Locating Hinemihi’s People

Abstract

The care of taonga (Maori treasures) outside the Maori community takes place within varying degrees of inter-cultural engagement, in which encounters with the past can be seen to be negotiated through the changing nature of personal and institutional relationships in the present. The desire to develop Hinemihi, the historic Maori meeting house at Clandon Park, as a functioning marae (ceremonial gathering place) has provided a challenge to conventional heritage conservation practice. A response to the conservation of Hinemihi has been to adapt practices developed by the Pouhere Taonga / New Zealand Historic Places Trust for the conservation of historic marae. The success of this approach relies on the formation of an active and sustainable marae community. Therefore, a series of community-based events have been delivered to nurture the developing relationships between Hinemihi and her people as an essential element of the conservation project. This has questioned the central role of Maori in the long-term care of Hinemihi. As a result, the formation of ‘Hinemihi’s People’ is an attempt to develop a sustainable conservation community for Hinemihi at Clandon Park that reflects a spatially and temporally grounded reality, based on lived experiences.

Introducing Hinemihi

Hinemihi was constructed as a whare tupuna (ancestral meeting house) of the Ngati Hinemihi hapu (sub-tribe) in Te Wairoa, Aotearoa (New Zealand). In 1880, Chief Aporo Te Wharekaniwha commissioned carvers Wero Taroi and Tene Waitere to create Hinemihi as a meeting place for Ngati Hinemihi at Te Wairoa (Neich, 2001: 62–69). At this time, large meeting houses, which combined the functions of church, assembly hall, chief’s house and ancestral memorial, were being constructed to accommodate tribal meetings and to celebrate and confirm local Maori identity (Brown, 2009: 262; Neich, 1994: 93; Sissons, 1998). Hinemihi was planned as a public place where important decisions were made, visitors entertained, genealogies affirmed, relationships confirmed, births and marriages celebrated and the dead mourned (Stafford, 1986).

The marae (ceremonial gathering place) forms a turangawaewae (a place to stand) for the tangata whenua (or ‘hosts’) who have customary and political authority within their territory. Maori meeting houses embody the living ancestors of their iwi (tribal group); Hinemihi, as a female, is therefore referred to as ‘she’. The construction of Hinemihi represented a statement of tribal prestige, a ‘collective presentation of tribal efficacy’ (Thomas, 1999: 103). In addition, she provided a focus for commercial tourism as a venue for Maori cultural performances where tourists paid to view the carvings, attend dances and to enjoy refreshments.

This period of use came to a catastrophic end with the violent eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886. The scale of the resultant devastation forced the surviving inhabitants of Te Wairoa to relocate, and many resettled in nearby Rotorua. In 1892, Hinemihi was purchased from Ngati Hinemihi for £50 by William Hillier, 4th Earl of Onslow, and governor of New Zealand from 1888 to 1892. She was dismantled and 23 carved pieces were transported to Clandon Park, Surrey, UK, the then home of the Onslow family. By 1897, she had been rebuilt as a summerhouse in the landscaped gardens of Clandon Park. Since 1956, she has been cared for by the National Trust at Clandon Park (Neich, 2003; Sully and Gallop, 2007). Apart from her geographical, contextual and cultural transition, Hinemihi has gone through many physical transformations in the past 133 years. While the 23 carvings from her time in New Zealand still exist, the majority of her current structure appears to date from restorations carried out by the National Trust in 1960 and 1980.

Since the 1980s, Hinemihi has experienced increased contact with Maori. This resulted in the donation of new carvings from Ngati Hinemihi that were installed and dedicated at a ceremony in 1995 (Gallop, 1998; Hooper-Greenhill, 1998, 2000). This Maori re-appropriation has created a new profile for Hinemihi both in the UK and New Zealand through which she has been re-imbued with a Maori physical and spiritual presence. Hinemihi, as the adopted meeting house of Ngati Ranana (London Maori Club), has been used as a functioning marae since 1995. This increased contact reflects a more general desire to develop reciprocal relationships between heritage institutions and source communities around the care and use of objects they hold (Tapsell, 2002). This is evident in examples of historic meeting houses that have been relocated from their connected communities, such as Ruatepupuke II in the Field Museum Chicago (Terrell et al., 2007), Rauru in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Hamburg (Thomas et al., 2009) and Te Wharepuni a Maui at the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, Germany (Garbutt, 2007). In these examples, the rights of Ngati Hinemihi, Te Whanau-a-Ruataupare and Ngati Porou to speak for their taonga tipuna (ancestral treasures) are established by whakapapa (genealogy) and customary practice. Therefore, the National Trust, the Field Museum, the Museum für Völkerkunde and the Linden-Museum have clearly established lines of communication to a connected community in New Zealand.

Meeting houses outside New Zealand have been viewed as being decontextualised from the culture that provides them with meaning and life; their separation from the land (whenua) as an act of desecration (Allen, 1998: 144). Some relocated houses have been returned to the descendants of their originating communities, such as Tuhoromatakaka (Schuster, 2007: 183) and Mataatua (Allen, 1998). Opinions about the continued presence of Hinemihi at Clandon Park vary within the source community in New Zealand (see http://www.naumaiplace.com/site/hinemihi/home/page/24/marae-history/). Repatriation remains an open question for relocated meeting houses that can only be addressed by the participants in these relationships at particular times and places.

