In last week’s column, I wrote about my memories of the opening of our wharenui Aotea Tuatoru. This third and final article completes a short history of the original Aotea (1600s) at Tawakeroa, Aotea Tuarua (1800s) at Tahoraiti and Aotea Tuatoru (1967 – present) at Mākirikiri.
The whānau and hapū members would have faced many challenges around what to do about their old and deteriorating wharenui Aotea Tuarua. To build a new wharenui or restore the old wharenui? Aotea Tuarua had not been in use since the mid-1950s. It would have been a difficult time for the Ngāti Mutuahi hapū as it no longer had a communal venue to hold events and no place to mourn its dead.
Where to build would have created a more lively discussion. On the existing site or on another site? The arguments for building at the original site at Tahoraiti were that we had land there and it was the traditional home of Ngāti Mutuahi. But most families had moved away, and a new site closer to town provided easier access. Ultimately the move won. Fortunately, the hapū was able to buy an acre from their Ngāti Pakapaka relations at Mākirikiri.
Support was enlisted from not only the Māori community but the wider Dannevirke community as a first-class facility was envisioned that could cater for a number of community events. The final design of the new wharenui broke with tradition in a number of ways: a concrete block building with windows facing the wrong way and no separate ablution block. I guess it was a pragmatic approach with the intention of showcasing it to the nation by having it face the main road rather than the rising sun.
The project required a major fundraising effort involving the whole Māori community. This may explain the number of years from the closing of one whare to the opening of the next, but importantly they raised the funds. However, the funding didn’t include a new wharekai (dining room). That decision would be left to the next generation, so the old wharekai was moved from Tahoraiti to Mākirikiri, a major undertaking. Andrew Patterson designed a trailer specially for this purpose and with a lot of hard work and an equal amount of luck the move was a success.
