FIRST IN 100 YEARS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 254, 24 July 1935, Page 9

FIRST IN 100 YEARS

Carved Maori MeetingHouse For Taranaki

Taranaki is to have a carved. Maori meeting house—the first in the province since the days of Te Rauparaha, over 100 years ago. It is hoped to have tlie house erected and carved by June 27 next, which will be the sixth anniversary of the death of Sir Maui I’omare. The house will be opened on the same day that the memorial to Sir Maui is unveiled on the marae of the famous Manukorihi na at Waitara. That day will be a great one for al! the Maoris of New Zealand. The date for the unveiling of tlie memorial was fixed first for March 18, the day on which in ISGO the Maori Wars began following the hustling by Maori women of the surveyors’ chains on the Te Taira block, claimed by one section to have been "purchased" by tlie Government, but which Wiremu Kingi, who was paramount chief, declared could not be sold because it was not private but tribal land. The land where this passive resistance occurred and the land where the first shot was fired when Governor Gore Brown’s proclamation was issued, are well within the view from tlie Manukorihi pa. That date, however, has been altered to June

The decision to build the carved meeting house followed much discussion over several years. The cost will be about £2OOO. About £lOOO will be provided by the Taranaki Maori Trust Board (administering the £5OOO annual payment for compensation to descendants of Maoris whose lands were wrongly confiscated following the war from March IS, 1800, onward), and it is thought that the Maori Purposes Fund will subsidise that payment £ for £. .Mr. T. Heberley, of tbe Dominion .Museum. Wellington, a descendant of the Atiawa tribe, will assist with appropriate designs for tbe carvers to follow.

The memorial n> surmount the vault containing the ashes of Sir Maui Potnare is being constructed. The cost will be about £l7OO. and will be borne by the Taranaki Maori Trust Board. Tlie statue of Sir Maui Pomace will be 9ft. high, standing on a pedestal and piilar 13t’t. high, so that the memorial will be 22ft. over ail. It will depict Sir Maui with a scroll in one hand as ho makes a speed). Though dressed in European clothes, he will be represented wearing Hie pin-pin of his people.