Introducing the Hinemihi Project

Since 2004 the National Trust has been engaged in a collaborative heritage conservation project with Maori to develop Hinemihi to meet the needs of her people, as a focus for Maori and Polynesian culture in Britain (National Trust, 2010a; Sully and Gallop, 2007: 127). This has shifted the conservation approach to Hinemihi from understanding her as an historic building, to seeing her as an object-centred network of social relationships (Latour, 2007).

The preferred proposal for the future conservation of Hinemihi includes the provision of services that will enable year-round use as a meeting house, including a new floor, heating, lighting, insulation and a new roof. To achieve this, a service building and detachable awning are proposed to support the function of Hinemihi as a marae (National Trust, 2010a). This option has been developed as part of the formal consultation process and is consistent with the views presented by Ngati Hinemihi, and it has received the support of the UK-based Maori diaspora represented in the National Trust stakeholder group.

The development of Hinemihi as a functioning marae recognises the existence of an emerging ‘British-Maori’ identity and with this the development of a particular kaupapa (Maori underlying principle) that is potentially more progressive than that generally found in Aotearoa. The conservation of Hinemihi provides a catalyst for revealing the nature of social relationships that link peoples with both their pasts and futures. Hinemihi’s position as an inter-cultural and trans-temporal focus for human interaction is mirrored in the lives of Maori and Polynesian communities living in Britain today, making sense of their own identity and their reciprocal relationships with British culture and people. As a result, the approach to Hinemihi’s long-term care is organised to reflect a contemporary reality based on lived experiences rather than a historically constructed version of past relationships projected onto the present. As part of this process, the ‘whareNOW’ project has been designed as a partnership to develop shared community-objectives that investigate and document the emerging relationships between Hinemihi and her people. This has involved a series of community-based events linked with the conservation of Hinemihi that challenged the central role of Maori as ‘Hinemihi’s People’. In 2012, Te Maru o Hinemihi (‘In the Embrace of Hinemihi’, a volunteer group formed to ensure effective care for Hinemihi) gathered responses to five different conservation strategies: the ‘5Rs’ (R1: repair, R2: restore, R3: reuse, R4: redevelop, R5: relocate). These will inform the development of Hinemihi in the future (Te Maru o Hinemihi, 2012a). The real outcome of this project will be the degree to which the National Trust, UK-based Maori and the source community Ngati Hinemihi can share responsibility for her use and long-term care. This develops from a reappraisal and realignment of social interaction between Hinemihi and her people that will have a significant impact on opportunities for Maori cultural transmission in the UK, what it is to be Maori, and British in UK.

Hinemihi’s People

The participation of Maori in Hinemihi’s care since 1986 has resulted in a shift from a historiographic focus on her material authenticity as built heritage towards a Maori view of Hinemihi as a living being and a place to enact Maori cultural practice in Britain (Kernot, 1975; Sully and Cardoso, 2007: 219). Hinemihi’s impact on her people has become the inspiration behind current proposals to redevelop Hinemihi (National Trust, 2010a), reflecting a desire to conceive Hinemihi as a living functioning marae in which Maori culture can be lived through performance, practice, ritual and learning (National Trust, 2008). The observance of Maori tikanga (philosophy) and kawa (protocol), whakapapa (genealogy) and performance of korero (oratory), waiata (song), haka and kapahaka (dance) help to maintain Hinemihi as a living being (Durie, 1998; Sissons, 1998). This performance of Maori culture provides an opportunity for tauiwi (non-Maori) to encounter a certain Maori world. This requires the participation of a marae community, which neatly fits with the presence of a sizeable resident Maori community (i.e. the British Maori diaspora). There are, however, evident difficulties in considering the functioning of a marae outside New Zealand, linked to people who are geographically rather than genealogically connected to that marae through iwi (tribal) associations, including many non-Maori (Burrows, 2007: 167). This has implications for the Maori community in Britain and the source community in Aotearoa, reflected in contemporary New Zealand society in the interaction between urban Maori groups and traditional iwi structures (Blair, 2002; Meredith, 2000; Sissons, 2010). Issues associated with tangata whenua (people of the land) and the nature of tikanga (philosophy), kawa (protocol) and kaitiakitanga (guardianship) of Hinemihi reflect an on-going dialogue between Hinemihi’s People.

‘Hinemihi’s People’ represents a diverse community, consisting both of Maori and non-Maori, including a fairly long list of stakeholders such as

• the descendants of the originating community in New Zealand, Ngati Hinemihi hapu (the Hinemihi sub-tribe), and associated iwi (peoples) including Te Arawa, Ngati Tuhourangi, and Kereopa whanau (Descendants of Tene Waitere).

• The British New Zealand, Maori and Polynesian community; Ngati Ranana (London Maori Club), Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana (The London Maori language school), Maramara Totara (London Maori weaponry school), Matariki, Kiwa and Manaia (Maori Cultural Groups), and Beats of Polynesia (Polynesian Cultural Group), New Zealand High Commission, New Zealand Society, Pacific Islands Society, The New Zealand Business Women’s Network, New Zealand Women’s Association, Kea – New Zealand’s Global Talent Community, The Link Foundation, NZ Studies Network, New Zealand Universities Graduates Association, etc.

