A wise priest once said that children shouldn’t be able to remember the first time they entered a church building; it should be part of their lives from the very beginning. Certainly I can’t remember the first time I went into a church. But I can remember the first time I went on to a living marae and into a living wharenui – ‘great house’ – meeting house, filled with people. It was at Otaki in 1971, as part of a clergy school on Maoritanga. And a rich new world started to open up to me.

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Waitangi Wharenui Te Tiriti o Waitangi Whare R?nanga, Master carver Pine Taiapa and others, opened 1940, exterior

Since then I’ve been welcomed on to a number of marae, and gone on to talk and sleep in the wharenui, as I know some of you have also, you who went up to Tokomaru Bay on parish visits in the late 1970’s & early 1980’s.  But as a matter of interest, how many here this morning have in fact slept in a wharenui? How many of you have been welcomed on to a marae? How many of you have never been inside even an empty meeting house (like the ancient one at Te Papa)?

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Waitangi Wharenui, Te Tiriti o Waitangi Whare R?nanga, Interior

Now, it’s one thing to be surrounded in a wharenui by the warmly hospitable tangata whenua, as we clergy were at Otaki, before heading back to our own beds elsewhere. It’s another thing to sleep there (or try to), to lie there in the dark enclosed by the symbolism of the surrounding art – the carving, the woven tukutuku panels on the walls, the painted kowhaiwhai on the ceiling, and the very shape of the building, to lie there being interrogated by the living past And not just by another culture, but by the culture of the people who preceded pakeha in this land and who live alongside pakeha in this land.  This is what Phyllis and I want to explore this morning.

(Phyllis)                                                                            
My earliest experience of entering a wharenui was at Waitangi. This is the wharenui on the treaty grounds at Waitangi. This is a large meeting house and was erected in 1940 on the centenary of the Treaty of Waitangi. The carving was the work of the famous Maori woodcarver Pine Taiapa. It incorporates all the different regional styles, a national meeting house representative of all tribes as well as a powerful acknowledgement of Maori identity.

Living in nearby Hokianga, I remember going to Waitangi often as a child. I recall being impressed by the beauty of the building as well as its sense of solemnity and history: the links with the past. This is a grander wharenui than the many smaller regional wharenui that stand on the marae (ceremonial/communal areas) of most Maori communities. As a child, the wharenui was a slightly frightening place – with its ancestor figures in the poupou panels and the dark, closed-in architecture, and the importance of ritual there. A wharenui seems very much linked to the past – to those who have gone before us, the ancestors; and about one’s identity, who we are; where we came from, whanau and Maoritanga (what it means to be a Maori). It is very much linked to the earth, to being enduring. Having Ngapuhi blood in me still makes the experience of entering a wharenui like sending shivers down my spine – it’s my link with the past, a pull. When I enter a church, it seems to me to be more to do with uplift, looking forwards and while the enduring links to the past and ritual are there of course as a basis – the church is more about a way forward for me. Both are important though to one’s identity.

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Waitangi Wharenui interior – detail

(Peter)
As the name implies, the wharenui functions as a building for assembly, for discussions, as a meeting house. It can function symbolically as well, in three ways:

• As representing the body of an ancestor or a god
• Or as capturing, embodying  the whakapapa (the genealogy, the inherited identity)
• And also as a model of the Maori cosmos, the Maori world.

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Diagram of Layout of a Wharenui

(Phyllis)
Meanings differ from wharenui to wharenui, but some wharenui are viewed as representing the body of an ancestor or a mythological figure.

So the koruru gable head is the head of the figure
The maihi or bargeboards are the arms
The raparapa at the end so the bargeboards are the fingers
The tahuhu or ridgepole is the backbone of the figure
The rafters or heke are the ancestor’s ribs
The interior column or supporting post, the pou-toko-manawa, is seen by some as the heart of the body.

Because the wharenui is symbolic in this way, some orators will address the wharenui as if they were talking to a living ancestor.

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Waitangi Wharenui Te Tiriti o Waitangi Whare R?nanga, Master carver Pine Taiapa and others, opened 1940, exterior      

(Peter)
Other orators will interpret the wharenui as a whakapapa, genealogy. The tekoteko seen here stands in place of the gable head. The tekoteko is then seen as the main ancestor from whom the people in the wharenui claim their descent. Then along the roof are the descendants of the ancestor – along the ridge pole (tahuhu) – in the kowhaiwhai forms or as carvings.

This relates to the myths about Maui. Maui had been abandoned by his mother at birth and when he was reunited with her she asked him to stand on the ridgepole of their home to symbolise his return to the whanau and to his whakapapa.

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Interior poupou

These descendents of the characters on the ridgepole are shown in the paintings on the rafters (heke) and their descendents in turn are shown on the wall carvings – the poupou. Significant descendents are portrayed on the interior support column, the poutokomanawa, with some identifying characteristics.

