dynamic tradition and forward-thinking artefacts
how te whare rūnanga challenges the classical idea of commemoration
Standing at the Waitangi Treaty grounds, one can appreciate the strange symmetry of having the Treaty (or Busby) House beside Te Whare Rūnanga beyond the obvious Pākehā and Māori parallel. Built for the Centennial celebration, the latter opened on Waitangi Day 1940 with a haka. While both are linked to the Treaty of Waitangi’s signing, the Treaty House is a relic trapped in 1840 and Te Whare Rūnanga looks instead to the future. By embodying a vision of a Māori identity independent of Pākehā influence, Te Whare Rūnanga commemorates the past only through reimagining it.
Ngata leading a haka in front of Te Whare Rūnanga at the 1940 Centennial celebrations. [1]
Te Whare Rūnanga was one of dozens of whare whakairo built during the twentieth century by the Rotorua School of Maori Arts and Crafts. The Rotorua School was established with Ngatas help in 1927, born out of his anti-assimilationist agenda and the recognition that there were few practitioners of traditional Māori arts and crafts, like carving, remaining. Changes in anthropological discourse at the turn of the century led to a desire to preserve traditional indigenous culture for fear that they were disappearing.[3] During this time, there was also an emerging search amongst Pākehā New Zealanders for their own identity, and spurred the adoption and interest in an idealised ancient Maori past.[4] Ngata played on this interest in order to secure funding for the revival of Māori creative endeavours. Pākehā equated traditionalism with static, ordered and loyal societies, and Ngata responded to this by having the School focus on traditional styles and methods.[5] He searched for a cultural form from the past that could be adapted to modern conditions and used to both foster and express Māori identity.[6] His solution? The whare whakairo, and over 30 were built within twenty-five years. [7]
but why the whare whakairo?
The whare whakairo was Ngatas chosen vessel to express Māoritanga. Māoritanga was situated in modernity: not an attempt to hold onto some distant past, but the expression of self-determination and identity. Ngata developed a template that was based on nineteenth century whare design but incorporated elements of twentieth century building practices (electric lights, building regulations), used different materials (steel, concrete), and new structural details (stages, side doors).[8][9] All of these modifications showed considerations for changing social patterns in Māori society, while executed in a way that remained, or at least appeared, distinctively Māori.[10] This exemplified how Māori could still retain their Māoritanga, or their Maoriness, while simultaneously adapting to colonial conditions.[11] Beyond the physical design, the construction of the whare was a form of community building, establishing a group identity and strengthening commitment to revitalisation.
Te Whare Rūnanga exemplifies this. Ngata reported that planning meetings deepened the determination of the northern tribes to re-establish te Maoritanga.”[12] The design differed slightly from the standard template due to its intended function as a museum, and incorporated carving designs from all around the country. Modernised elements were deliberately obscured under Maori designs, such as kowhaiwhai paintings and kahoko lining. Ngatas general strategy was presenting cultural revival as traditional to secure funding and approval; this shaped his choice to pitch this building as a timeless, heritage piece of Māori art. Its location next to the Treaty house is a nod to the past but also a reminder of the claims made by the Treaty, claims of recognition and equality that are still yet to be honoured in full.[13] Te Whare Rūnunga projected a unified Māori identity, one that stood in contrast to the Pakeha expression of the Busby residence, unity at a national level.[14]
The centennial celebration was supposed to show how New Zealand had progressed in the century that had passed since its founding.[15] A portrayal of a static Māori culture, unchanged in those hundred years, would have been just as inappropriate as a wholly Pākehā depiction of Māori.[16] Yet even this, its modern fittings carefully concealed to make it more palatable, was built only by negotiation with a colonial state. Despite the indisputable centre stage Māori took in the history of New Zealand (and the Treaty in particular), only 500 Māori were allowed to attend the Centennial celebrations, and the majority of them were there as performing entertainment.[17]
then and now
The signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Centennial celebrations, and present-day New Zealand all have something in common: there is a symbolic claim of biculturalism, yet Pākehā dominate conversations and Māori are limited in numbers, Māori culture being more easily exploitable when Māori participation is restricted. However, rather than a form of continued subjugation, arts and crafts and performance has been reclaimed by some as part of a dynamic push against assimilation through revival.
Commemoration is an act often considered purely about the past. While designed with the intention of commemorating the Treaty, Te Whare Rūnangas relationship to the future and its circumstances of creation are perhaps more significant: both a retrospective artefact, and a prospective political gesture, it expresses the promise of the future.[18] Te Whare Rūnanga doesnt just reveal how the nature of building and architecture was changing during that time. It is also future-oriented, challenging the colonial mentality which views Māori tradition as a souvenir of a static past.
Māori have and continue to engage with the present and future. Being indigenous is not synonymous with being subjugated or being a thing of the past, and Te Whare Rūnanga acts as a reminder that decolonisation and identity reclamation never stops.
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[1] Alexander Turnbull Library, PAColl-3060 (MNZ-2746-1/2-F), Apirana Turupa Ngata leading a haka at the 1940 centennial celebrations, Waitangi: https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.142776.
[2] Ngata to Buck, 11 June 1933, in M. Sorrenson ed., Na to Hoa Aroha, From Your Dear Friend: The Correspondence of Sir Apirana Ngata and Sir Peter Buck. Volume 3, 1932-50, Auckland, 1986, p.81.
[3] Conal McCarthy, Exhibiting Māori: A History of Colonial Cultures of Display, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2007, p.62.
[4] Damien Skinner, The Carver and The Artist: Māori Art in the Twentieth Century, Auckland University Press, Auckland, 2008, p.21.
[5] Bernard Kernot, Māori Buildings for the Centennial, in William Reniwck, ed., Creating a National Spirit: Celebrating New Zealand’s Centennial, Wellington, 2004, p.73.
[6] Skinner, p.21.
[7] McCarthy, p.84
[8] Skinner, p.31.
[9] Kernot, p.67.
[10] Skinner, p.31.
[11] ibid, p.23.
[12] Ngata to Buck, 17 March 1934, in Na to Hoa Aroha, From Your Dear Friend, p.128.
[13] Ministry for Culture and Heritage, The Treaty of Waitangi – The 1940 Centennial: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/centennial/the-centennial-and-the-treaty-of-waitangi
[14] Skinner, p.31.
[15] McCarthy, p.71.
[16] Skinner, p.21.
[17] Ministry for Culture and Heritage, The Treaty of Waitangi – The 1940 Centennial.
[18] McCarthy, p.85.
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