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