NGARUAWAHIA

FORTRESS OF MAORI CULTURE Turangawaewae Pa covers only some twelve acres; yet few contributions to Maori progress during the last thirty years have been greater than the building and unceasing improvement of this pa. Great Maori leaders who finally emerged as national figures have always been devoted to the advancement of their own people. Sir Apirana Ngata began by establishing farming among his own Ngati-Porou. His ideas were spread by the support of his tribe, and this meant not only ‘moral’ support but support in terms of hard work and hard cash. The late Te Puea Herangi, grand-daughter of King Tawhiao, followed a similar pattern, but with a difference. This difference lay in her conviction that the Maori Kingship could be made the core of Maori life among the Kingite tribes. The message of the Maori Kingship, as Te Puea understood it, can be plainly seen at Turangawaewae. Seldom can the Maori art of expressing ideas through the design of carvings, buildings and maraes have been more effective. The visitor first notices the forbidding palisades; he is struck by the strength—almost the disdain—expressed in the carved ponga heads facing him at regular intervals. The visitor enters the marae: meticulous care and punctilious tidiness. Goodness only knows how often they mow the lawns, trim the edges, remove the weeds: not even a piece of waste paper on a pathway. The effort made to achieve all this tidiness with voluntary labour may be imagined. The main buildings are Mahinarangi meeting-house and Turongo, the ‘King's House’. Mahinarangi, completed in 1929, is from the outside an ordinary meeting-house. Many tribes contributed to its construction, and the decorations include features of all tribes. Its proposed use was as a King's council chamber. The large platform was intended to seat King Koroki and the arikis, and the rest of the King's Council were to occupy the remainder of the hall. Soon, however, Mahinarangi became a state reception hall. It was filled with carpets, mats and very comfortable furniture. Works of art, donated by visitors from all parts of the world found a place in it. The entire space of the platform was occupied by the King's varied store of treasures. The combination of objects that one sees in this decorous but impressing reception chamber must be unique. In spite of the comfortable armchairs, settees, rugs and carpets, the hall bears no resemblance to a drawing room. In spite of cloaks, weapons, souvenirs, model canoes, and hundreds of miscellaneous objects with a history, one does not think for one moment it is a museum. On an Axminster carpet, next to a Chesterfield, stands an object that looks like a bizarre but magnificent carving, about five feet high. It is a distorted kauri root, found in a swamp near Panguru. In Mahinarangi one is in the presence not only of many famous Waikato ancestors but one also observes the relations with many prominent persons, Maori and Pakeha, not only in New Zealand, but all over the world, and one particularly notices the many gifts from other islands in the Pacific. One Maori leader said recently: ‘Without Mahinarangi, Turongo would not have been built.’ Turongo is built as a Court. In outline, it resembles an English manor but the decorations express the Maori Kingship to perfection. The symbolic carvings were not this time made in collaboration with artists from the whole island, but by Waikato men of the Tainui canoe only. The strictest rules of tapu were followed: the tukutuku, after being prepared by the women, was installed by the men. Special storehouses, shaped like pataka, were built directly under the roof for the most sacred heirlooms. The carvings show the complex and illustrious ancestry of the Waikato arikis. The seven cornered dome is made to symbolize the seven canoes from which they claim descent. Figures representing the captains of the several canoes stand out boldly at each of the corners. In the central windowpane of the main door the King's arms are painted. The main state chamber is the dining-room. Here, the decoration is extremely rich and powerful. Even the slide