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 office­ holder3 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 South Seas International Exhibition, Dunedin 1925-1926 (Dunedin, 1926),36-37, which is clearly 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 Hukiki2 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 W. J. Phillipps & J. c. Wadmore, The Great Carved House Matatua of Whakatane. Wellington, 1956. 2 Tiopira [Te] Hukiki of Pahipoto [lay reader, Anglican church] 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 pa ana ki te tono a Ngati Awa rno ton a whare rno Mataatua (1989), the other 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 See, for example, Hirini Moro Mead et ai, Te Murunga Hara: The Pardon. Research report No.1 (Whakatane, 1989, revised). 2 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 report­ to 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, J. Phillipps, Carved Maori Houses of Western and Northern Areas of New Zealand. Wellington, 1955.

Phillips/Wadmore W. J. Phillipps & J. C. Wadmore, The Great Carved House Mataatua of Whakatane. Wellington, 1956. 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 near the site where, according to tradition, the Mataatua waka 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 destroyed­ and perhaps to commemorate the recently destroyed sacred tree "Te Puhi-o­ Mataatua" 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 " .... and subsequently £200 was received by them in recognition of this unique gift." Dunedin Exhibition Report, 36. 2 q. Phillipps/Wadmore, 4. 3 'How Maori Meeting House came to Otago Museum', Otago Daily Times, 13 November, 1987. 4 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. S ibid. 6 Ngati Awa 2,19. 7 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-1925- 1926, 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 No report or letter has been traced. 2 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 ibid. 4 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 Mearana Mokomoko, "The Building of Hotunui", Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 30 (1897),41. 2 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 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. 2 Ngati Awa 2, 49 ff.See also: Anton van der Wouden, 'Where was Mataatua built?', Historical Review, 40:2 (1992), 99-101. 3 ibid. 4 W. T. Parham, 'Rewi Maniopoto comes to Whakatane', Historical Review, 29:2, 1981. 5 Ngati Awa 2, 49 ff. 6 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. 7 IA file, MONZ. g 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 Teira6-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 AJHR, 1875, G.-1A, 4. 2 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." 3 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." 4 q. Ngati Awa Report, 16. Check out original. 5 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 (and the upper lip zone of the masks on the amo ) of the whare, 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 BPT, 13 March, 1875. 2 Ettie Rout, ibid. 3 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. 2 "History of the Carved House "Mata[a]tua" ", AJHR, 1879, G.-4., p.l. 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 until 1879. For four years the whare 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 Forty­ four 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 New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 25, 1. 2 NZPD, 25, 121. 3 BPT, 13 March, 1875 4 Preece to Mair, 5 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

1 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. 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 panels6 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 for delivery to Wellington, there to be transferred to the S. S. Wakatipu. 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 AJHR, 1880, 2, H.-SA, 11. 2 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 D. Hunter to Mr Cooper (undated), 80/2323, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ. 2 John Hall to F. D. Bell, 22 April 1881, 80/2323, IA file, 1880-1969, "Mataatua". MONZ. 3 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 Maclagan, ibid. 2 3 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 [Sir James Allen] Re: Maori Exhibit, memorandum, 23 November 1922. IA file. MONZ. 4 The Sun, 25 November 1922. 5 [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 Sir James Allen] Re: Maori Exhibit, memorandum, 23 November 1922. IA file. MONZ. 2 New Zealand Times, 5 January 1923. 3 Richard Skinner, ODT, 13 November 1987. 4 Sir James Allen, Progress Report No 3, 18 May 1923. MONZ. 5 Eric Maclagan. 6 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 ibid, 2 ibid. 3 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. 47

CHAPTER III. MATAA TVA 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 q. Ngati Awa Report 2, 86. Not sighted by author but presumed to be amongst the IA papers, MONZ. 2 Thomspon, 37. 3 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. 4 Collins to Tradboard [telegram], 5 August 1925, On 10 September 1925, IA file 1880-1969, "Mataatua", Series 13.127. Sub. No.27. MONZ. 5 ibid. 6 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. 7 '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 request3-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 2 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, 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 Ngata to Minister of Internal Affairs, 6 September 1928, 83/5388, 2 Otago University Museum Report, 1929, p. 4. 3 ODT, 22 August 1930. 4 ibid. 5 Gerry Barton & David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of a Meeting House (Auckland, 1985). 6 ODT, 13 November 1987. 7 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 women­ Mesdames 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 ODT, 13 November 1987. 4 ibid. S 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 George Graham to H. D. Skinner, 12 July 1934. Folder "Mataatua, Various Papers". MONZ. 2 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 24 November 1969, when the Secretary for Internal Affairs, M. J. 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-a­ Apanui, 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, and was thus