So if you meet in a wharenui you are entering the body of your ancestor, and your whakapapa.

(Phyllis)
The wharenui can also be seen as a model of the Maori cosmos. This reading provides various interpretations of the architectural layout of the wharenui. For example, the front porch often faces Hawaiki in the east – that is, the land of the gods and legends as well as the resting place for the dead to return to. Churches also traditionally ‘face east’, but in a different way, using the end with the main altar and ‘east’ window. (So St Alban’s orientation is in fact Maori.)

The interior of the wharenui is considered by some to be the place of the living. The transition between the two worlds is the pare or door lintel, so you pass from one state to the other by passing under the pare.

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Waitangi Wharenui Te Tiriti o Waitangi Whare R?nanga, exterior, Master carver Pine Taiapa and others, opened 1940

And some see the roof as representing the sky God, Rangi, and the (earthen) floor as Papatuanuku, the Earth Mother, and the vertical columns as trees, as Tane, tearing his parents apart, separating them.

The marae and the meeting house can also be read as metaphors for war and peace respectively. The marae outside is considered the domain of Tu, the god of war – where people are challenged, and where serious debates occur; while the wharenui is the domain of Rongo, the god of peace, with constructive debate, conversation or sleeping.

(Peter)
But at this point we need to do a little history. How ancient is all this symbolism in the wharenui, and its interpretation? And how much has evolved since the Christian missionaries? This is murky territory for a pakeha like me to enter; my knowledge is rudimentary at best.

But it seems that the 19th Century – a time of massive change for Maori society and culture as a whole – was a time of change for the wharenui. In pre-European times the wharenui was also the chief’s home. It did have some wood carving, but the various arts were diffused amongst the whole society, and carving was mainly for war canoes. These disappeared after the Maori conversion to Christianity – not to mention the arrival of European-type coastal trading vessels.

In the 19thCentury, Maori identity is under threat. And the meeting house becomes a focus for its defence. There’s a multiplication of meetings in the meeting house; the chief moves out; the wharenui becomes an expression or distillation of the Maori arts, and wood carving eventually ‘moves in’ in a big way (though paradoxically it also nearly died out and had to be rescued by Sir Apirana Ngata). And a lot of painted decoration develops in the wharenui. During all this, tradition tends to ‘freeze’ defensively, including the older cosmology expressed in designs.
 
Christian worship also often moved in. So worship happened (and still happens) in wharenui, but sometimes a church was built nearby on the marae.

The mix differs from marae to marae. It was and is a two-fold mix, the mix of Maori artistic culture interacting with pakeha culture, AND at a deeper level of Maori cosmology with Christian Gospel.
 
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Hapai Winiata at Ngatokowaru wharenui near Levin

(Phyllis)
We’ll now look briefly at two wharenui which break out of conservative conventions of both form and of religious/ cosmological content of the traditional wharenui.

Hapai Winiata’s adaptation of the wharenui can be seen in Ngatokowaru Wharenui near Levin. This wharenui was carved in the late 1970s (1977-78) by the late Bishop Hapai Winiata, a master-carver seen in this photo as a young man. This wharenui is more whanau-based, more to do with family ancestors. However, a visitor to Ngatokowaru from another tribe was once overheard to say, ‘I can’t read it’.

I once interviewed Bishop Hapai Winiata about this wharenui, and he expressed the hope that in terms of materials and ideas, the carver could feel a freedom to explore; to go back to the past, but also to incorporate the present and the future.

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Poupou panel, Ngatokowaru Meeting House, and detail of cross and adze, Hapai Winiata

So here we see traditional Maori poupou slabs imbued with Christian iconography – the weapon overlaid by the cross.

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Bishop Octavius Hadfield and the Catholic Father Delach.

And new ancestors: the Anglican missionary, Octavius Hadfield of the Church Missionary Society, (later Bishop), who arrived in the Otaki area in 1839 at the invitation of two leading chiefs (Tamihana Te Rauparaha and Matene Te Whiwhi).   And the Roman Catholic Father Delach, a later Roman Catholic Missionary. ……

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Ngatokowaru wharenui near Levin

This wharenui combines the motifs of a wharenui and a Christian church. The back wall has two windows with large red crosses with these images on either side along with the poupou of the two chiefs who invited Hadfield to Otaki in 1839.

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Hapai outside St Michael’s in Palmerston North

(Peter)
Here’s Bishop Hapai again with another of his creative achievements – St Michael’s in Palmerston North. This one is more based on the Church community, while still drawing on Hapai’s hapu relationships and resources. I was present at its crowded opening, and I’ve subsequently met there, worshipped there and slept there on several occasions. You pakeha would blink a little about taking your shoes off to come into St Alban’s, then worshipping here, and going on to have a conference here, and then sleeping here – but all that is what happens at St Michael’s.  And it feels good. By the way, you would certainly not eat in St Michael’s, as we do here in the foyer of St Alban’s.

