curator of the University Museum, wrote to the Under-Secretary for
Internal Affairs, asking if he "could see his way to arrange that, when the
Dunedin Exhibition is closed, this Maori House be handed over by the
Government to this museum on permanent loan." The Government's
reponse was to transfer the whare, together with all the responsibilites that
went with its presentation, maintenance and administration to the Otago
Museum, virtually in perpetuity.
1
Ngata to Minister of Internal Affairs, 6 September 1928. IA file, 1880-1969, Mataatua Series 123.127.
Sub. No. 27. MONZ.
65
CHAPTER V. STEWARDSHIP OF THE FABRIC
Ngati Awa
insist that they "remain the legal owners of the House".1
However, if a comprehensive inventory were to be drawn up it would show
that the framework of the present building, the reed wall lining
andtukutuku panels, and a number of the carvings formed no part of the
original structure.
In 1988 the Chairman of the Otago Museum trust Board, recalling "the
Museum's acceptance in 1925 of what remained of the meeting house
'Mataatua'[my emphasis], as a gift from the New Zealand Government",
indicated that the whare as accessioned by the institution had been
somewhat less than complete. But to what degree? Precisely what remained
of Mataatua to be handed over by the Government to the Otago Museum?
And what was the extent of the restoration that had to be carried out in
order to bring the whare to its present state of completion?
Mataatua was dismantled and shipped to Sydney in 1879 "with all reeds and
inside work"2 as well as the carved timbers but without the roof thatch and
exterior wall cladding. In Sydney the whare was erected with the interior
poupou
andtuku tuku panels on the exterior. Considering the perishable
nature of the materials of which it was built, the exposure of the carvings
and tukutuku panels not just to the elements but to the intense heat and
humidity of the Sydney climate was potentially very damaging. In 1923 the
Evening Post was to observe that the "hot suns of Australia and the carriage
by land and water have probably been responsible for such damage as there
1 Ngati Awa 2, 102.
2 Preece to Mair, 6 Decmber 1922. MS Papers 92, Folder 13A, C. Mair. ATL.
66
is.''l Sir James Hector advised the Colonial Secretary in April 1880 that the
carvings were already "much decayed".2
But the Government had disavowed any responsibility "for loss or damage,
either in transit or during the exhibition,"3 and the Commissioners,
likewise, undertook to "use every endeavour to provide against the loss or
damage of the collections, which will be duly insured, but they will not hold
themselves or the Government responsible for any damage or loss. "4
From Melbourne the whare was shipped to London, where it was re-erected
in a quadrangle of the South Kensington Museum. If Ettie Rout is correct in
stating that, "owing to a mistake during its erection the carvings which
should have been inside were put outside the house, so that the building
was really put up inside out,"S it is possible that the workmen might have
been guided by photographs of Mataatua as it had appeared at the Sydney
Intercolonial Exhibition. However, Eric Maclagan, Director of the Victoria
and Albert Museum, in 1937 recalled that Mataatua had been "erected in the
grounds with the carvings reversed to protect them from the weather, but
the land was required for building purposes in 1886 and the house was taken
to pieces and stored. "6 Whether this means that the carvings were placed in
the interior, or on the exterior with the carved side turned inwards, is hard
to determine.
In November 1922 the Sun newspaper reported that the authorities of the
Victoria and Albert Museum were willing to see the Maori house which had
1 Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
2 Sir James Hector to Colonial Secretary, 2 April 1880. IA 13.27.127. Quoted Ngati Awa Report 2,74.
3 NZG, 21 January 1879, et seq.
4 AJHR, 1879, H-13, 7.
5 Ettie Rout, Maori Symbolism, 126.
6 Eric Maclagan [to H. D. Skinner?], 3 May 1937. IA Folder "Mataatua Various Papers". MONZ.
67
presented to the Imperial Government, and had been lying dismantled in a
cellar of the Museum for forty years, returned to New Zealand, and that
there was a suggestion that it could be erected at the 1924 British Empire
Exhibition. In preparation for the building's presentation at the Exhibition,
the "timbers" were "laid out in order and the poupous ... placed against the
wall" in the Museum, so that "one may get an idea of the size of the house
and the excellence of the work."l The photographs of the carvings, published
in Ettie Rout's book on Maori Symbolism, may be presumed to have been
taken at this point.
