A wharenui’s rich legacy
A rare Maori meeting house sits in the grounds of a stately home in Surrey, bought as a souvenir for £50 123 years ago. Hannah McKee talks to Jim Schuster about Hinemihi, the meeting house which saved his ancestor’s lives.
If it weren’t for the Maori Meeting House Hinemihi, Jim Schuster wouldn’t be here today. Carved by Schuster’s great great grandfather, Tene Waitere, Hinemihi served as a hotspot in Te Wairoa for tourists visiting the Pink and White Terraces in the early 1880s.
More than 150 people died in the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886, but Hinemihi saved Schuster’s ancestors by sheltering them from the tonnes of ash and mud that fell from the sky.
Seven years later, Governor-General William Hillier Onslow purchased Hinemihi for £50 as a memento of his time in New Zealand.
Hinemihi was shipped in 23 pieces to Surrey and resurrected on the grounds of Clandon House, thousands of kilometres away from home.
There, nestled among trees and shrubs like a scene out of Downton Abbey, Hinemihi still stands.
It has survived more than 120 years of English winters, being used as everything from a goat house, to a boat shed, and a children’s doll house, before being donated to the United Kingdom’s National Trust in 1956.
‘‘The National Trust did their best to look after it, I suppose, but not a lot of English people know how to look after a Maori Meeting House like we do,’’ says Schuster, who works at Heritage New Zealand specialising in Marae restoration.
‘‘So when the National Trust needed some advice, they came to the Historic Places Trust, now Heritage New Zealand, they talked about Hinemihi and I said, ‘Oh, I know that house, my great great grandfather carved it’, so I went over to give them advice.’’
But that wouldn’t be Schuster’s first encounter with Hinemihi. With his wife, he first visited the meeting house in 1993 at the end of a long trip around Europe.
‘‘That was very emotional, when you’ve been on the road for six weeks and looking forward to getting home.
‘‘You sort of walk along the huge lawn in front of Clandon House, and then there’s this little meeting house across the grass, it’s a little piece of home that saved your ancestor’s lives and you can’t help it, the tears just start to roll down your face and my wife and three kids, we all started to cry. The house just made us feel welcome and helped us recharge our batteries.’’
Schuster has since been back five times.
Hinemihi was due for a makeover, but hit a roadblock when Clandon House suffered a fire in April last year.
While Hinemihi was not damaged, restoration efforts have since been geared towards the Clandon House.
‘‘Before that, she was going to get a proper floor, electricity, and we were working with the National Trust to restore her back to her 11-metre-long size too,’’ Schuster says. ‘‘The fire was the game changer. ‘‘There was a caretaker who stayed next to Hinemihi with a fire extinguisher all night, luckily she was well enough away.’’
After the fire, Schuster was hopeful that the National Trust might close Clandon Park and allow Hinemihi to return to New Zealand.
‘‘We wouldn’t say no if they offered it to us, but I think we’ll always have to wait for them to make the decision, I don’t think we can jump up and down to fight and get her back because they legally bought her and to get anything out of the National Trust you’ve got to change English law, so it would be difficult.
‘‘We are waiting for the day when they say ‘yip she’s been here long enough it’s time for her to go home’.
‘‘But I think she’s been there a long time and Maori people in and around London know she’s there. They’ve decided to rebuild Clandon House and hopefully Hinemihi will get a makeover with it.’’
But Hinemihi has also had positive experiences over the years, Schuster says. During World War I, when Clandon House was used as a military hospital, members of the Maori Battalion were among the soldiers who recuperated there.
‘‘They realised there was this meeting house and said ‘You’ve got it all wrong’, and dismantled and put it back together so the carvings were facing the right way, I think taking care of her helped them recuperate.’’
During the 2012 London Olympics, Schuster was among a group of Kiwi athletes and their families who celebrated at the meeting house.
‘‘The spirit of the house is still in there. It’s like when people are around she lights up again, but it was sad to sort of drive away and see her standing there all alone again.’’
The story of Hinemihi is one of four meeting houses around the world featured in the new Te Papa Press book The Maori Meeting House: Introducing the Whare Whakairo.
Written by Damian Skinner, art historian, writer and curator at the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the book is an introductory guide to the Maori meeting house, their history, evolution, symbolism and cultural significance.
Illustrated with more than 100 historical and contemporary photographs, and original watercolour illustrations, the book is available in book stores now.