A wharenui ("large building") is the meeting house that stands at the centre of a Māori marae in Aotearoa New Zealand. It faces the open ceremonial space called the marae ātea, where visitors are welcomed and issues are debated, and inside it hosts meetings, gatherings, overnight stays and cultural activities. The building is usually gabled, with a deep front porch, and its roof is central to its meaning.
The roof as an ancestor
A wharenui is commonly understood as the body of an ancestor, and the parts of the roof structure are named accordingly:
- Tāhuhu - the ridge beam, the ancestor's backbone.
- Heke - the rafters, the ribs, which run from the wall posts up to the ridge.
- Maihi - the carved diagonal bargeboards on the front gable, the arms; their ends are called raparapa, the fingers.
- Koruru - the carved face at the apex of the front gable, the head.
- Amo - vertical supports beneath the ends of the maihi.
- Poutokomanawa - the central post inside, sometimes called the heart-supporting post, which helps carry the ridge.
Construction history
Traditionally the framing members were bound with complex rope lashings (mīmiro) rather than nails. After European contact, steel tools allowed meeting houses to become larger from the 1840s, and nails gradually entered part of the woodwork, so the old lashing methods became less common.
Carving (whakairo) is an essential part of the building. The New Zealand Māori Arts and Crafts Institute, set up under a 1963 Act of Parliament, has worked to sustain the carving tradition and has built or restored more than 40 marae.
Today
Modern meeting houses are designed to meet the New Zealand Building Code like any other public building, and they generally use contemporary roof coverings and structures. The symbolic layout of ridge, rafters and bargeboards is retained, so the roof continues to express genealogy and identity as well as providing shelter.