• the British public: National Trust visitors, volunteers and staff; academic staff and students; the Onslow family; artists, weavers, carvers and local residents living in and around Clandon.

The key issues raised in locating a community for Hinemihi relate to distance and difference. The geographic, temporal and cultural distance from Hinemihi’s time in Te Wairoa when viewed from her present at Clandon Park, but also the distance of the tangata whenua (people with customary rights) Ngati Hinemihi, give rise to the difference of the people of Hinemihi’s marae at Clandon Park today. The search for a community as the focus of Hinemihi’s People has moved beyond established British Maori groups and towards a specifically constructed community that directly reflects the needs of the current conservation project. This group has evolved out of participation in Maori cultural activities and annual public events at Hinemihi, which have included the ‘Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana (London Maori Language School) Annual Hangi’, the ‘Maori and Pacific Day of Dance’, ‘Kaitiakitanga Hinemihi Maintenance Days’ and community-building events such as ‘whareNOW ‘ (‘Being with Hinemihi’, ‘Sharing with Hinemihi’ and Tukutuku Weaving wananga workshop series) as well as powhiri (formal welcoming), karakia (blessing) as part of communal and individual Maori cultural practice (see Te Maru o Hinemihi website: hinemihi.co.uk).

The conservation project will inevitably alter the physical and cultural space occupied by Hinemihi that will change the relationship between her and her people (Wharton, 2012). The self-conscious formation of Hinemihi’s People is an attempt to nurture participation in the conservation project and sustain it into Hinemihi’s role as a functioning marae. Hinemihi’s People, with the support of the Ngati Hinemihi and the National Trust, now forms the focus of the people-based conservation approach at Hinemihi. Hinemihi’s People require nurturing and negotiation in order to form a sustainable support network for the future management and care of Hinemihi (Smith, 2006).

Participatory process

The navigation of the guest/host relationship is fundamental to understanding the interrelationship of Hinemihi’s People (McNiven and Russell, 2005: 236). For Hinemihi at Clandon Park, the identity of the hosts and guests is a complex issue with an impact on the ability of participants to acknowledge the sovereignty of Maori and their freedom to evolve ways of engaging with their contemporary cultural landscape (O’Regan, 1990). The conservation of Hinemihi is a heritage process hosted by the National Trust and managed by the Hinemihi Project Steering Group (National Trust, 2010a). Since the formation of the Hinemihi stakeholder group in 2004, the National Trust has consulted regularly about the care of Hinemihi. It hosts and creates the hierarchy of voices in this process in an internal logic that conforms to the working practice of the National Trust and the British legislative framework. The National Trust has a statutory obligation to care for the places, such as Hinemihi, which are held in trust for the British people. This context allows for the normalisation of Hinemihi as heritage, subject to the conventions of heritage conservation management and use (Hooper-Greenhill, 2000: 75). Community groups or individuals may consider that such projects provide unsuitable opportunities for their involvement. Participation relies on the formation of reciprocal relationships between those involved in seeking to be hospitable hosts and grateful guests. The nature of participation defines the relationships of people to Hinemihi and with each other, as an artefact of the heritage conservation project. These relationships, therefore, should be meaningful within this project, but may not be understandable when viewed from outside the process (Smith, 2006: 3). In this sense, the participants in the process are all visitors to the Hinemihi Project, arranged by their National Trust hosts as legal owners of Hinemihi. Ngati Hinemihi as tangata whenua have customary rights over Hinemihi, so have primacy in speaking for her as hosts. The British-based Maori community, however, are the people who are capable of maintaining Hinemihi as a functioning marae and are therefore placed in the position of hosts during powhiri (formal welcoming) at Maori events at Hinemihi.

Te Ao Maori (The Maori World)

‘Kaupapa Maori’ (the philosophy and practice of being Maori) and ‘Matauranga Maori’ (Maori knowledge and understanding) are models that recognise that Maori have a different ontological and epistemological tradition that frames the way that they see their worlds (Royal, 2004; Smith, 1999). In Decolonizing Methodologies, Smith (1999: 23) provides a mechanism for understanding the disruption of imposed Western practice (see also Huygens, 2006). This is as powerful for those on the margins of the colonial process as it is for those at the centres (Nairn and McCreanor, 1994). Perturbation of the status quo, created by encountering other cultural norms, affects people’s relationships with heritage objects and therefore their relationships with each other (Haley, 1986). This provides a tool to challenge some established practices in heritage conservation to enable new ways of working that reflect new ways of understanding (Clavir, 2002; Sully, 2007).

The application of kaupapa Maori is consistent with developing Hinemihi as a functioning marae (Smith, 1999). Therefore, the transfer of approach, understanding, language, protocol and practice from marae conservation in New Zealand is an attractive one (Sully, 2007: 228). The model established by the Pouhere Taonga /New Zealand Historic Places Trust Maori-Built Heritage Team for the conservation of historic marae in New Zealand aims to support local communities in developing the necessary skills, knowledge and resources required to participate fully in the care of their historic marae buildings (NZHPT, 2009; Whiting, 2005, 2010). This has been seen to provide mechanisms for re-engaging communities with traditional practice as well as the intergenerational transfer of skills and knowledge (Schuster and Whiting, 2007: 77). The application of Maori protocol has been applied within the working practices of the Hinemihi Project, side by side with National Trust conservation principles (National Trust, 2010a; Sully and Cardoso, 2007). Maori protocol has been incorporated into the kaupapa of work, meetings, and events: karakia, powhiri, use of Te reo (Maori language) create permeability in the boundaries that institutionalise processes (Sully and Cardoso, 2007: 207). This is especially important when considering essentially conservative heritage contexts.

