Portal:New Zealand/Selected picture/Week 41, 2006

Detail of carved post from the Maori meeting house Hotunui.
Detail of carved post from the Maori meeting house Hotunui.

In 1878, when Wiremu Hōterene Taipari married a woman of the Ngāti Awa tribe of Whakatāne, Ngāti Awa carvers arrived at Thames and built a meeting house at Pārāwai as a wedding gift for the couple. The house, named Hotunui in honour of an important Ngāti Maru ancestor, now stands in the Auckland War Memorial Museum.