In all its holiness, Hotunui embodies all that has symbolic and practical meaning. For Haare Williams the pulsating, vibrancy of Hotunui is held together and dominated by a singular word mounted on the face of the house; the name ‘Hotunui’
“… haere mai koutou, piki mai, kake mai. Kua tae mai ki te poho o Hotunui!”
Welcome to the pride of Marutuahu of Thames and Ngati Awa of Whakatane. Hotunui one of the jewels in the crown of The Auckland War Memorial Museum is a living taonga of all Marutuahu iwi; Ngati Maru, Ngati Whanaunga, Ngati Tamatera, and Ngati Paoa. In here, in the body of this great house, we feel the warmth and presence of ancestors. Feel too, the dynamics of a people who assembled an assortment of resources like food, flour, gold, £1000, with a labour intensive force consisting of men and women to build this whare, a wedding gift. Men worked the wood, and groups of women gathered harakeke, kakaho, pingao and kiekie.
Hotunui is the progeny of these tribes who came to dominate
a strategic area of coastal New Zealand.
This house embodies
changes that were actively shaping New Zealand society in the 1880s.
Hauraki and
Whakatane communities were already undergoing major changes from a rationally
Maori economy based on kinship ties, reciprocity and payment in kind, plunged inextricably
into a cash economy of gold mining, farming and horticulture, shipping and a
variety of small business enterprises. You
could say, Maori kicked off the free market ideology. True also in the religious circles of life. Maori
values were irrevocably reshaped by Christian beliefs and practices. Hotunui displays the use of steel tools and
techniques which revolutionised the character and size of meeting houses that
saw innovations in style, size, and decorations. You’ll see bold new applications which took on a new turn in the 1880s.
Hotunui is the
product too of the post Land War Years. Houses
in this era experienced a revolution in new materials, colour, European
and religious symbols and tools which added to a new expressionism in meeting houses.
Hoterenui Taipari, chief of Marutuahu, made a speech in 1868, “I look
forward to a time of peace in a united nation and you must all be steadfast in
love forever.”
He called
in Ngati Awa to do the job. His reason,
to seal the relationship through marriage, but they were renowned carvers and
house builders. Hotunui is more than a
wedding gift.
Look carefully to the walls and you’ll catch something
unique in the poupou depicting the fish-like features of Ureia, a marakihau or
taniwha carved in the traditions of Mataatua. It is only one of the standout features in
Hotunui. Look again, the tukutuku panels
and know that these are some
of the oldest in existence, hence their fragility and wear.
In all its holiness, Hotunui embodies all that has symbolic
and practical meaning. For me the
pulsating, vibrancy of Hotunui is held together and dominated by a singular
word mounted on the face of the house; the name ‘Hotunui’. This is the name that unifies the whole of
Marutuahu and Ngati Awa.
In Hotunui, the ancestors are celebrated through legendary
depictions of heroic deeds thereby providing a visually rich narrative of
tribal history. This is the ultimate source
of mana which looks to honour the past, preserve the present and protect the
future.
“Maori cosmology locates
past time to the front, while the future lies behind one. Being unknown the future is behind the person
where it cannot be seen. Maori move into
the future with their eyes on the past.”
Neich
1993:124
For
Manuhiri walking in her, unfamiliar with the symbolic meaning that surrounds
them, it can be overwhelming to the point you can observe everything but see
little.. There’s more here than you
see. I am connected to Hotunui through
Ngati Awa and so for me, Hotunui is my university, my library, my church, my courtroom,
a place to celebrate whanau weddings and birthdays and a place where I can
extend the sanctity of saying goodbye to our dead. It is a place where I belong,
a seamless connection that which continues to provide the link with my past through
the avante garde of modern Maori art, music, literature and to the cosmology
that is me.
Elders Walter
Taipari, Huhurere Tukukino, and Emily Paki once reminded me in an interview of
the precious connection they held with Ngati Awa..
The
principle of ‘Utu’ sustains that which is rich and enduring in Maori
culture. Many, Maori amongst
them, confuse the meaning of ‘utu’ as revenge.
Hotunui isn’t just a simple wedding gift but one that reaches out across
whanau, tribal and political boundaries.
Utu is a ‘return’ for a favour or ‘debt ‘given. The ‘return’ can occur immediately but in some
instances it could take the richness of time to occur, a year, decades or a
generation may pass, but the ‘debt’ was never closed. Time distilled the mana of the gift. The greater the expression of generosity, the
greater is the mana of the return. The
principle of ‘utu’ is reciprocity embodied in three values: giving, receiving
and returning. When a ‘gift’ is given the recipient is immediately ‘obligated,’
to return. The giving or the return is done
with a little bonus and keeps the recipient in continuous ‘debt’. Utu is never closed. Insults, theft, injury; these are bad gifts
and can escalate into full-scale fighting, war and death. But ‘utu’ is also the reciprocal exchange for
good gifts like a house (Hotunui), a waka (Toki-a-Tapiiri), a white stallion, cloaks,
a mere, and baskets of kumara or cash in an envelope. In times past, the ultimate gift was that of
land, then a gift of a bride or the gift of a child. Polished greenstone was highly valued.
When you walk in here,
you feel the classicism, the elegance, beauty, and mana and know you’re amongst
aristocratic rangatira. Although built
in the 1880s, it remains in 2014 a vital symbol of a rich past, and for a
future based on the verity of tribal growth and economic independence. I also see a precise reading of the barometer
of a culture in change as it did in the 1880s.
Maori culture isn’t fading away into some homogenized heap at the bottom
of the political and economic garden.
“Hotunui pulls together the unbroken fibres
that stitch our people together; past, present and future.” (David Taipari, Marutuahu
leader 2013)
Hotunui the house will
always add to the fund of knowledge that helps us dip a little deeper into the
social and spiritual springs of our land and know what it means to be people of
the land. Ae!
Tangata whenua.
It’s here
for you of the world to enjoy.