Nga Hau E Wha Maori Club badge

This badge was made for Nga Hau E Wha Maori Club in Stokes Valley, Wellington.

Nga hau e wha means the four winds and compass points as illustrated in the badge's star design, evoking the club's welcome to people from different iwi backgrounds.

As occurred elsewhere in Aotearoa New Zealand during the 1950s and 60s, Māori families were encouraged to move to urban centres such as Wellington through the government’s urban relocation programme. Several Māori families moved to Stokes Valley during the 1960s to learn trades and secure employment.

At that time, there was no marae or cultural club in Stokes Valley for people to meet each other and maintain cultural practices, particularly for the children. So Wikitoria and Te Kaireka Puhia (Ngāti Maniapoto, Te Kuiti) and other local whānau formed the Nga Hau E Wha Maori Club. The club initially met at local homes to practise.

Puhia designed the club’s emblem as seen on the badge to represent the four winds from where the families came from. The blue represents both the maunga and awa of the region they came to – the Remutaka Ranges and Te Awa Kai Rangi (Hutt River).

Puhia was a self-taught designer, and could turn his hand to leatherwork, bone carving and drawing. He would have worked closely with Trevor Dick, the manufacturer in nearby Petone, to create this badge.

Nga Hau E Wha Maori Club was absorbed by Kōraunui Culture Club in the mid-1970s, and gave its leftover monies for a marae to be built. Kōraunui Marae was finished in 1992 after much fundraising and work ‘by the people, for the people’. Te Kaireka Puhia also designed the Marae’s flag and emblem.