The Sun reported that "the timbers are well preserved";2 the fact that the
timbers had "not suffered much" the Evening Post
attributed to their
having been stored in a cellar with "tiled walls and bricked floor".3 In 1923 a
Progress Report advised that the carvings had been "thoroughly cleaned,
repinted and oiled and this House is now quite ready for transport to and
erection at the British Empire Exhibition."4 Maclagan recalled that "The
small amount of restoration which was necessary before the house could be
re-erected [at the Wembley Exhibition of 1924] was carried out by Major [R]
Dansey and Te Kiri."5
But Richard Skinner, son of the man largely responsible for the repatriation
of Mataatua, maintains that the whare had sustained "grievous damages"
during its travels. 6 In March 1923 the Evening Post had reported that "a
number of the huge totara logs have split, some of the frailer portions of the
carvings have been broken off... and one or two of the posts have developed
1
Evening Post, 23 March 1923.
2 The Sun, 25 November 1922.
3 Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
4 Papers. MONZ.
5 Eric Mac1agan.
6 ODT, 13 November 1987.
68
dryrot. This is the extent of the serious damage."l The tahuhu had evidently
been "sawn into three sections to facilitate transport,"2 -Ettie Rout states
that it had been "hacked into four pieces"3-and "many of the paua shells"
had been "knocked out of the carved figures."4 She noted that during the
course of the whare's erection at Wembley, it was found "that certain parts
of the House had been badly damaged, probably during its long voyage to
England by way of Australia." s Summarising the "chief mutilations", she
observed that the poutokomanawa "had been shortened at both ends so that
the plain part of the base, intended to be sunk into the ground to a depth of
some 2ft. 6 in., had been sawn off, while the tenon at the other end, which
should have projected about the same distance in order to go through the
mortise in the ridgpole and take the carved figure made for it, was also
missing. "6 The koruru was not among the carvings retrieved from storage
at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but later turned up in Scotland! She
states that the "two carved front barge-boards had been badly mutilated by
previous builders, who had not realized that they were made to drop into
position between the carved figures of the side-posts."
They had chopped away the wood, removing and damaging some of
the carving, and the result was that a gap in the gable had to be filled
in when the House was erected at Wembley.7
[Dr Wadmore, too, observed that the bargeboards were "now unfortunately
showing signs of damage from their long travels and storage".8]
Rout further noted that
1
Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
2 ibid.
3
Rout, 127.
4
ibid ..
5 ibid.
6 ibid.
7 ibid.
8
Folder 'Mataatua, Various Papers. MONZ.
69
three of the carved wooden panels which formed the uprights of the
house were missing; others were badly damaged-some so badly that
they could not be erected. As a result the whole building was some 6
ft. short of its proper length. The horizontal panelling was all
missing. 1
She also reported that the "door and window were both mssing from Mataatua."2 Richard Skinner was to observe that "a number of vertical carved
planks at the two ends were lost, presumably by theft ... [and] A number of
skirting boards also went and were replaced by Chappe Hall."3
In 1922 a cable had been forwarded to Sir James Allen requesting
information about the "Number of side posts, rafters, and reed panels
available in connection with the Maori House Mata[a]tua."4 It is not known
whether the High Commissioner furnished this inventory, but Plates XV to
XIX in Ettie Rout's book, Maori Symbolism, are informative with respect to
the number and condition of the surviving carvings.s [None of the "reed
panels" had survived.] What is abundantly clear from the photographs, and
from Rout's descriptions of the carvings' mutilated condition, is that they
could no longer function as architectural members in a free-standing frame
structure, as they had when Mataatua was originally built in Whakatane.
