RUNANGA HOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 150, 27 June 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

RUNANGA HOUSE.

BUILDING- FAMOUS RELIC. MAORI CRAFTSMEN AT WORK. (By A.L.R.) To those of us familiar with the great Runanga House as it now stands in the Auckland. War . .Memorial' Museum, the following extract from an. old journal, descriptive of its being built at the Thames in the early days, will be of great interest. "One day recently as wc, were walking along the road from Shortland to Paraw'ai w'e noticed that something unusual was happening outside one Of the Maori whares," says the diarist. "There on a kind of bed was stretched something with a red* blanket thrown over it; while the cries and loud moaning of the natives 'told .us it was a tangi, and that the red blanket covered the body of an old chief. He was a very rich old fellow and had left the large sum of fGOOO in the bank for the building of a Runanga House to be typical of ancient Maori art. He had trusted his son, the present chief, to.see that his desire was fulfilled aiter his death. "We.did,not hear much more about it all until one day we met an old Maori woman we knew, and asked her where her husband was? She replied, 'He-home in whare, he no respectable!' He had got rather tipsy because he had been so excited over helping to drag up from the beach the ridge pole for the grand new Runanga House.'

Experts Sent For. "It took from 50 to 60 natives to drag up this huge spar to.the paddock belong: ing to the chief, and there for a long time it stayed, for the natives '..ere know nothing of the skilful carving which such a Runanga House as this would require. So.they sent for renowned carvers from the East Coast to come and do the work, and in preparation for these guests the Thames natives planted a huge field of kumaras. The whole field was planted in diagonal lines by the women, who just squatted down in the field and pulled up the weeds as far as they could reach with ease, and then moved a little farther, and so on, the result being a far tidier field than the potato field of many an English farmer who breaks his back with work. "When the kumaras were ready the tribe arrived from the East Coast— carvers, wives, children, dogs and pigs. Long sheds»*vere run up with roofs of nikau palm to shelter the men at their work. The guests stayed four or five months at -the expense of our natives, and the pa was the scene of great animation. ... However, -as. for the craft- - r

man ship being genuine Maori carving you could not expect a Maori to use Iris primitive implements when he could get a Sheffield chisel. So the work was (Executed with English tools. "The work was done during the winter, and we used to pity the poor draggled children and women as they sat on the damp ground preparing the evening meal for the men. Many caught cold and began that dreadful consumptive cough which is the great scourge of the- Maori. The men worked in comfort in the sheds, and every day the monsters they were carving took shape. Among these were effigies representing the Tauiwha or fish god supposed to dwell on the sandbank at the mouth of the Thames River, the 'Waihou.' On the roof tree Avas a finely cut face of Hotenui, a famous chief of the tribe; upon this no one was to look until it was all iinished. ;

■ "At last the momentous day arrived when they began to put it all together. They finished it off with* a tin roof over the thatch so that it looked like a cowshed. However, the inside gave one a very different impression." . • Substitute for Pawa. There follows in the journal a description of the wonderful interior of the Runanga House, which, as we know it so well, it is unnecessary to give here. The following amusing reference should be quoted:— "The eyes of all the carvings were made of pawa shell glistening with mother of pearl; but the chief saw down in Shortland some tin pattipans, and he actually had the pawa shells ripped out and these atrocities nailed in for eyes. He was tremendously proud of the result, as were all the natives of the entire Runanga House, and many a grand meeting and korero they held there, though some wags called it 'A half-caste house,' because of the tin roof and the pattipans." In latter years this fine building fell into disuse and a great state of neglect, so that even the cows walked in and out of it, so it had to undergo a great deal of repairing to restore it to the excellent state of preservation in which we now see it in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. . ,