MONUMENT

Te Ao Hou, December 1957, Page 35

MONUMENT Photography: Peter Blanc Elder of Ngati Potiki and acknowledged expert on history of Mangatawa is Mr Paraire Tini. With a splendid view over Tauranga harbour. Mangatawa (662 acres) grazes 1,870 sheep and 400 cattle.

Will these carvings be used in the new meeting house? We were told perhaps a few would be taken, and the rest might be copied. On the whole the people would be in favour of doing fresh ones and giving their meeting house a modern look. It seemed then that most of the old carvings would be left where they were. And so would the old timbers, some decaying. To those who left them on that field, the difference between the timbers and the carvings was not perhaps as great as it would be to a visitor. Both belonged to a sacred past and were regarded with the same piety. And perhaps too there is behind the reluctance to transfer these carvings something more than just a love for the new; perhaps they are too much charged with the past to be comfortable for

the younger people for whom the community hall by the roadside is intended. The man who knows most about the pa is Paraire Pini, elder of Ngati Potiki. It was Tamapahore who led the Ngaiterangi into the area on a raid of revenge. Mangatawa, then known as Maungamana, was one of the fighting pas of the time. Tamapahore lived first at the bottom of Mount Maunganui but Tukairangi, a descendant of his step-brother Rangihohiri, gave offence to the old man and rolled boulders down from the mount. Eventually Tamapahore settled at Mangatawa. During the nineteenth century, the marae at Karikari Point was often visited by the Maori Kings. Paraire Pini relates that King Mahuta was often there and that there were large gatherings. The meeting house was filled with people, where today there is no habitation. They had a sheep station to provide for food and expenses of functions at the pa. This station was owned by the Ngati Potiki, including some people now known as Ngati He. The station was in very good grass known as mimia which grew in the clearings. It was similar to rye. The sheep had been obtained in payment for a lease of neighbouring land. The carving in the house was done by Meihana Te Tauakura towards the end of last century. He Whitebaiting is one attraction of the new incorporation. Tareha McLeod thinks that the new incorporation's first duty is to build a new meeting house. was a descendant of Tamapahore but his mother was from Ngatiawa, and that was his main tribal descent. As a visitor I could not help wondering about the future of the carvings and of the people who belong to Mangatawa. For they are proud of their past and of what tangible things does this past consist? What monuments are there of the minds and the artistry of those who are gone. Nothing really now except for these carvings. If the carvings go, no doubt they will later be regretted. There are many other places besides Mangatawa where the same thing is happening. There may be ways of preserving the carvings without interfering too much with their tapu. To begin with, museum specialists have learned how to restore carvings to their original beauty; cracks, insects and rot can be arrested and their ravages hidden from view. Knowledge of such techniques would be available perhaps through Adult Education, if it was felt such restoration is appropriate. The provision of a small locked storehouse on the marae might also be possible. It would be quite wrong, however, to suppose, as some casual observers have done, that people's love for their old monuments is any less just because they are left outside on an abandoned marae. On the contrary, everything I saw showed the deep feeling still attached to this old meeting house. To the owners of Mangatawa, it is the most treasured of their possessions and its revival essential to the future of tribal life. Our photographs of Tamapahore in this magazine are a token of those strange and half-remembered days when King Mahuta visited the Ngaiterangi at Karikari on the shores of Tauranga Harbour.