Tangata whenua (people of the land)

Hinemihi is a taonga (treasured heirloom) of Ngati Hinemihi hapu, an expression of their genealogical identity. She is a living being that embodies and conveys a range of ancestral knowledge, character and values. She bears the wairua (spirit) and mana (customary authority or prestige) of the ancestor Hinemihi. To maintain this mana, the presence of tapu (prohibition, sacredness) and korero (narrative) is required. These characteristics demand interaction with people to maintain them or bring them to life. The recitation of whakapapa (genealogy) is fundamental to Maori cultural identity that has direct relevance for the functioning of a marae (Durie, 1998; Hakiwai, 2007: 48). Genealogical links connect current communities with those of the past in a way that defines responsibilities, rights and access to resources in the present. The well-being of kin groups hinges on identity being transferred across generations. Taonga are capable of providing a genealogical focal point for a grounded celebration of this identity, whether the taonga reside within the connected community or are on display in an international museum (Butts, 1990, 2002; Tapsell, 2003). If the values of mana, tapu and korero have been maintained and protected, the ancestral presence of that taonga is intact and its journey ongoing (Engels-Schwarzpaul and Wikitera, 2009; Schuster, 2010).

The role of Ngati Hinemihi as tangata whenua (customary owners) sets up a mutual set of responsibilities in her care. In caring for Hinemihi they are cared for by her, this is inalienable and prevails through generations (Schuster, 2007). It also sets up an alternative view of who are the ‘hosts’ at Hinemihi at Clandon Park. The physical house may legally be owned by the National Trust, but the wairua (spirit) of the whare (house) will always be linked to Ngati Hinemihi (p. 188). This enduring responsibility of Ngati Hinemihi is evident in their sustained re-engagement since 1986, the donation of new carvings in 1995 and support for the ongoing Hinemihi Project (Gallop, 1998). Since this time, the spokesperson for Ngati Hinemihi on issues to do with Hinemihi at Clandon Park has been James Schuster. The presence of more recent Ngati Hinemihi meeting houses in New Zealand – Hinemihi (II) ki Whakarewarewa and Hinemihi (III) ki Ngapuna, Rotorua (Neich, 2001: 64, 41) – is significant in how Ngati Hinemihi whanau (extended families) interact with the hapu (sub-tribe) (see Schuster, 2007). The continued connection with Hinemihi (I) Hinemihi ki Te Wairoa now at Clandon Park (Neich, 2001: 335) is significant for the identity and cohesive relationships of Ngati Hinemihi in New Zealand. Seldom, however, are sufficient numbers of Ngati Hinemihi present in Britain to manifest an active marae community for Hinemihi at Clandon.

In encountering Hinemihi, those who are not tangata whenua (customary owners) are required to negotiate the boundary between accepted friend and repelled enemy through a powhiri (formal welcoming) onto the marae. Following the powhiri, the manuhiri (visitors) are considered as being kotahitanga (oneness) with tangata whenua, all Hinemihi’s people (Barlow, 1991; Durie, 1998; Matunga, 1994). The marae formalises space and ritualises the encounter between different groups of people in order to examine difference, with the goal of forming friendships and resolving conflicts. Just as the powhiri navigates the cultural and physical journey across the marae, so does the care of Hinemihi through intra- and inter-cultural negotiation. In doing so, she challenges the standardised views of ownership and legitimacy through a complex intertwining of guest and host reflexive positioning in which participants are both guest and host at different times, places and moments in their relationship with Hinemihi and her people. Such flexible positioning allows participants to express their expectations of these relationships whilst ensuring the ability of others to express theirs. This openness is evident in the welcome that Hinemihi provides to a diverse group of people, which is the most resilient element of the ongoing project to care for her. The presence of a sizeable Maori diaspora in the UK within reach of Hinemihi provides additional possibilities to integrate Hinemihi’s marae into the daily lives of a local Maori community of users.

Urban Maori

Large numbers of contemporary Maori live and work away from their ‘home’ communities, in urban centres in New Zealand and overseas in cities such as Sydney and London. The identity of Maori in this urban diaspora is less structured around traditional tribal identities of origin and more on current geographical residence of destination (Durie, 1998). Within New Zealand, urban Maori groups have challenged the established authority of traditional iwi (tribal) structures that have been seen to disenfranchise urban Maori and restrict access to the privileges evident in government policies of recognition (Meredith, 2000).The creation of urban non-traditional marae by Maori communities of residence is a part of this process. ‘Hoani Waititi’ marae, West Auckland, and the ‘Ngā Hau E Whā’ national marae in Christchurch are examples of pan-tribal urban marae. Another, Te Papa’s ‘Te Marae’, is supported by Te Papa’s concept of Mana Taonga, which upholds the principle of ‘a place to stand’ for all New Zealand citizens, Maori and Pakeha (New Zealander of European descent), to allow both cultures to use the marae for their own events and ceremonies (Hakiwai, 2007). In some cases, kin-based marae have been established outside tribal areas, such as Ngati Tūhoe marae ‘Mataatua’ in Rotorua and ‘Te Tira Hōu’ in Auckland. The relationships of urban Maori within the cultural landscape of their contemporary locations are often the result of complex dialogue with resident tangata whenua (people of the land) that can result in compromise and conflict (Levine, 2011; Williams, 2006). These elements are evident in the evolving relationships between Hinemihi and her people, conditioned by the primacy of Ngati Hinemihi to speak for their whare tapuna (ancestral meeting house).

