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EXHIBITING ON NGATI HAU LAND
The reasons for exhibiting on Ngati Hau lands was to acknowledge the tapu status of the land
and address unfamiliar, unknown and unnamed blocks of land and tupuna. Many days and
weeks were spent installing and photographing the artefacts individually or as groupings of
objects at different Ngati Hau locations and environments. The landscape and geography of
Ngati Hau contains limestone, swamps, rivers, rock and clay. The numbers of markers of loss
were deliberately limited out of deference to those Ngati Hau kaumatua and kuia, who in the
main tend not to show an interest in these practices, displays and exhibitions because of a
perceived association with tapu (Marsden, 2003, p 5-7).
Trees and rocks play a significant role in Ngati Hau memorialisation and ceremonial occasions. The
traditional term “a fallen kauri” acknowledges the death of a revered person but it is a term fast
diminishing as a form of eulogy. When used in its proper context at a tangi, it is a tauparapara, an
incantation to begin a speech; or a karanga, the formal or ceremonial call to welcome visitors, or
whaikorero, using formal oratory with imagery and the waiata, as a lament and song of mourning
(Mead, 2001).
One of several small forests on the Te Maruata block has a compact totara grove and in its centre is a
well rooted kauri tree growing over a burial cave. 29 In the 1940‟s the land owner wanted to cut the
kauri. Although the kaumatua Wiri Kake objected he negotiated to purchase cut timber to build the
Pehiaweri Marae. This was not followed up because his sons and other sons of Ngati Hau joined A
Company, 28 th Maori Battalion and went to fight in the Second World War (Lambert, 1990).
29 : Kauri Tree: Newspaper clipping (nd)
28