Description of the Carved Maori House at Maketu.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 27, 1894, Page 674

. The President said he had much pleasure in announcing that the Council had purchased the celebrated carved house at Maketu. Some years ago it was intimated to them by their esteemed member, Mr. F. D. Fenton, that this famous house could be purchased; but at that time there were difficulties in the way of money matters. A few weeks ago, however, Mr. Fenton obtained an offer of the house at a very reasonable price, and at once placed it before the Council. The Council decided to accept the offer, and asked Mr. Fenton and Mr. Cheeseman to proceed to Maketu to complete the purchase and obtain possession of the house. This had been done, and the carvings would arrive in Auckland during the week. He would now ask Mr. Cheeseman to give a description of the house. Mr. Cheeseman said: The carved house, which, through the assistance of our friend Mr. Fenton, has just been purchased for the Auckland Museum, was the property of Te Pokiha Taranui, the leading chief of the Ngatipikiao Tribe, a section of the Arawa. Te Pokiha is better known to us by his European sobriquet of Major Fox, he having commanded a portion of the Arawa contingent during the chase after Te Kooti. The house stood at Maketu, about eighteen miles south of Tauranga, and was built about 1868. It belongs to the class of carved houses known as pataka, or storehouses. These are raised on legs, and have the whole of their carvings and other ornamentation on the outside, thus differing from the runanga, or meeting-houses, in which it is the interior which is carved and decorated. The house is without doubt the finest and most complete of its class in existence, as you will probably all admit when it is erected in Auckland. It is about 35ft. long by about 20ft. broad, and has a height of 15ft. to the crown of the roof. The sides and both ends are formed of upright totara slabs, boldly and elaborately carved, the carvings being mainly grotesque representations of the human figure. The ridge-boards are carved to represent a number of ngarara, or lizards, running along the roof, and the maihi, or gable-boards, have carvings of the mythological animal known as manaia—probably a kind of taniwha. In front of the house is a carved verandah, some 5ft. or 6ft. deep, and it is on the walls of this that the most elaborate carvings in the house are placed, many of the slabs representing well-known ancestors of the Ngatipikiao Tribe. For instance, a large carved figure over the doorway stands for Tama te Kapua, the captain of the “Arawa” canoe, which, it will be remembered, was finally beached at Maketu after its adventurous voyage from Hawaiki to New Zealand. The tekoteko on the roof above is Takenga, one of the descendants of Tama te Kapua, and a remote ancestor of Pokiha; another tekoteko is Awanui, a son of Takenga; and so on. In fact, the chief figures on the house are evidently intended to illustrate Pokiha's genealogy. The house itself bears two names—one being Tuhua Katoore, the signification of which is “the pit of the taniwha”; the other Puawai o te Arawa, or “the flower of the Arawa.” Maketu also possesses two runanga houses—one of them, known as Houmatawhiti, being the finest of its kind in New Zealand. As already mentioned, Maketu is noted as being the landing-place of the famed Arawa canoe; and a clump of mingimingi trees, old and hoary, and evidently of great antiquity, is still pointed out as having sprung from the skids which were used in hauling up the canoe on the beach. On the motion of the President, a cordial vote of thanks was unanimously

awarded to Mr. Fenton for his action in securing so valuable a relic of the Maori race for the City of Auckland.