Major facelift for a marae

Tu Tangata, Issue 21, 1 December 1984, Page 46

Major facelift for a marae

by James Gardiner

Kaitoke Marae, near Upper Hutt is undergoing a major facelift. By this time next year those familiar with the marae as it has been for the last 40-odd years will have difficulty recognising it.

In July work started on the first phase of the marae development programme, three kaumatua flats next to the whare puni.

When they are completed, hopefully by the end of the year, the marae committee plan to replace the whare puni and whare kai buildings, build a children’s play area and erect a traditional fence and waha around the pa.

Funding for constructing the flats came from the Maori Affairs Department in conjunction with the Ministry of Works and Development.

Funding for the whare puni and whare kai may be subsidised 50-50 by Maori Affairs and then again it may not.

A decision on that has yet to be made, and either way the marae committee have to fundraise.

They expect the contract for the buildings to be worth something in the vicinity of $360,000.

The whare puni will be bigger than the present one but a little smaller than the Aotea Marae at Makirikiri.

To get a subsidy from Maori Affairs they first had to get their case on a department priority list, having done this they now await approval in principle so they can call tenders.

Committee chairman is Herbert Chase. He’s been involved in the marae and its committee all his life.

Herbert claims he was “roped into” the job of chairman this year but smiles as he says it and doesn’t appear too unhappy.

He’s excited by the developments: as he walks round the marae he points out where the play area will be, describes what he hopes the waha will look like and recalls a time when the existing whare puni was used as a hayshed further up the road.

Kaitoke Marae lies on a wedgeshaped piece of land formed by the junction of Weber and River Roads.

The play area will be in the apex to one side of the whare kai and whare puni. The kaumatua flats are being built on the other side.

A punga fence will be put around the play area: “All we need are the punga and we can start,” Herbert says.

He and marae committee deputy chairman Punga Paewai would like to see some of the many people who have used the facilities get involved in the development.

Over the years the marae has been a meeting place and provided accom-

modation for countless different groups and organisations. From hockey teams to the Young Farmers Club it appears nearly everyone has at some time or another had the opportunity to visit and stay on the marae. Others, like the Ratana Church and the Kaitoke Arts and Crafts group use the marae regularly. “It’s not exclusively for Maori people by any means,” says Punga.... “Everyone’s welcome, everyone can get involved.” The people in the arts and crafts group are playing a major part in the fundraising efforts. They meet weekly on Sunday afternoons and do things like basket and flax weaving, making cane furniture and tuku tuku panels which will either be sold in a fundraising gala they are planning for later in the year or used in the new whare puni. So far they have been lucky with all

their materials being donated and people with knowledge in specialist areas coming out to teach them different things like the group’s canework instructor, Phyl Pringle. Another of the committee’s fundraising schemes is a stock drive where farmers are asked (nicely) to contribute the odd sheep, ram, bobby calf, steer (hopefully!), or anything else which can be sold or raffled to raise money. The only complaint the fundraising committee have about the way things are going is there are not enough people getting involved. Enthusiasm is at a high point at the moment among those doing the work but if it’s all left in the hands of a few the wind could very quickly go out of the sails. Two who will almost definitely be putting in a tender for the meeting house and dining room contract are the men currently building the kaumatua flats, Justyn and Delwyn Paewai. They went into partnership last year and built Delwyn’s house in town. More work followed at Tahoraiti where they restored an old house and this year they successfully put in a tender for the kaumatua flats.

This was their first major contract and the next one, should they get it, will be even bigger. Both learnt carpentry on the Maori Affairs training scheme in Hastings, Justyn 1976-77 and Delwyn 1978-79 after which Justyn worked for an Auckland building firm and Delwyn worked for a Dannevirke builder until last year. They feel quite at home working on the marae, and rightly so as Justyn was brought up at Kaitoke and Delwyn has been going there with his family as long as he can remember. “There’s always someone from the committee or one of the locals dropping in to give them a hand on the site for half an hour or so,” but they still seem to have enough work to keep them out there every second Saturday they say. If business keeps up the way it has been they may consider employing someone else. The workload isn’t excessive but it is enough to make them think about extending their operation. Manahi Paewai is Punga’s brother. He put forward the proposal for carvings done on the inside of the Aotea Marae whare puni at Makirikiri last year and did the research on which those carvings were based. Manahi plans to forward proposals

for carvings to be placed inside the new Kaitoke Marae meeting house, having done research along the same lines as he did for the Aotea Marae. This has meant hours spent consulting local history books, his father’s geneology books, land books and the minutes of some of the original Maori Land Courts of the 19th century. That gave him the names and identities (in terms of the Rangitane tribe) of the people who took land in this area. He then had to get more details about the people themselves, this meant talking to elders and visiting local families to build up character analyses. Every reference must be checked and cross-checked to ensure accuracy Manahi says. “So often you find you have something you’ve read or heard that you accept as fact until some day someone or something will tell you something else altogether”. The carving on each wall panel will represent a person and research has to be done to provide the carvers with sufficient information. “If they were well-known you just need to give the carvers the name and away they go but sometimes it takes a lot of digging to find all that’s needed.”

The achievements, characteristics and abilities of the person are reflected in the carving. Once the research is done the proposals have to be approved by the committee and the carvers contacted. Manahi expects they will use the same carvers for Kaitoke as Aotea, the Kereama brothers, Kelly and Emery of Feilding. While at Aotea last year the brothers expressed a desire to return and do the carving work at Kaitoke so everyone has their fingers crossed they will be available. Because the meeting house is smaller than Aotea there will probably be less carvings but Manahi doesn’t see that as a reason to sit around waiting for someone to ask him to do the research and given him definite completion dates. “It’s always best to be ready long before you start the work,” he says. For Manahi and the other members of the Kaitoke Marae Committee the development programme is long overdue and goes hand in hand with a trend prevalent among Maori people today to re-establish links with their past and bring it into the present. Knowledge and pride in their identity the Rangitane support them.