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After Six-month Closure, Wharenui At Waimārama Marae Reopens
Pokere Paewai, Māori issues reporter
The wharenui at Waimārama Marae in Hawkes Bay has been reopened after a six-month closure.
The fully refurbished whare was opened on Saturday morning by the Te Arikinui Kuini Nga wai hono i te po in her first official visit to the East Coast since becoming monarch.
Ngāti Kahungunu leader Dr Jeremy Tātere MaLeod said it was a superb morning to reopen the whare and a great honour to have Te Arikinui visit for the first time.
"It's an honour for Ngāti Kahungunu but it's an even greater honour for Waimārama that her first visit was here to this marae to open this wharenui.
"It's quite an auspicious occasion she brings with her the spirit of her father [who] was mourned this morning but she comes here as our Queen."
Ngāti Kahungunu chair Bayden Barber said having Nga wai hono i te po open the whare meant a lot to the iwi.
"She follows the footsteps of her father Kiingi Tuheitia and her grandmother Te Arikinui Te Atairangikahu who both came here over the last twenty or thirty years."
The wharenui is named Taupunga, which Barber said referenced the anchor stone of the Takitimu waka which landed at Waimārama.
It's a really important whare for Ngāti Kahungunu and for the descendants of Takitimu, he said.
"It's one of the older whare in Kahungunu, in Heretaunga, it's about a hundred and forty years old and it was barely hanging by a thread really the possums had eaten all the framing and everything.
"Kua whakahaungia katoatia i tēnei wā. (The whare has been totally refurbished now.)"
As well as the large group of people from Tainui accompanying Te Arikinui, there was another large ope (group) from Te Arawa at the opening.
They brought with them the memory of the late Sir Robert "Bom" Gillies who passed away in November last year.
MacLeod said Sir Bom hailed from Waimārama Marae on his fathers side, although he now rests among his mother's people in Rotorua.
"Today was a sad occasion for us to welcome Te Arawa who brought his mate (death) home and we were able to celebrate him."
Te Arawa gifted a set of woven flax mats to the marae to mark the occasion.
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