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From Heritage New Zealand Spring 2006

From the Ashes

by Lani Kereopa

When fire gutted Tutanekai Meeting House, the community couldn't wait to begin work restoring it.

Tutanekai Meeting House, Hinemoa Point, Rotorua, after the fire in 2003. Photo: Toi Ora Associates

The restoration of a meeting house is a huge undertaking due to the detail involved, but, to have to rebuild one completely is an enormous and painstakingly long and difficult task. In November 2003, Tutanekai meeting house at Hinemoa Point in Rotorua was gutted by arson. The culprit or culprits were never caught and the Ngati Te Roro o te Rangi sub-tribe was left
devastated.

Jim Schuster, who works part time for the Historic Places Trust as a Maori heritage advisor, visited Tutanekai marae thefollowing day. “It was an emotional time for the people,” he says. “They all turned up at five o’clock in the morning and did the first karakia. They just stood outside the place crying.” The house was covered with a canvas to spare the feelings of those who were upset by the sight.

The Pouhaki is taken down for restoration. Photo: Toi Ora Associates

An accelerant had been thrown at the door, causing fire to travel up and along the roof, damaging much of the front and top half of the house beyond repair. The worst affected areas included the tekoteko (carved figure on gable), koruru (carved face on gable), tops of the maihi (beams on gable), pare (carved door lintel) and the posts around the doorway.

Schuster also runs his own business, Toi Ora Associates, aimed at preserving Maori arts and knowledge, and was given the job of project manager for the restoration of Tutanekai marae.

For insurance reasons, there was a long wait before anything
could be done. Finally, in January 2004, preparation work to
restore the tukutuku panels (ornamental lattice-work) on the
inside of the house was begun. The panels had all been scorched, and some were completely burnt away. The first job was to go into the bush and collect kakaho (culm of the toetoe) and kiekie (climbing plant).

Work proceeds smoothly. Photo: Toi Ora Associates

Schuster says the tribe had waited so long to start work on the meeting house that they arrived in droves to help out. “We had so many people, older ones and kids, all walking through the bush collecting stalks,” he says. “It was a great opportunity to teach the children how to harvest the natural resources. We thought it would take all day, but by lunchtime we were back at the marae with a truck load.”

Twice as many people turned up when it was time to go back into the bush to collect kiekie.

After it was harvested, the kiekie needed to be blanched. Te Rangipuawhe Maika, a kaumatua of Tuhourangi/Ngati Wahiao, had offered the use of the hot pools at Whakarewarewa thermal village, and a truck load of the plants was boiled in one of the pools before being cooled in the nearby Puarenga stream.

Three months later, the tribe was able to start work remaking the tukutuku panels.

By this time, a tapu had been placed on the meeting house, and women could not go inside, so the damaged panels were brought outside and the women worked on them in Hinemoa, the adjacent dining room..

Te mahi tukutuku. Photo: Toi Ora Associates

Most of the tukutuku patterns were able to be copied and
remade. The meeting house had 65 panels in total; however, once it had been restored, a storage and supper room was added onto the back of the building, and four new panels were created to cover where two windows had been.

Simultaneously, men started restoration work on the whakairo (carvings). Most of the whakairo in Tutanekai had originally come from Tamatekapua meeting house in Ohinemutu. Schuster says the carvings were so old that even before the fire they probably needed some restoration work. “They used to stand at Ohinemutu back in the 1870s in the hot ground,” he says.

The only carvings that needed to be replaced totally were the ones at the top of the house. These were redrawn from old photographs, and re-carved by local carver and musician Mina Mitai.

The original koruru was badly burnt but was restored and
will sit on the top of the gateway of the marae when it is built.

The maihi had come from Tamatekapua, and, because they were too long for Tutanekai, the ends of the beams had been cut off some years earlier.

Rebuilding begins. Photo: Toi Ora Associates

Luckily, these pieces had been kept in storage so that,
when the damaged part at the top of the maihi was removed,
the beams were simply moved up and the ends reattached.
The carving school at Te Puia in Whakarewarewa also
offered its services and carved an almost exact replica of the original pare.

“We couldn’t restore it, because it was crumbling,” Schuster
says. “That was their koha to the people here.”

The top of the poutokomanawa (centrepole) of the meeting house was badly damaged, but the figure at the bottom was not burnt. The pole had also come out of Tamatekapua, which was a much bigger house than Tutanekai. To the excitement of the carvers, an extra length of poutokomanawa was found concealed beneath the floor. The damaged part at the topwas then cut off and the pole simply lifted.

By the end of the year, the roof was ready to come
off Tutanekai, and work was started on the kowhaiwhai (painted patterns). Schuster says bits of the patterns on some of the damaged rafters were still visible and able to be copied. But many were burnt beyond recognition.

“Replacing what was lost was a difficult process, because you had to use burnt remains, what you could find in old photos or what people could remember,” he says. “One of the panels we had to make up, because no one could remember what it looked like.”

Members of the team who saved Tutunekai. Photo: Toi Ora Associates

Rangi Te Kanawa, who has an arts degree and lived near
the marae, designed a pattern to remind people about the
fire. It incorporates the Fingers of Fire Mahuika gave to Maui in legend.

Schuster insisted the tribe paint the kowhaiwhai using Spanish white or off-white rather than plain white paint. He believed vivid white would distract the eye from the tukutuku panels. To prove his point, he left a lone koru in the house vivid white, and the difference is striking.

During restoration, a few minor structural adjustments were
made to Tutanekai. These included extra lighting, widening of the front door and extending the mahau (porch). More importantly, a sprinkler system was installed.

On 23 December 2005, the tapu was lifted from Tutanekai, and the tribe, including the womenfolk, re-entered the meeting house. Schuster says the women hadn’t seen their completed tukutuku panels for almost a year. “The ladies came in and cried,” he says. “They just sat on the floor admiring their work and didn’t even want to go out for morning tea.”

The meeting house was officiallly reopened on June 3. The
ceremonies began at 8am with a powhiri to the local Te Arawa people. At 10.30 the official party of MPs, local government officials and visiting tribes were welcomed by a confederation of Te Arawa tribes led by the proud hapu of Ngati Te Roro o te Rangi.

Around 350 people gathered to inspect the renovated wharenui after MP Mita Ririnui unveiled the plaque and local priests delivered their karakia of blessing and thanksgiving.