The poupou
would have to be attached to, or located within, a purpose-
built, balloon-frame structure. Whether this mode of exhibiting Mataatua's
carvings began in Sydney, Melbourne, or London, cannot be established
from the available evidence. In Dunedin, however, such a structure was
built and the surviving carvings and replacement carvings were integrated
into it.
1 Rout, ibid.
2 ibid., 293.
3 PhillippsjWadmore, 33.
4 Copy of document from Department of Indutries and Commerce File Record. Mataatua papers.
MONZ.
5 Rout, ibid.
70
In Dunedin, Collins thought that some of the carvings might require "repair
or renewal," and indicated that if that was the case, "Mr Skinner is to
provide the necessary material from his own Museum."l By the time the
Otago Museum had taken possession of Mataatua-as Skinner's son was to
to remark in 1987-"All its panels had been lost, the individual floor-level
skirting carvings were largely gone, and many of the surviving upright
carvings were battered almost beyond recognition."2 He said:
I clearly recollect as a youngster being taken into the structure that was
to house Mataatua at the south end of the Fels Wing and being shown
the many gaps left by missing carvings, including the entire rear wall
and a number of roof sections. 3
The Museum retains a number of registered fragments in storage-with the
exception of anepa which is at present on display with its overpainting of
"museum red" removed to reveal the orginal polychrome. The fragments
include epa and bases of pou.
Wanganui Maori are said to have provided totara logs for some of the
"major carvings and structural beams. "4 Five of the original epa have been
replaced in Mataatua, as erected in the Otago Museum, by Ngati Porou
carvings from a whare called Tumoana, "remnants of an incomplete house
that had been in storage at the Otago Museum,"s as Skinner's son reminds
us. He further states that a "significant number" of carvings were given by
Taranaki people. 6 Some of the existing carvings must have been further
trimmed in line with the much lower pitch of the roof.
1
q. Ngati Awa Report 2, 86. Not sighted by author but presumed to be amongst the IA papers,
2
MONZ.
ODT, 13 November 1987.
3
ibid.
4
5
ibid ..
6
ibid
Richard Skinner, ODT, 13 November 1987.
71
)
The house as completed in 18751 also included tukutuku
and whariki. In
1923, however, the tukutuku panels were reported as having "long since
decayed and been destroyed":2 "The whole of the Decorative Lining for the
walls and ceiling was missing," Ettie Rout remarked. 3 [It is odd, then, that Dr
Wadmore in should comment on the "panels of the inerior walls ... woven
from 'kiekie' and 'pingao' grass"4 in his 1925 description of the whare.] For
Mataatua's re-erection at the Dunedin Exhibition,
J.
W. Collins suggested
that "the interior arrangement as planned for Wembley be adhered to, i.e. to
have large photographs set in position over the stencilled tukutuku
panels. "5 [Remnants of these stencilled panels are said to survive in the
Museum.] We have seen that Mataatua was completed with new tukutuku
panels made by, and under the supervision of, Chappe Hall.
The obvious conclusion to draw from the foregoing outline of the
stewardship of the fabric is that the whare whose return Ngati Awa are
actively seeking does not exist in the form in which it was completed, and
then dismantled, in Whakatane. As erected in the Otago Museum, Mataatua
includes recycled carvings, new carvings andtukutuku panels, and structural
and protective elements that formed no part of the original, and clearly
belong to the Museum. The majority of the original carvings survive,
however, though grievously mutilated in some instances. These are the
remnants to which Ngati Awa might be able to lay claim; they might,
additionally, be able to argue for the repatriation and restoration of their
1 8PT, in March 1875
2 Evening Post, 31 March 1923.
3 ibid.
4 C.E Thompson, Official Record of the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition
(Dunedin, 1926), 37.
5 McDonald, Acting Director, to J W Collins, Secretary of Industries and Commerce, 29 April 1925,
and Collins to Skinner, 15 June 1925, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 13.127. Sub. No. 27. MONZ
72
whare, and some degree of reparation from the Government: the Museum
emerges from the whole saga as relatively blameless.
