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Overview
Tuhinga 31: 42-55
ABSTRACT: In the 1860s, preparations for a large new wharenui (meeting house) named Heretaunga at Pākōwhai in Hawke’s Bay began under the authority of Ngāti Kahungunu rangatira (chief ) and politician Karaitiana Takamoana (?–1879). Expert carvers from the Iwirākau School travelled down from Te Tairāwhiti (East Coast) to undertake the intricate carving. Unfortunately, Karaitiana died unexpectedly, which left the carvings and therefore the wharenui unfinished. Sometime after Karaitiana’s death, the carvings were obtained by the collector Thomas Morland Hocken (1838–1910), in a deal brokered by ethnologist Augustus Hamilton (1853–1913), who was desperate to obtain a carved whare (house) for the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition in Dunedin in 1889–90. They were eventually purchased by Hocken and donated to the Otago Museum. From the 1920s, more than 30 of Heretaunga’s carved poupou (wall panels) were exchanged or presented to museums throughout the world as well as here in Aotearoa New Zealand. At least four poupou from Te Whare o Heretaunga are part of the collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), presented by Hamilton in 1904. This paper explores the journey to locate the Heretaunga poupou, the history around those located at Te Papa, and the claim by the Ngäti Kahungunu Waitangi Treaty settlement group He Toa Takitini to have all poupou belonging to this whare returned to ngā iwi o Heretaunga (the people of Heretaunga).
KEYWORDS: Heretaunga, poupou, whare, Karaitiana Takamoana, Ngāti Kahungunu, repatriation.