Ngati Poneke Comes of Age

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 14

Ngati Poneke Comes of Age The Ngati Poneke Association will celebrate its twenty-first birthday during Queen's birthday weekend next year. There will be an announcement over the radio later, but all those who were associated with the club in former days will be especially welcome. In 1957 it will be twenty-one years from the date when Sir Apirana Ngata and Kingi Tahiwi set up the Association as we now know it as part of an effort to build the carved house at Waitara. However, Te Ao Hou is told that before 1936 there existed a Ngati Poneke Organization which was not mentioned in the article we published about Ngati Poneke in our issue 12. We must apologise for this omission; the full story as told by Mr Arapeta Awatere is that on 29th March 1929 a group of people in Wellington formed an independent organization for welfare and relief work. This group had previously been part of a Maori group in the Hutt Valley, set up for the same purpose, but from 1929 they operated independently and called themselves the Ngati Poneke club. They put in money each week to be used by their members when in need, they operated a soup kitchen which was of great importance for city Maoris during the depression and they collected food from beaches near to Wellington to keep this kitchen going. In 1935, some members of this group formed a concert party which soon had a membership of eighty and trained and performed in a hired hall. In 1936, the building of the Waitara house and the interest of Sir Apirana Ngata and others gave the association the form in which we now know it. (See Te Ao Hou, issue 12). The Ngati Poneke Club is trying to make a full register of old members, dating from 1929. Information from anyone who was connected with the club at any stage would be warmly appreciated. The birthday celebrations will be planned to appeal both to old and young. There will be Maori dancing, discussions on the past and future of Ngati Poneke, and on general Maori subjects; and there will also be some educational activities.