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Palmerston Nth St Michael’s Anglican Church – exterior with cross

See the cross in place of the tribal ancestor. And the prow of the waka or canoe – the church as the waka, taking the place of the tribe as waka.

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Palmerston Nth St Michael’s Anglican Church kowhaiwhai

Inside, the building is more simply decorated and lighter than many wharenui.  But note these two kowhaiwhai:  new designs within the basic traditional design shaped like koru, the top of an unfurling fern frond, symbolising new and ongoing life. One (on the left), called Te Kakenga, is of Christ ascending and bestowing the Holy Spirit to empower our love. (Compare this with the stained glass window of the Ascending Christ here in St Alban’s).) The other kowhaiwhai design is called ‘Whanautanga’, or birth: the birth of a baby and above it new birth through the cross of Christ. It would take too long now to go through all the symbol adaptations Hapai Winiata made, often radical, fusing Christian truths with Maori art forms.

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View of Pulse, Darryn George

(Phyllis)
Modern Maori art is often very creative, anything but frozen in past cultural forms, yet it remains recognisably Maori.

Look at this image called ‘Pulse’ by contemporary Maori artist Darryn George.  This art work symbolises the wharenui, doesn’t it? The colours of red, black and white – traditional Maori wharenui colours – and the hard-edged look of kowhaiwhai painting or carving. It’s probably the first recreation of a painted meeting house in an art gallery setting – Christchurch Art Gallery.

Note the importance of the central post, pou-toko-manawa, the pillar holding up the roof. George said that this post refers to the ancestor Christ. Christ as the protector of his descendents, as the spiritual ancestor.

Also we see the word ‘Waru’ everywhere and George said that this means the number eight in Maori; so again we have Christian iconography – Christ rose on the eighth day, bringing us a new Christian era.

(Peter)
Andrew Panoho is another contemporary Maori artist, and a Christian; his faith is expressed in his painting (which is a long way from Hapai Winiata’s woodworking art forms). Yet he has a dream that the whole New Zealand Church can take hold of the unique basic art form which is the wharenui, and imbue it with the identity of Christ and the story of the Gospel and of the community based on the Gospel. Replace the ancestor by Christ; the wharenui then becomes the body of Christ which we enter when we assemble in it as Christians for worship and renew our own identity as the Body of Christ. (Just as when Maori go into the wharenui of their hapu, they are entering into their ancestor, renewing their identity with him and in him.) And we would have the Christian story celebrated all around us, in art forms of one sort or another. Now there’s a thought for you. Though I hope it’s not a new one, if you know your church history.

Let’s now have a flight of creative imagination. The marae where we, the congregation of St Alban’s, welcome our guests is outside, between this building and the hall. In your minds, enlarge the front barge boards of St Alban’s and turn them into maihi – the welcoming arms of Christ. With a somewhat stronger Christian tekoteko (gable figurehead) than we currently have. Come into the church (forget about the porch for the moment, though we’re going to have to banish the tea facilities from there to the hall which has become our dining room). Empty out the pews, but keep some moveable seats round the walls. Decorate the rafters – the ribs – with Christian designs. Carve the uprights. One of them should be St Alban, perhaps here, with Mary on the other side, and the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John on the four uprights among you. Tukutuku panels on the walls, with Christian symbolism. (And somewhere we can include the tukutuku panel woven here by Ngoi and Ben Pewhairangi when Tokomaru Bay came to stay with us in the late 1970’s.) The windows – well – they should tell the story of the Gospel and the People of God (as did medieval cathedrals). We dispense with the organ and store the mattresses there. We lower the chancel, and carpet the whole of the church. The altar of course stays, and so too does the window of the Ascending Christ, our ancestor, our older brother, and our Lord and Saviour. Here is where we meet, here is where we talk on important occasions, here is where we have our AGM’s and Vestry meetings, here is where we sometimes sleep, especially for our now extended funerals – and here is where we worship.

What have we gained by this? What have we lost? I don’t think we’ve lost much, and I think we’ve gained quite a lot, especially in our bonding together with each other in Christ, on a number of levels. Think about this – and think especially about those sticking points you might have. Perhaps they are simply pakeha reflexes; perhaps the Gospel may need to correct them. Our individualism certainly needs to be transformed by the Maori sense of community, which is much closer to that of the Gospel.

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Ngatokowaru wharenui near Levin (with people)

(Phyllis)
Again and again the Church and its gospel have penetrated a culture, transformed it, but been enriched by it in the process. Let’s journey on in Aotearoa New Zealand with our eyes and ears and hearts and spirits open to new insights into the Gospel, truths which are already there but which need the lens of another culture for them to surface properly – or to resurface again. 

We journey into Light. Te Ao Marama, the Realm of Light. The light who is Christ, Christ who is Lord of all peoples and of their cultures.
A presentation in St Alban’s Anglican Church, Eastbourne, on 22 November 2009, by Phyllis Mossman and Peter Stuart

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