Waka whakamaumaharatanga (canoe cenotaph)

This waka maumaharatanga (canoe cenotaph), which was made from the fore-piece of the hull of the canoe Te Koanga o Rehua and carved to represent three ancestral guardians, was erected at Pipiriki to the memory of the Whanganui chief Te Mahutu sometime in the first quarter of the Nineteenth century.

Following the battle of Moutoa (1864), fought between near relatives from the upper and lower reaches of the Whanganui River, it was relocated to the Māori community at Pūtiki Wharanui, alongside the developing colonial settlement town of Whanganui. It was later removed to the urupā (cemetary) at Putiki where it remained under the care of the missionary the Reverend Richard Taylor for more than twenty years until its base rotted and it collapsed. Because of its extreme tapu (religious restriction), through association with death as a grave memorial, the waka maumaharatanga was left in the scrub where it lay for ten years until it was retrieved by the chief and war hero Keepa Te Rangihiwinui and presented to Sir Walter Buller, and removed to a small man-made island in lake Papaitonga on his property, near present day Levin. There the waka maumaharatanga was re-erected to the memory of Keepa's ancestress Te Riunga who was killed fleeing from the formerly occupied island during inter-tribal battles in the 1820s. Buller subsequently gifted the waka to the museum in 1911.

Aue te totara whakahirahira kua hinga,
koia hoki ra, he waka kua pakaru.
Hikitia ake ki tona urunga,
kia mihia tonutia e te ia
o te hau o Tawhirimatea!

Alas, a great leader has fallen,
another canoe 'torn asunder'.
Place it atop its pedestal
to be continually addressed
by the bated breath of Tawhirimatea!