Back Issues: Te hokinga mai – to return home

Thirty years ago, a striking image and short article fronted the August 4, 1993 edition of the Manawatū Standard.

It read: “The air was thick with emotion when four Rangitāne pouwhenua (carved stockade posts) were returned home yesterday after an absence of 60 years. Originally from Puketōtara Pa, the pouwhenua were considered significant and important taonga for the Rangitane people.”

“They were the only large Rangitāne carvings still in New Zealand, and four of seven in existence. In 1933, Wiremu Kingi Te Awe Awe presented the carvings to the then Dominion Museum for safekeeping. There they were displayed in the Maori Hall for many years.

“Today, a delegation from the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, led by board chairman Sir Hamish Hay and Māori art and history director Cliff Whiting, handed over the carvings on a permanent loan basis to the Manawatū Museum.

“They will form a major component of the exhibitions in the new Manawatū Museum – Science Centre, opening in February next year. Whiting said the decision to return the carvings to their area of origin was part of the New Zealand Museum’s policy of partnership with other museums.”

These were early days for the relatively new Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand. The year prior, the national museum and national art gallery had formed a merger.

The article didn’t mention that founding chief executive Cheryll Sotheran was also involved with the ceremony taking place along Church St. Neither does it mention that Manawatū Museum director Mina McKenzie was a lead negotiator in enabling the pouwhenua to leave the national collection in Wellington.

The four pouwhenua were received into an area used today to house our regional collection at Te Manawa. On the receiving end on August 3, 1993, were Tanenuiarangi Te Awe Awe, other Rangitāne kaumatua and museum staffers.

The significance of this ceremony had also drawn in national media and the event was later reported on radio and television.

While the Standard reported that the pouwhenua had ‘’returned home’’, their origin was some 20 kilometres away. Three of the pouwhenua originated from Puketōtara, a Rangitāne pā located near the junction of the Ōroua and Manawatū rivers.

Carved from tōtara, the Standard reported at the time that they were “considered significant and important taonga for the Rangitāne people”. But, arguably, they were specifically more important for the Rangitāne hapū of Ngāti Te Rangitepaia.

For political, entrepreneurial and other reasons, 19th century leader of Ngāti Te Rangitepaia, Hoani Meihana Te Rangiotu, relocated the pā site from Puketōtara to a place nearby known as Oroua Bridge in the 1860s.

This location was adjacent to the emerging rail and road systems connecting Foxton with Palmerston North. We know this place today as Rangiotu.

From 1881 land, including the abandoned Puketōtara pā site, was farmed by French brothers Claud, John and Louis Pascal. Some remnants of the pā remained, including some pouwhenua.

At some stage three were removed and stored next to Rangimarie Marae at Rangiotu. The Standard reported the pouwhenua being the ‘’only large Rangitāne carvings still in New Zealand’’. However, just three years prior, even larger Rangitāne pouwhenua and poupou had been installed in Te Marae o Hine/The Square as part of the nation’s sesquicentennial commemorations of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and our city’s rededication of the name and kaupapa of Te Marae o Hine.

While the Standard would have reported the massive event in unveiling these works in March 1990, there seems to have been a lack of understanding in its 1993 article that Māori art forms were a continuous tradition. The Standard did hint at there being more historical pouwhenua than those present at the 1993 event.

At some point the Pascal brothers returned to France. Prior to leaving they were gifted two pouwhenua from the remnants of Puketōtara pā as a symbol of friendship between whanau of Ngāti Te Rangitepaia and the Pascal whānau.

These pouwhenua now live in a Parisian museum, the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac, with one pouwhenua being on permanent public display. The museum is just a few minutes’ walk away from the Eiffel Tower.

The Standard reported in 1993 that 20th century Rangitāne leader Wiremu Kingi Te Awe Awe gifted pouwhenua to the national museum collection in 1933.

Te Awe Awe had a strong interest in history and whakapapa. On meeting icthyologist William Phillipps, a resident ethnologist at the Dominion Museum in Wellington (an imposing building, now part of Massey University’s Wellington campus), they discussed the safekeeping of the Rangitāne pouwhenua.

Phillipps encouraged the gift of the pouwhenua to the national collection. The Manawatū region did not have a museum of its own at the time.

During the 1980s, one of the Rangitāne pouwhenua was part of the national museum’s ‘‘Taonga Māori’’ exhibition which toured to Australia. The reporting of the 1993 event probably added to the hype of the merger of the then Manawatū Museum and Science Centre, and the development of the corner of Church, Pitt and Main streets.

The Manawatū Museum was established in the 1970s, following the city’s centennial celebrations. Mina McKenzie was said to have been the first female and first Māori director of any New Zealand museum.

The Science Centre was a newer kid in town, with popular hands-on interactive experiences, particularly for children and families.

The new institution opened to the public with the ‘’not quite merged’’ sounding name of The Science Centre and Manawatū Museum in March 1994. The art gallery joined the party in 1999 and the tripartite was rebranded as Te Manawa Museum in 2002.

The Standard implied that the carvings had been returned to our region forever. We now understand that it was a long-term loan from the national collection, with recurring renewals.

We planned to write this feature acknowledging the 30-year presence of the pouwhenua at our city’s museum. However, without the fanfare of 1993, the pouwhenua quietly made a journey back to Wellington in May.

Next time they return to the city, we hope it will be for good.

THEN – Histories of Pāmutana is the local history practice of Virginia and Warren Warbrick.