Tukutuku

Lattice work wall panels patterned with dyed and undyed strips of harakeke and kiekie leaf and yellow pingao. Tukutuku are usually positioned along the walls between the poupou and epa carvings. The narrow horizontal rods forming the front are called kaho tarai (Ngäi Porou) or kaho tara (Te Arawa). These were sometimes made from dry bracken fern stalks, or adzed laths of totara or rimu, and were lashed to vertical stakes of kakaho (flower stalks of toetoe) placed close together with the butt ends alternating with the flower ends to maintain a uniform width. Sometimes a round rod, tumatakāhuki, is laced up the middle on the front face of each panel. Where the cross rods were narrow each vertical reed at the back formed an element for threading purposes; but where the former were wider than usual two reeds were included as a single element in threading. More recent tukutuku usually employ milled wooden lattice components of uniform dimensions