Auaukiterangi - The Sacred House of Tainui
Auaukiterangi was an ariki, or high chief, in Hawaiiki, the former homeland of the Maori across the seas. He was the father of Hoturoa, the commander of the Tainui canoe of the Great Migration of circa 1350 A.D. Auaukiterangi and his eldest son, Pumaiterangi, remained in Hawaiiki.
In the naming of this house the Tainui people have followed the example of the Arawa tribes who named their carved house at Maketu in the Bay of Plenty, after, Houmaitawhiti, the father of Tamatekapua, the commander of Te Arawa Canoe. Houmaitawhiti also remained in Hawaiki.
The name of Hoturoa has already been bestowed on the Ngati Raukawa meeting house at Aotearoa, in the Wharepuhunga ranges near Te Awamutu.
In like manner the name of Tamatekapua had also been bestowed on the meeting house which still stands at Ohinemutu, Rotorua.
The meeting house, Houmaitawhiti, has since been moved to Otara marae on the shores of Lake Rotoiti.
As a link with Hawaiiki the naming of this house after the ancestor, Auaukiterangi, "Elevated to the heavens", is a fitting tribute to one who blessed the Tainui Canoe and the crew, and bade them farewell from the palm-fringed beach in Hawaiiki, that far off homeland across the Great Ocean of Kiwa.
Te Kawanga:
The introductory Maori text gives the opening stanza, and the eighth verse of the solemn dedication of a superior assembly house. ...»Next