British-based Maori

The British Maori and Polynesian community include Ngati Ranana (London Maori Club), Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana (London Maori language school), Maramara Totara (London Maori weaponry school), Matariki and Manaia (Maori cultural groups) and Beats of Polynesia. Ngati Ranana is a fluid group with a creative openness that enables people in Britain to be involved in Maori culture in a way that would not necessarily be possible in New Zealand (Burrows, 2007). Ngati Ranana’s pan-tribal structure is inclusive of non-Maori and non-New Zealand members. Most who join are young people coming to London on short-term visas to work who do not necessarily intend to involve themselves in kaupapa Maori (p. 167). The layered identities and ‘flexible positioning’ of Maori diaspora between host country and homeland create the conditions for ‘various sets of coordinates that individuals use for defining, centring, and (if necessary) ‘delocalizing’ their activities and identities’ (Winitana, 2008: 4; see also Safran, 1991). Individuals adapt social groupings and maintain complex multiple identities that are constructed in relation to the political, social and geographical conditions of a particular moment. Ngati Ranana perform their own inherited and self-chosen identities, making traditional practice relevant to contemporary lives (Harvey, 2005: 133).

As Ngati Ranana’s whangai (adopted) meeting house, Hinemihi is a place to remember and celebrate ancestors and family back home in Aotearoa, despite the fact that many do not hold direct genealogical links with Hinemihi. Ngati Ranana have been invited by Ngati Hinemihi to participate as the ‘home team’ in the kaitiakitanga (guardianship) of Hinemihi, to ensure that Hinemihi maintains her essential, living link with Maori people (National Trust, 2010a). Ngati Ranana state their role as tautoko (support) for Ngati Hinemihi’s aspirations for Hinemihi (Burrows, 2007). Ngati Ranana’s relationship with Hinemihi shares some of the intertribal issues experienced by urban Maori populations in New Zealand cities (Meredith, 2000). However, as a tapuna (ancestor) of Ngati Hinemihi, members of Ngati Ranana cannot accept full kaitiakitanga (guardianship) responsibility for Hinemihi and may not wish to. This has been the subject of discussion between individuals in Ngati Hinemihi and Ngati Ranana over the past decades (Burrows, 2007). ‘Not feeling strong in your position when hosting powhiri (formal welcoming) is a real problem when you are not tangata whenua (customary owners)’ (Schuster, personal communication, 2006). Where possible, Te Arawa kawa (protocol) and tikanga (philosophy) are used at Hinemihi, ‘Keeping the tikanga right, to keep yourselves safe’ (Schuster, personal communication, 2006).

The proposed development of Hinemihi has implications for the ability of the Hinemihi’s People to commit to and sustain their involvement in the long term. The aspiration of the National Trust is that Hinemihi will evolve into a dynamic and vibrant building in regular use by diverse groups of people (National Trust, 2012). An increased commitment to use Hinemihi is required in order to justify developments in the infrastructure of Hinemihi’s marae. The restoration of a community’s meeting house in New Zealand has been seen as a catalyst to build capacity in local people and encourage the transfer of knowledge and cultural practice (Schuster, 2010). It is expected that once the infrastructure at Hinemihi is developed, Ngati Ranana, Kohanga Reo and Maramara Totara would host regular wananga (teaching workshops) each year (Burrows, 2006, 2007: 167; Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana, 2007). However, as a volunteer organisation, it has been difficult for Ngati Ranana to commit future members to current expectations. Commitment ultimately depends on the availability, skills and personal circumstances of the various individuals involved in the community (Burrows, 2007).

Intercultural negotiation

Hinemihi provides an opportunity for visitors to Clandon to encounter Maori culture and consider how Britain’s past colonial relationships have a legacy today (Gosden and Knowles, 2001). The material status quo of Hinemihi at Clandon Park could be seen to represent an acceptance of prevailing power relationships and prevailing inequities, as a contemporary reflection of past relationships. Contrary to UK-based Maori, who have focused on Hinemihi’s role as a marae, a survey conducted in 2003 concluded that National Trust visitors see her in terms of the whole estate and ‘decidedly as part of British colonial history and wider dominance’ (Malkogeorgou, 2003: 5). There is the potential for visitors to Hinemihi at Clandon Park to be exposed to a different world, beyond the traditional compensatory view of the past making us feel better about the present (Smith, 2006: 39). Our ability to transcend established cultural norms and incorporate other worlds exposes our own sense of identity. The long-term care of Hinemihi provides the opportunity for an open inter-cultural process that can derive real benefits for communities around Hinemihi. In doing so, it is possible to challenge some of the traditional representations of indigenous peoples as non-viable static cultures rather than progressive contemporary communities, represented by Ngati Hinemihi and Britain’s Maori diaspora today. This intercultural encounter is critical in a multicultural society seeking to understand what it is to be British (Gopal, 2007).