Indeed, the Museum has been a conscientious steward of Mataatua: the
whare "has been, and continues to be," as G. S. Park, Assistant
Anthropologist in the Otago Museum, asserted in 1969, "restored and
conserved by the Museum's trained staff, at the Museum's expense") One of
the arguments he put forward for his institution's retention of the whare
was that: "This house is displayed in a temperature-controlled building away
from the elements which would otherwise destroy it."2 Although Mataatua
was erected at the east end of the Willi Fels Wing, with the "forepart"
projecting into the hall, and the "body of the house being outside",3 and
with a clear temperature differentiation between the interior of thewhare
and its porch, there can be no doubt that the building's translation from the
natural and seasonal cycles to the relatively weatherless environment of a
whare taonga has prolonged its life indefinitely.
The life expectancy of a whare in ancient times had been that of a generation
in human terms-assuming that it survived the predations of accidental or
deliberate destruction. [The successor to Mataatua, built in 1894, burned
down about seventeen years later, and was replaced by the present whare at
Wairaka, opened in 1912.] In 1867,
J.
C. Richmond, the Minister of Customs,
was riding to a hui withtangata whenua of the Poverty Bay region when he
spotted what appeared to be a gigantic heap of dry rushes.
This turned out to be a carved house of what was even then regarded
as being of exceptional merit. The roof was in ruins, and the danger of
fire seemed imminent. 4
1 G. S. Park to Secretary of Internal Affairs, 9 December 1969. IA 13. 27. 127. MONZ.
2 Letter dated 9 December 1969. IA 13. 27. 127. MONZ.
3 Otago Museum Report, 1929, 4.
73
The ruin was what survived of Te Hau-ki-Turanga, the whare whakairo
which had been erected around a quarter of century earlier, and was destined
to become one of the prime exhibits of the Colonial Museum, later known
successively as the Dominion Museum, and the National Museum, and
since 1992 the Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa.
Hotunui, built by Ngati Awa carvers between 1875 and 1878 stood at Parawai,
near Thames, for forty-seven years. But by the 1920s the structure had begun
to deteriorate and was no longer in use as a whare runanga. In 1925 tribal
leaders approached the Auckland Museum to arrange for Hotunui to be
brought to Auckland for safe-keeping in the Museum.! In 1929 Hotunui was
installed in the Maori court/ and its presence there is not in contention with
Ngati Awa -
"as far as Ngati Awa is concerned the mana of Hotunui lies
with the people of Hauraki."3 It is reasonable to assume that Mataatua, had it
remained on its original site, would eventually have arrived at a
comparable level of deterioration. But its conservation within the protective
environment of a museum has prevented this.
1
2
3
Gerry Barton & David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of a Meeting House (Auckland, 1985), 5.
Restored by Chappe Hall.
Ngati Awa 2,10.
74
CONCLUSION
The issue of the repatriation of Mataatua to Ngati Awa in Whakatane is one
which is heavy with symbolism and emotion. From the tribe's perspective,
they have suffered a great wrong and a grievous loss of mana in their
perceived alienation from one of the most potent emblems of identity it is
possible for a tribe to have: the whare tupuna. The building stands in
Dunedin without Ngati Awa's permission or blessing, and, from their pont
of view, is thus captive. When Hirini Mead insisted that it was "never in
the minds of the chiefs of N gati Awa to give our house to the people of
Otago,"l he was stating the obvious. In its iconography and decoration, the
whare is specific to Ngati Awa of Whakatane and contains representations
of their tupuna. Mataatua is not an emblem of identity for the mana
whenua of Otakou: those people are standing aside 2 in Ngati Awa's claim
against the Government. Ngati Awa insist that they never relinquished
their ownership of the whare - indeed, if the Maori concept that you are
owned by your tupuna - you do not own them - has any validity, then it is
doubtful whether Mataatua, as a whare tupuna, could be gifted in a final and
absolute sense to any other party. "No te iwi whiinui te whare nui, a
Mataatua?" Not exactly. The whole tribe belongs to Mataatua.
