THE MEETING HOUSE “TE POHO O TAMATERANGI”

Te Ao Hou, September 1961, Page 35

Do the bushes on these paintings have special significance? THE MEETING HOUSE “TE POHO O TAMATERANGI” WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY MARGARET ORBELL About ten miles out of Wairoa, on a road branching off the Waikaremoana-Wairoa highway, you will find the Rangiahua marae. This marae has a meeting-house and dining hall of which its owners must be very proud. The meeting-house, Te Poho o Tamaterangi, was built in 1893. It is a particularly beautiful house, and a very unusual one. On the outside there is a certain amount of carving the ends of the barge-boards (or maihi) are carved, and so are the two main upright posts (amo). On the top of the house there is as usual a carved head (koruru), and above it is a figure brandishing a mere; this must be Tamaterangi himself. But it is really the paintings which make this house so interesting. In the porch and inside the house, on the slabs (poupou) where you usually see the carved figures of ancestors, this house has painted figures. They are formed out of the kind of notched line which is often used in rafter patterns, and each figure is brightly painted in red, blue, brown and green. There are a number of houses, especially on the East Coast, which have

painted poupou. All of them are attractive, but the paintings in Te Poho o Tamaterangi are some of the most beautiful I have seen. On many of the rafters there is the same kind of notched line as that from which the figures are formed. Both the rafters and the poupou have a white background, and the paintings on the walls and ceiling join up in such a way that the one seems a continuation of the other. The house is light and airy, cheerful and also very elegant. On the front and back walls inside the house are manaia—that profile figure which you find everywhere in Maori carving. You can see some on the left in the photograph. There are many different kinds of manaia, but I have never before seen manaia at all like these ones. They are most beautiful and original little figures. In another way, too, this house seems to be unique. Between the legs of each figure there is painted a flowering plant. The leaves are bright green and the flowers are red. There is also a ponga with curling fronds, and a clump of raupo. Each bush is quite different from its neighbours, and they are painted with great precision and delicacy.