Locating Hinemihi’s People

The National Trust, Hinemihi and her people are all part of a network constructed as an artefact of the conservation process, located within the realities of people’s lives, navigating the distance and differences of emerging British and New Zealand identities. This understanding has led to the development of several pilot projects under the banner of ‘whareNOW’ as part of a broader research project to investigate methods of participatory conservation and the use of alternative epistemologies in the care of cultural heritage. The identification, activation or construction of a community is a key part of participatory practice (Avrami et al., 2000). In this case, the construction of ‘Hinemihi’s People’ as an object-focused community was initiated around the whareNOW programme of events.

whareNOW

whareNOW was formed as a partnership between the UK-based Maori and Polynesian community and University College London (UCL). Its aim was to develop shared community research objectives that nurture, investigate and document the developing relationships between Hinemihi and her people. This is an attempt to transcend Hinemihi’s physical isolation at Clandon Park, to ensure Hinemihi is incorporated more fully into the life of her people in New Zealand and her community in Britain.

The structure of whareNOW reflected the priorities that were identified through a dialogue between the people connected to Hinemihi. ‘It is a part of sitting down and talking with the people and seeing what they want in the first place’ (Schuster, 2010). In response to the priorities of the participants from the Maori diaspora, the first activity was a series of wananga (workshops) to engage parents and children from Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana (London Maori language School) with Hinemihi. This differed from the priorities of the heritage conservation participants, who had identified the need for wananga to develop skills and knowledge directly related to the proposed conservation activities (such as weaving, carving and painting workshops) (Sully and Cardoso, 2007: 218). If one asks what people want, the response is likely to be different from what one might expect, reflecting a difference between a people-up approach to community participation and top-down process more common within the Authorised Heritage Discourse (Smith, 2006: 37). whareNOW was seen as the first stage in a series of events to increase interaction between Hinemihi and her people as the necessary precursor to the development of Hinemihi as a centre for Maori culture in Britain. Additional aims of establishing a digital marae (website) and the provision of artist exchanges and artist residencies at Hinemihi represented a longer-term ambition of the whareNOW project (Sully et al., 2009).

Being with Hinemihi

The first whareNOW project was ‘Being with Hinemihi’, a series of five activity sessions taking place between January and July 2009. These were designed by Rosanna Raymond in consultation with parents and teachers from Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana. This involved relocating Kohanga Reo school sessions to UCL and Hinemihi. The activity sessions explored the relationship between UK-based Maori families and Hinemihi to reflect their relationship with home and Britain. The sessions included storytelling, spoken word, song, music, physical activity and visual art to articulate feelings of what Hinemihi means to her people. These sessions fed into the development of a performance with Kohanga Reo in which each element of the house and parts of the body that make up the ancestor were named and developed into an interpretation of the movement of the house parts. In doing so ‘Ko au te whare’ (‘I am the house’) became a direct link with the architecture of the building, her people becoming the embodiment of the building enacting the living ancestor. ‘Ko au te whare’ has since been performed at several venues and many occasions, such as at Hangi celebrations at Hinemihi, at cultural festivals and academic conferences. It has now become an important learning resource that has been used with children from diverse cultural backgrounds, for example with the ‘Origins: Heritage of First Nations’ project (Origins, 2012).

Participation in this project revealed several insights: for the tamariki (children), events at Hinemihi meant an opportunity to spend extended time with family and friends. Even though Kohanga children are not necessarily genealogically connected to Hinemihi, she is a fundamental part of their lives. Their homeland marae may be geographically distant, but it becomes familiar though their engagement with Hinemihi.

There are however practical and social limitations for using Hinemihi as ‘London’s marae’, such as the lack of facilities and the discomfort of using Hinemihi in her present condition, her distant location (50 km outside London), the lack of genealogical connection with most UK-based Maori and the changing demographics of the Maori diaspora. These factors all contribute to the peripheral rather than central role that Hinemihi currently plays within the functions of Ngati Ranana and Kohanga Reo o Ranana.

Sharing with Hinemihi

‘Sharing with Hinemihi’ represented the next phase of whareNOW. Developed by Rosanna Raymond through a series of wananga (workshops) that took place on weekends between May and September 2010, it considered how Maori and others feel when they are with Hinemihi. This involved participants from the UK-based Maori and Polynesian community, members of the National Trust, members of the public local to Clandon and UCL. It involved additional whanau (extended family) in New Zealand through telephone and Skype links. The wananga focused on themed dialogues that reflected on aspects of Maori tikanga (protocol) related to activities on the marae. The openness of Hinemihi, as a Maori building where other cultures are welcomed, differs from the monocultural activities that are more common on hapu (sub-tribe) marae in New Zealand. Hinemihi’s pan-tribal quality, moving beyond urban marae in New Zealand, was identified as a unique characteristic. She can be seen to bring all New Zealanders (both Maori and non-Maori) in Britain together (Riccini, 2005). The workshops culminated in ‘Staying with Hinemihi’, a noho marae (sleep-over) that took place in August 2010. The ability to hold events that span several days is a key element of functioning marae in New Zealand. For the first time in 124 years, Hinemihi was kept awake with the sounds of her people sleeping inside her. Despite Hinemihi’s location within the Clandon Park visitor attraction, it had been possible to demonstrate that Hinemihi can function in the same way as meeting houses in New Zealand.

