The new Te Huki marae, risen from the ashes of a fire 12 years ago. Photo / Supplied
The new Te Huki marae, risen from the ashes of a fire 12 years ago. Photo / Supplied
A frantic rush has been on at the northern Hawke's Bay township of Raupunga ahead of the opening of the new marae wharenui Kotahitanga on Saturday.
The hall at Te Huki Marae, off Putere Rd and overlooking the township, State Highway 2 and the Mohaka River to the east, hasbeen built to replace Te Kotahitanga, the biggest of three near-adjoining buildings burnt to the ground on April 11, 2007.
Also destroyed were Te Huki, completed in 1981 and the smaller whare Hineringa, which had a history dating back well over a century, once on the flats beside Mohaka River.
The main hall had for almost 50 years been the centre of the community. In the 12 years since the fire, most big occasions such as weddings, birthdays, hui-a-iwi, and tangi, have been held about 12km away at Waipapa-a-Iwi Marae, Mohaka.
Meanwhile, rugby club YMP, at home on the ground overlooked by the marae, had to take visiting teams up Putere Rd to Kahungunu Marae for aftermatch showers and festivities, before deciding this season to play home matches almost 30km away at Waikare, using Waikare and District Sports Club facilities.
Locals working around the new building on Te Huki Marae, Raupunga. Photo / Doug Laing
Reflecting on the fire marae chairwoman Theresa Thornton said in a Ngati Pahauwera Development Trust website update: "The devastation was complete and heartbreak profound."
Still living in the area where she grew up, and with a $2 million project near complete, she said this week: "It's been hard, it's been a long journey."
There are many who remember the marae's role in more comparatively prosperous days of government department jobs on the railway, and a Napier-Wairoa highway stop featuring dairies, Post Office, fish and chip shop, petrol pumps and workshop, a movie theatre, and a district high school.
The area's natural feature of te awa Mohaka and the railway's Mohaka Viaduct over the river remain, the highest in Australasia, built spanning the decade of the Great Depression and the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake, and opened in 1937.
But the highway stop is denoted mainly by the shell of its former hub, mixed with more-recent flats, and across the road a public toilet block which in 2014 lined-up in Local Government New Zealand's amenity awards after a redecoration and care project led by the community to stop graffiti and make it more attractive for travellers.
They call her "The Boss" - Ngaire Culshaw (foreground) keeping work on-task at the weekend. Photo / Doug Laing
Leading that project was Ngaire Culshaw, who lives a few hundred metres up Putere Rd, across the road from the marae reserve and where she and husband Boy Culshaw are these days the major employer around, giving many of the young people a start with Pahauwera Shearing in woolsheds throughout Wairoa District.
Iwi member and Wellington-based builder Fred Niblett had returned to complete the building project and prominent artist Sandy Adsett has been back leading the painting, craftwork and decoration of the interior.
Outside the same ethic of the shearing business has seen whanau roped-in to help clear and ready the site for the opening.
Aboard the restoration waka about nine years, and chairwoman for the past year or so, Thornton says the marae is "centre and soul" of a community, and many grew up with the gatherings of the community there.
The carpark lineup as whanau prepare for the opening of the new building at Te Huki Marae, Raupunga. Photo / Doug Laing
She says reopening is "everything" to the community, with rugby and other events able to return, along with staging hui-a-iwi and other events. It will also take pressure off the other four marae in the area, which generally also require work.
The celebrations on Saturday start with karakia at 4am, with the formal powhiri at 11am.
