EAST COAST TRIBES HAVE A MODERN WHARE WANANGA

Te Ao Hou, March 1959, Page 24

EAST COAST TRIBES HAVE A MODERN WHARE WANANGA by LEO FOWLER When Rongo Whakaata Halbert stood up before a large gathering at Gsborne one sunny Saturday afternoon last November, and declared open the new Maori Wing of the Gisborne Museum, he was performing what may well turn out to be one of the most significant rites of the transition of the Maori from the old order to the new. Even from the viewpoint of tangible realities this opening was significant. It represented many angles of Maori interest. For one thing the money was raised by a Maori Museum Committee which is, so far as I know, the only one of its kind in New Zealand. Furthermore it has an advisory status protected by special minute of the Art Society Council which is the governing body of the Gsborne Art Gallery and Museum. But, before I go into all that, it might be as well to tell you about the Maori Wing and its relation to the Gisborne Museum as a whole. The Art Gallery and the Museum were set up a little over four years ago by the Gisborne Art Society. The Society bought the old Lysnar home, itself an historic building, and vested the ownership in the City Council. It then set about the formation of an Art Gallery and a Museum. The Art Gallery was founded under the directorship of Mr Alan Barnes Grahame and has since become a model of its kind and the focal point of art in Gisborne. Early in 1954 the Art Society entrusted me with the establishment of a Museum. I immediately gathered together a small committee of people willing to work on the complicated project of setting up and organising a museum. Mr Rongo Halbert was elected to the committee to represent the Maori people and has been a stalwart supporter and member ever since. He was later appointed to the Council of the Art Society in the same capacity. It was apparent from the beginning that a Museum serving Gisborne and the East Coast would not be truly representative unless it was largely Maori in character and from the first it was planned with this fact in mind. About this time, May 1954, we heard of a maori house in the Canterbury Museum which had East Coast associations. Mr Vic Fisher, ethnologist at the Auckland Museum furnished me with something of its history. It was originally planned for the East Coast chief Henare Potae of Tokomaru Bay. The carvings for it were begun in the late 1850's and completed during the period 1866–69. Some of them were destroyed during the Te Kooti troubles and the remainder were acquired by Mr C. S. Locke of Napier for the Canterbury Museum. I wrote to Dr Roger Duff, director of the Canterbury Museum who agreed to let us have it for the sum paid for it in 1872, an extremely generous offer. He warned us at the time that it would cost us at least another thousand pounds to transport it to Gisborne and re-erect it there. By this time we had got other members of the Maori community interested in the project. A few of us got together to discuss the acquisition of this house as a purely Maori project. As a result of this discussion a Maori Museum Committee was formed. It held its inaugural meeting on the 25th of March 1955, the original members being Rongo Halbert (Chairman), Pahau Milner, Reta Keiha, Hira Paenga, Tawhai Tamepo, Eru Ruru, Hiwi Maynard, Kahu Te Hau, Judge Howard Carr, R. J. Wills and myself as director holding an ex offcio position and acting as secretary to the Committee. We were able to record in the inaugural minutes that £700 had already been raised toward the purchase and erection of the house. Through the assistance of Mr Peter Kaua of the Department of Maori Affairs who was coopted to the Maori Committee I was able to attend meetings of some of the tribal committees up the Coast and each of them appointed an Associate member, giving representation among Maori communities up as far as Te Kaha. Original associate members included Ropata Kingi and Te Tane Tukaki, W. Potou, D. George, Enoka M. Potae and H. Te Kani Te Ua.