Hosting these events (especially the noho marae) revealed the reciprocal obligations that define the interaction of social groups. Members of Te Kohanga Reo o Ranana and Ngati Ranana were less willing to contribute individually to Hinemihi’s People, as they saw their contribution to Hinemihi being delivered primarily through their established social groupings, rather than as individual participants. There was a significant interest in the noho marae from researchers, artists and reporters, but less from the Maori diaspora and the local population around Clandon. For example, visual artist Cecilie Gravesen based her art piece ‘Between Hinemihi and Other Things’ on her involvement in ‘Sharing with Hinemihi’ (Gravesen, 2012).

‘Being with’ and’ Sharing with’ were attempts at examining the process of community building in response to the aspirations of developing Hinemihi as a functioning marae. This sought to evaluate the current level of engagement and encourage further participation of Hinemihi’s People. The traces of social connections become evident in the controversies about the limits of group formation that reflected the limited ability of the Maori diaspora to commit to using Hinemihi (Latour, 2007: 28). The provision of workshops that exchange tangible skills for people’s voluntary time is seen to be a powerful tool in engaging people (Schuster and Whiting, 2007: 77). This has been the case with the annual Kaitiakitanga Hinemihi Maintenance Days that help to generate individual responsibility for involvement in Hinemihi’s care. They have become a fixture in Hinemihi’s calendar since 2004, with volunteers from the British Maori diaspora working with volunteers from the UCL Institute of Archaeology and the National Trust to clean and care for Hinemihi and help keep her warm (Sully, 2011).

The latest iteration of this approach has been a series of Tukutuku weaving workshops that are consistent with the desire to build capacity in skills directly related to the proposed conservation project for Hinemihi. The development of skills and knowledge gained via wananga (workshops), guided by Ngati Hinemihi for Hinemihi’s People in Britain, helps to build confidence and feelings of mutual obligation between Hinemihi and her people.

Weaving Hinemihi’s People

The provision of a complete set of new tukutuku (interior woven wall) panels for Hinemihi has been a long-held aspiration for Ngati Hinemihi. With the support of the National Trust and Te Maru o Hinemihi, James and Cathy Schuster conducted three 3-day workshops in May 2012 in which 36 participants from the British Maori diaspora, UK-based weavers, National Trust volunteers, Clandon residents as well as UCL staff and students were able to learn tukutuku weaving. The necessary raw materials had been harvested by Ngati Hinemihi over the past two years and were imported into the UK for the workshops. The wananga participants were expected to construct their own tukutuku panel and complete it for its eventual installation in the restored Hinemihi. Sixteen of 49 panels required for the redevelopment of Hinemihi were started, and follow-up activities to ensure that panels are completed have taken place. Panels are being produced by Ngati Hinemihi in Aotearoa, and additional panels will be produced in the UK.

Further wananga are planned to develop the range of skills required, such as the painting of kowhaiwhai design on the heke (rafters) and the repair and restoration of Hinemihi’s historic carvings. Those who have received specialist training will have the skills to contribute to Hinemihi’s long-term maintenance and be able to pass on skills and knowledge to new participants. The consequence of this series of workshops targeted at people’s engagement with Hinemihi has acknowledged a central role for a specifically constructed community that represents the needs of the current conservation project that go beyond Maori.

The formation of Hinemihi’s People is an attempt to identify key actants and provide a structure for people to sustain their involvement through the conservation project and onto Hinemihi’s role as a functioning marae. The gelling of people into groups (sharing an ideology) and the transformation of these time/event specific formations into an enduring structure through the institutionalising of networks supports the prevailing relationships between people and things and helps to ensure that these evolve through time. The community endures through the accumulation of group experiences with shared futures, despite having limited shared memories and history and even though individuals come and go (Bhaba, 1994). This project is starting to reveal the durability of the developing social networks initiated at the wananga into visible groupings.

The formation of Hinemihi’s People, as an object-centred social network, may be considered as an illusory attempt at creating stability and continuity for what is essentially an unstable group. This can be seen in relation to Sissons’s description of the role of meeting houses in the formation of hapuu (sub-tribes) and whaanau (extended family) groups within Maori communities in New Zealand. Sissons regards the building and functioning of a meeting house as a key factor in the manifestation of kin groups as tangata whenua (people of the land). These groups become associated with their meeting house as their central identity and are able to collectively perform their group membership by welcoming and hosting visitors to their marae (Sissons, 2010, 2011; Webster, 2011). This is considered to be more significant than the historically enduring relationships based on cognatic descent that serve more as a ‘legitimating ideology’ for the cohesion of groups (Sissons, 2011). Contemporary Maori society is therefore best understood as a relationship between groups that have formed around the marae. Webster (2011) and Sissons (2011) debate the importance of ancestral descent in the Maori view of group formation, in relation to the role of co-residence, co-operation, marriage, place of burial, active support and allegiance in group formation. This reflects the experience of many contemporary New Zealand marae communities, which, although they are primarily genealogically connected to that place, also include those who earn the right to be involved by their participation and by association to those who are genealogically connected. ‘On a working level, it is often proving acceptance by doing … by earning the right’ (Whiting, 2010). Guidance from the tangata whenua and respect for the traditional authority of the iwi (tribe) is considered fundamental; however, in addition, a system is required that allows people to belong with differing levels of involvement (Whiting, 2010). The central role of the ‘house as hapu’, as described by Sissons (2010), is evident in the identity of marae communities in New Zealand. Despite the dilution effect caused by the transcultural dislocation of use, understanding and care of Hinemihi at Clandon Park, the possibility of a ‘Ngati Clandon’ is compelling, however more likely is the formation of ‘Te hapori o Clandon’ (community of Clandon). This, to some extent, is represented in the formation of Te Maru o Hinemihi (In the Embrace of Hinemihi) (personal communication, Schuster, 2013).

