Omaka Marae opened Labour weekend

Tu Tangata, Issue 27, 1 December 1985, Page 2

Omaka Marae opened Labour weekend

Te whare runanga, Te Aroha O Te Waipounamu at Omaka Marae, Blenheim was opened on Labour weekend. The wharekai, Te Waiora and the gateway, Te Waha Roa were also unveiled.

The iwi of Omaka Marae are a mix of hapu from Kai Tahu of Te Waipounamu to Rangitane of the north. The marae also has a large pakeha mix and this is evidenced in the style of the house and

its educational purpose. One of the mainstays of the marae project, Laurie Duckworth spoke to Tu Tangata about the house. A central feature of the interior is a

mural along one wall done by a local artist, Brian Baxter. Laurie says the marae committee carried out the wishes of the people in that regard, despite the controversy it's bound to bring. “We’re in an era of 1985 and the young ones are taking up their maori culture and we feel this is a lead-in to that.” “You can go along this mural and virtually input your own story to this mural.” Laurie sees the mural as depicting the arrival of the Maori in Cloudy Bay and then along the wall up to the arrival of Captain Cook at Ship's Cove. The house also sports multi-coloured heke in a variety of traditional and modern kowhaiwhai patterns. Laurie says this was deliberately chosen to reflect the youth of the area who build on traditional design with their own inovations. The average age of the carvers and artists was eighteen and they previously were unemployed. The supervisor was older but also had had no previous experience with carving a house. He was a graduate of the Whakarewarewa Carving School. One heke mounting the Rangitane poupou is yellow depicting the mud of the riverbanks, green depicting the kai it supported, and red representing the blood spilt in safeguarding the treasure. Another heke is white and black, Laurie seeing it as a South Island design coming from the cave drawings of taniwha. This neo-taniwha design runs along the base of the tukutuku panels. “We call it the embryo of the kiwi.” Another heke design of a whekenui leads to a tukutuku panel of Kupe slaying the whekenui in Cook Strait. Toro, the albatross is featured in another heke leading to a tukutuku panel showing how the kumara was carried by an albatross from Hawaiki. The base colours of the tukutuku panels are red. green, fawn and blue, and they've been placed to give a relief of colour, and also to compliment the mural on the opposing wall. One tukutuku panel depicts Rangitoto, the name for Durville Island. It shows the taniwha, the Pelorus Jack and the tuatara. A further one depicts the moa amongst the Vernon Lagoons area, the area where an important

archeological discovery was made some years ago.

Laurie said a school boy, Jack Isles discovered moa bones which now rest in Te Aroha O Te Waipounamu, in a case on the end wall.

The sacred mountain, Tapuwai O Uenuku, is enshrined on another tukutuku panel, with the rainbow god shrouding the mountain and two rivers coming back from the mountain to the sea.

Having the highest amount of sunshine hours in New Zealand hasn’t been forgotten either by the locals of Omaka. One panel called Kia Puta Te Wairau commemorates the fact that the sun always shines on the Wairau.

Laurie said, fundraising took four years from a kitty of $127 under the name of the Marlborough Maori Corn-

munity Club.

"A feature of the programme has been to bring all aspects together such as landscaping, so that at the opening today, the plants and trees are reasonably established on these four and a half acres. We now have room to build kaumatua housing to give the place the warmth it needs.”

“Our elders are a mixture of Rangitane, Ngati Toa, Ngati Rarua and they tipify the people of this area.

On the morning before the opening, Rangitane people arrived with a taonga seldom seen. It was a flag given around 1880 by the British to a rangatira of the Rangitare people, Te Awe Awe.

It had been handed down within that whanau until the present day descendent Wiremu Larkin carried the flag onto the marae.

Rangitane elder, Joe Tukupua explained the significance by saying the flag was named after and represented the mana of the top god in maoridom, Tane-nui-a-rangi, the grandson of lomatua, who went back to the heavens to bring back the baskets of knowledge. Joe said the flag had to be flown over the first Rangitane concept marae in Te Waipounamu so that the mana of the Maori people could be seen to be returning under the principal god.

Wiremu Larkin said the flag was last flown in Palmerston North Square in 1971 when the Queen of England came. In Wiremu Te Awe Awe’s day the Square was known as the Marae o Hine, a refuge for people threatened by enemies. Wiremu said the flag is kept for safekeeping in the Manawatu Museum.