Inside a wharenui

NEW ZEALAND, 19TH CENTURY

The role of the marae in Māori life remains as important today as it has done for centuries. These communal spaces are sacred and central to ideas of community cohesion and respect for one another. At the heart of the marae is the wharenui, the meeting house, sometimes also called a whare tipuna, which means ancestral house or whare rūnanga, which means communal meeting house. It is inside this building and at its threshold that all of the most important gatherings take place.

Just outside the wharenui is a public meeting area where many of the most important outdoor ceremonies take place. For example, the pōwhiri, which is a Māori welcoming ceremony that involves speeches, dancing, singing and the traditional Māori nose-to-nose greeting of the hongi, would take place here. This area is thought to be the domain of the Māori deity of man and war, Tūmatauenga, and so the original intention of this ceremony of welcoming was to test the intentions of the visitors and decide if they were really friend or foe.

However, once stepping inside the wharenui we enter the realm of Rongo-mā-tāne, the deity of peace, balance and cultivated foods. This is a space where discussion, debate, deliberation, celebration and grief can all be expressed without judgement or recrimination, so long as people remain respectful and non-threatening. As a hall it can be used to welcome visitors, host weddings or funerals, or any number of social functions.

The other reason why the wharenui is a sacred and special place is that the building is meant to be the embodiment of a family ancestor and is often named after the person it is channelling.

One example of the reverence that is common as a mark of respect for this fact is that shoes are typically removed before entering a wharenui.