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 The official opening of Te Parapara is planned for May 2010, following the installation of the pataka. It will be the first pataka to be built following traditional lines since the 1820s. The last carved pataka in the region stood on a river island near the Cobham Drive bridge during the late 1700s.
The pataka was handed over by the Te Puia Carving School, formerly known as the New Zealand Maori Arts & Crafts Institute, based at Whakarewarewa, Rotorua.
The timber used in the construction of the pataka is totara (Podocarpus totara), an easily-worked timber noted for its durability.
The main gable figure is currently being carved with stone tools by Ngati Wairere carver Wiremu Puke using greenstone chisels and adzes. This is the only piece carved with stone tools and will be finished with traditional kokowai (ochre) in order to to replicate the hues and shades seen on these structures during the mid 1700s by early European obsevers.Wiremu is considered to be the only carver in NZ to still have used stone tools extensively.
The patterns on the pataka are very close to those found on pre-European carvings: many of the patterns used are based on those found on a stone tooled pre-European carved paepae pataka (threshold) recovered from a gully at Chartwell in 1977 by archaeologist Steve Edson. Te Parapara carver Wiremu Puke has found that while modern tools are ideal for contemporary designs, they don’t lend themselves well to the techniques demanded by older patterns.
The figures on the four support posts (below) depict the last chiefs of Ngati Wairere and their subtribes who developed extensive cultivations along the banks of the Waikato River in the Kirikiriroa area prior to the land confiscations of 1864. These were described by early European travelers as a near continuous line of cultivations from Ngaruawahia to Kemureti (Cambridge) during the 1840s and 1850s. |