Apart from the frustrating absence of original documentation on the Ngati
Awa side of the claim, the whole review exercise has pointed up the
difficulty, not only of reconstructing and interpreting the events of a very
slippery moment in history, but of trying to fathom the precise significance
of a transaction where two entirely disparate languages, conceptual
frameworks, value systems and time-frames were involved. [For that reason
1 ibid., 100.
2
ibid.
75
alone it was not an exercise to be entrusted either to those inexperienced in
research methods or to mono cultural and Eurocentric analysts.] The
potential for cultural and linguistic misunderstandings and misconceptions
is enormous, even when it is narrowed down to a single incident and a
single word, in this case, the alleged "present" of Mataatua by Ngati Awa to
the Government. What was intended by Ngati Awa and what was
understood by George Preece from the word (or words) he translated from
idiomatic Maori usage in the Bay of Plenty in 1879 as the noun "present"?
From the historical record, such as it is, however, certain facts can be
established. First, Mataatua was not presented to Queen Victoria or Sir
Donald McLean; nor was it presented to the Colonial Government in 1875. It
was certainly not purchased by the Crown in 1879, although that was an
option open to those negotiating with Ngati Awa at the time that they chose
not to exercise, and it is apparent that the tribe did not clearly understand in
1879 and 1880 that they were relinquishing their claim on the whare
entirely. Since no deed, or any other legal instrument, transferring
ownership of Mataatua to the Crown has yet been located, we have to
conclude that the Government assumed ownership, but whether it was
entitled to do that is a moot point.
Once the Government had taken posession of Mataatua it nevertheless
disavowed any responsibility for the material upkeep of the whare.
Successive Governments did not value the building as the unique artistic
treasure that it undoubtedly was to the people who created it, and treated it
accordingly, consigning it to what was then a "second string" provincial
museum. This was entirely consistent, however, with the colonisers' view
of the colonised as culturally inferior.1 While Ngati Awa charge the
1
See Leonard Bell, Colonial Constructs: European Images of the Maori, 1840 - 1914. Auckland, 1992.
76
Government that disposed of Mataatua with displaying "all the hallmarks of
cultural insensitivity and arrogance in not consulting with the true owners
of the house,"l it would never have occurred to that party at that time that it
was acting other than in terms of its own code of cultural correctness.
It was as the owner of an ethnographic specimen that it did not particularly
value that the Government in 1925 virtually transferred ownership of
Mataatua to the Otago Museum in response to that institution's request for
the whare "on permanent loan".2 Even in this transaction there is a degree
of imprecision, although both the Government and the Museum
authorities have more recently chosen to interpret the transfer as complete
and entire.
Meanwhile, Ngati Awa had gained the confidence and skills to request the
return of a taonga which, ironically, might not have survived to the extent
it has but for its long period of maintenance and protection from the
elements in the Museum. From a Ngati Awa point of view, however,
Mataatua, as a living, organic being, is held captive in a tribally "foreign"
territory, within an alien institutional cultural framework on what may be
construed as an artificial life-support system. In terms of taha Maori, it is
natural to hope that such a captive would be returned to its people,
witnessing to, and participating in, their life cycles, and itself live out its life
among them, and die in due season. It is perhaps a measure of the degree to
which the values of the western museum culture have permeated the lives
of indigenous and naturalised New Zealanders alike that Ngati Awa have
attempted to allay fears that the whare would be released to its sure
destruction by reassuring the hitherto highly resistant Museum authorities
1 NgatiAwa 2, 102.
2 Professor W. Benham to the Under-Secretary for Internal Affairs, 7 July 1925. IA file, 1880 - 1969.
Series 13. 127. Sub. No. 27.
77
that Mataatua would be well-cared for. Were the whare to be released into
the custody of Ngati Awa, however, it would be entirely their prerogative,
under tino rangatiratanga, to determine Mataatua's future, and how they
would utilise their whare tupuna.
78
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