1 2 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 18 March 1879 MA 5 Telegram Book, 18. Archives. 2 Letter 79/1407,1 April 1879. Maori Affairs Register, 1879. Archives. 3 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 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. 2 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. 3 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 Entry in Maori Affairs Department Register, 1879 2 G. S. D. Cooper to Preece, 25 August, 1879. 79/3017: IA 4 45 Outwar4 Letterbook, 479. 3 ibid. 4 Evening Post, 31 March 1923. 5 12 February, 1880. MA 4 28, General Maori Letterbook, 259. Archives. 6 MA Register, 1880,80/847. 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 Written by Tiopira? 3 The letter is cited in T. W. Lewis's reply, dated 23 July 1880. MA 4 85 Letterbook, 431-2. Archives. 4 ibid. 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. 6 18 March 1879 MA 5 Telegram Book, p. 18. Archives. 7 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. 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 Dunedin Exhibition Report, 36. 4 'Pakeha and Maori: A narrative of the Premier's Trip through the Native Districts of the North Island.' [AJHR II, 1895, G.-I.] 5 "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." 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 Mata­ atua."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, MONZ. 2 ODT, 13 November 1987. 3 ibid. 4 Richard Skinner, ODT, 13 November 1987. 5 ibid .. 6 ibid 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 Gerry Barton & David Reynolds, Hotunui: The Restoration of a Meeting House (Auckland, 1985), 5. 2 Restored by Chappe Hall. 3 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 aside2 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

BIBLIOGRAPHY

UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS

1. Archives

Dunedin. Otago Museum. File, 'Mataatua. Misc.' Wellington. Alexander Turnbull Library. MS Papers 32, 1870-76, folder 171. MS Papers 32.171. MS Papers 92, folder 13 1A. Wellington. National Archives. Internal Affairs Department Registers, 1878, 1879,1880. IA 4.44. Outward Letterbook, 1879. IA 4.4S. Outward Letterbook, 1879. IA S.6. Telegrams, 1879. Maori Affairs Department Registers, 187S, 1878,1879,1880. MA 4.20. General English Letterbook, 187S. MA 4. 28. General Maori Letterbook, 1880. MA 4.80a. General Maori Letterbook. MA 4.8S, Letterbook. MA S.6.Telegram Book Wellington. Museum of New Zealand. DM file 18.4.5ub. No. 1. 'Wembley Exhibition' . DM file.18.S.1. IA file, 1880-1969, 'Mataatua'. Series 13. 127. Sub. No. 27. File, 'Mataatua Various Papers' H. D. Skinner-Maori Collections in the United Kingdom. 2. Thesis

Takotohiwi, Mihi Nga Marae 0 Whakatane. Thesis presented in the University of Waikato, 1980.

PUBLISHED MATERIALS

I. Official Papers

Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives. 1874, G.-2. 187S, G.-1A; G.-4. 1876, G.-I. 1879, G.-4.; H.-13. 1880, G.-4.; H.-S; H.-SA. 1882, H.-SA. 79

New Zealand Gazette, January 1878. New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 25. Wellington, 1877. Woods, Tom Te Ripoata a te Tari Maori e pa ana ki te tono a Ngati Awa mo tona whare mo Mataatua. Whakatane, 1989. 2. Books

Barton, Gerry and David Reynolds Hotunui: The Restoration of a Meeting House. Auckland, 1985. Bellich, James The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict. Auckland, 1986. Butterworth, G. V. Aotearoa 1769-1988: Towards a Tribal Perspective. Wellington, 1988. Mead, Hirini Moko et al Te Murunga Hara: The Pardon. Whakatane, 1989, revised. Nga Karoretanga 0 Mataatua Whare. The Wanderings of the Carved House, Mataatua. Research Report No.2. Whakatane, 1990. 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. Oliver, W. H., (Gen. ed.) The Dictionary of New Zealand, 1, 1769-1869. Wellington,1990. Otago University Museum Annual Reports. Dunedin, 1926, 1927, 1929,1930. Phillipps, W. J. Carved Maori Houses of Western and Northern Areas of New Zealand. Wellington, 1955. Phillipps, W. J. and J. C. Wadmore The Great Carved House Mataatua of Whakatane. Wellington, 1956. Porter, Frances, (ed.) Historic Buildings of New Zealand: North Island. Auckland, 1979. Rout Ettie Maori Symbolism; Being an Account of the Origin, Migration, and Culture of the New Zealand Maori as recorded in Certain Sacred Legends. London, 1926. Scholefield, G. H., (ed.) Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, 1. Wellington, 1940. Who's Who in New Zealand. Wellington, 1941. Simpson, Miria, Nga Tohu 0 Te Tiriti: Making a Mark. Wellington, 1990. Skinner, H. D., Compatively Speaking: Studies in Pacific Material Culture, 1921 - 1972. Dunedin, 1974.