Tokoroa marae

Tu Tangata, Issue 31, 1 August 1986, Page 20

Tokoroa marae

- by Liz Lysaght

WHEN former champion axeman Sam Papa of Tokoroa was filling in his census form earlier this year he was surprised to discover that he was devoting almost as many hours a week to his voluntary work as he was to his fulltime job as a logging supervisor for N.Z. Forest Products. Small wonder he’s not had much time for chopping lately.

So just what is taking up all of his weekends and most of his nights?

For the past two years Sam has been helping to turn a dream into reality... to build a brand new marae for Tokoroa.

The marae, to be called Papa O Te Aroha (land of love), is being built by the Tokoroa Catholic Maori Society of which Sam Papa is president.

Already the meeting house, Matapihi O Te fiangi (window of Heaven) and the dining hall, Mataora O Te Whenua (fruits of the earth) are nearing completion.

It had originally been hoped that the Pope would officially open the marae during his brief visit to New Zealand later this year.

Unfortunately this is not possible, but it’s still hoped to have the buildings finished by November.

The marae has been built on three acres of land next door to the Catholic Church.

When the idea was first mooted, back in 1980, there was no other marae in Tokoroa. Since then two smaller ones have been built ... one of them at the local high school.

The new marae will be multi-tribal and multi-cultural, and Mr Papa says he hopes Tokoroa’s large Polynesian population will join the Maori community in using it for tangi and other gatherings. The whare kai will cater for up to 180 guests initially, but it’s hoped later to build a cultural hall come dining room that will hold 700 people.

So far the project has cost more than 350,000 dollars, most of which has been raised by raffles, donations and a subsidy from the Department of Maori Affairs.

Sam Papa says it’s been hard work raising the necessary finance, but he’s hoping the marae will be debt-free by the time it’s officially opened.

A builder and 12 PEP workers have been employed full-time on the marae, and two carvers from Rotorua have spent the last 15 months working on the interior of the meeting house.

A group of local women have been working night and day on the tukutuku panels, and large working bees have provided voluntary labour at weekends. Some weekends have seen up to thirty men on the site.

Sam Papa himself puts in an average of twenty hours every weekend, besides working nearly every night on the pro-

ject. “I did have last Christmas Day and Boxing Day,” he admits almost guiltily. “But I worked right through Easter.”

Fortunately his five children are grown-up now, but he confesses that he hasn’t seen much of his four grandchildren in the past couple of years.

However, there’s never a shortage of young children on the site at weekends ... they love to play there while their parents are working.

Women from the Catholic Maori Society take it in turns to provide meals for the weekend workers ... morning tea and a cooked lunch.

The working bees are happy, family affairs and everyone looks upon their voluntary labour as a gift of love. Especially Sam Papa.

As a child in the Hokianga area he used to spend a lot of time on the local marae there, and he’s missed that association in the thirty years he’s lived in Tokoroa.

He believes the new marae will have a big impact, both spiritually and culturally, on the people of the timber town. And what’s the 48-year-old compulsive worker going to do with himself once the construction work is finished?

“I think I’ll take a BIG holiday,” he says with a grin. “And then I’ll have to start chopping again. That’s my form of relaxation.”

Sam Papa is modest too. It’s left to someone else to point out that he was in fact amongst the top ten axemen in New Zealand last year!