MAORI STOREHOUSE
FAMED STRUCTURE MAY RETURN TO DOMINION Steps are being taken to acquire for the Dominion Museum, in connection with the centennial, the famous carved Maori storehouse that half a century ago stood in the garden of Mr. George Bcetham at Moturoa street, Thorndon. Built at a cost of £3OOO for the great chief Wi Tako Ngatata, it was a remarkable example of Maori craftsmanship lost to the Dominion many years since, when it was dismantled and shipped away to London.
Wi Tako went to Port Nicholson from Taranaki about 1320 with his people at the time when the great migrations of the Ngatitoa and Ngatiawa tribes took place. He lived first at Pipitea and later at Taita in the Hutt Valley, and while he was there the Ngatipordu natives undertook to build him» a store for provisions, one of those small but often beautifully finished thatched houses supported on pillars and known as "whare whata" or "pataka." It was completed in 1850, at a cost of £3OOO, and it was one of the finest pieces of traditional Maori carving and workmanship in the land. They called it Nuku Tewhatewha.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PBH19381012.2.130
Bibliographic details
Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19758, 12 October 1938, Page 8
Word Count
191MAORI STOREHOUSE Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19758, 12 October 1938, Page 8
Using This Item
The Gisborne Herald Company is the copyright owner for the Poverty Bay Herald. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of the Gisborne Herald Company. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in