HISTORIC PAPAWAI PA papawai pa in the wairarapa is three miles east of the small town of Greytown, and 50 miles by road from Wellington. The old meeting-house is seldom used these days, and there is little to suggest to a casual visitor that Papawai was once a thriving settlement and an important political and cultural centre. But there is still one sign of its former splendour. In the fence beside the marae are six tall figures, badly split and battered, which have about them an air of mournful dignity and pathos. They must be the last stockade figures still standing on a marae anywhere in the country. Twelve more figures lie prone in the grass, some of them beside the front fence, some under the trees by a stream behind the meeting-house. Each figure is at the top of a tall post, and nearly all of them are larger than life-size. They were made 60 or more years ago, the great logs being felled locally and hauled by bullocks to the pa. The carving was also done by local people. The 18 figures represent famous chiefs in surrounding districts, among them being Nukupewapewa, Te Whare Pouri and Kingi Ngatuere.

Famous For its Huge Gatherings The present meeting-house, Hikurangi, was opened in 1888. Soon after this, three other meeting-houses and their outbuildings were erected; their names were Aotea, Waipounamu and Potaka. From then until a few years after the turn of the century, Papawai was famous throughout the land for the great meetings held there. The leaders of the pa at this time were Hoani Rangitakaiwaho, the hereditary chief, and Tamahau Mahupuku, who married the widow of Hoani's uncle. It was at Papawai in 1896 that the chiefs of the Wairarapa signed away their rights to Lake Wairarapa, receiving in exchange £3,000 and several thousand acres of bush country near Mangakino. In the following year the Kotahitanga Movement's ‘Maori Parliament’ or ‘Federal Assembly’ was established at Papawai, with Tamahau Mahupuku as premier. In 1898