Te Maru o Hinemihi

The constitution of Te Maru o Hinemihi (‘In the Embrace of Hinemihi’) in 2012 represented a process of institutionalisation of individuals to provide an enduring organisational structure. Te Maru o Hinemihi is a voluntary friends group, working in partnership with the National Trust, for Hinemihi’s care. The core values of Te Maru o Hinemihi are: kaitiakitanga (guardianship), manakitanga (hospitality) and matauranga (knowledge).

‘5Rs’ survey

From 2012 to 2013, Te Maru o Hinemihi consulted Hinemihi’s People about options for Hinemihi’s future care. A survey was carried out at a series of community-building events and online (Te Maru o Hinemihi, 2012b; Tully, 2012). Responses to one of five potential conservation strategies were sought to inform the future approach to Hinemihi: R1: repair, R2: restoration, R3: reuse, R4: redevelopment, or R5: relocation (see www.hinemihi.co.uk for details).

R1: repair

Repair is a short-term quick fix, aimed at stabilising the existing elements of the Grade II listed building. This would involve routine maintenance, such as repairing the roof, creating a watertight building envelope, stabilising the carved and painted surfaces, etc. This aims to improve her current physical condition, but would also maintain her status quo at Clandon Park.

R2: restore

Restoration aims to preserve the building more as an historic artefact rather than a living building. It would seek to present the building as she was at some specific point in time, such as 1880s Te Wairoa. This would involve considerable intervention in Hinemihi’s built fabric, such as a new roof, altered dimensions and new interior and exterior decorative schemes.

R3: re-use

Re-use would mean adapting the building and making her fit for certain activities. These adaptations would therefore include all the proposals required for R2: Restoration, but with the addition of new elements such as a new floor, efficient insulation and power lines to provide heating and lighting so that Hinemihi can be used comfortably.

R4: redevelop

Redevelopment would consist of restoring and reusing Hinemihi, but in addition adding a whare manaaki (services building) and wharau (performance awning). This would provide facilities for Hinemihi to be used all year round as a marae. These additional spaces would be designed sympathetically to avoid overpowering Hinemihi or the gardens in which she is sited. A service building could be designed to be more or less invisible, using ground surface as camouflage; a performance awning could be designed so as to be pop-up, that is to say: erectable by two people. Redevelopment is the strategy that would allow Hinemihi to be used as a fully functioning marae.

R5: relocate

Relocating Hinemihi does not necessarily mean repatriation to New Zealand; it could involve relocation within Britain, perhaps to a museum gallery or another outdoor location. If it is not possible at Clandon Park to look after Hinemihi in her old age, an option would be to relocate her to a place where the necessary care is available.

Survey results

The results of the survey revealed a clear preference for R2: restoration and R4: redevelopment, and a rejection of the other options − R1: repair, R3: reuse, R5: relocation. A summary of the quantitative results of the survey is presented in ‘A Dialogue with Hinemihi’s People’ (Te Maru o Hinemihi, 2012b). A further phase of consultation took place via an online survey, asking people to register a preference between the two favoured options. This identified a clear preference for redevelopment, the provision of services enabling Hinemihi to be used all year round as a functioning marae.

This is translated in to the current project proposal an integrated heritage vision to develop the Hinemihi marae at Clandon Park as a living space for Maori cultural practice and local community organisations. At the heart of the Hinemihi marae is a place of welcome, in which visitors are able to encounter a Maori world. This welcome is evident in the openness that Hinemihi offers to diverse groups of people, which is the most resilient element of the on going project to care for her.

The Hinemihi marae is a place where people can come together to meet and explore the dignity of difference, a safe space to experience another’s cultural world, whilst reflecting on one’s own cultural identity.

The project aims to ensure that the Hinemihi marae is able to support and care for people at Clandon as a centre for peoples of all cultures to engage with a Maori and Polynesian world.

Te Maru is currently in the process of helping the National Trust answer the question ‘if we build it, will you come?’ The degree of intervention and alteration of Hinemihi will need to be justified in terms of increased social benefit for the broad constituency of community groups (English Heritage, 2008). The resultant conservation response will seek to balance the opportunities and constraints of the cultural and physical landscapes that surround Hinemihi and Clandon Park. If there is insufficient interest in developing Hinemihi as a functioning marae, then an understanding of the desired level of use is required in order to plan future investment (National Trust, 2012).

Conclusion

In this project, the conservation of Hinemihi grows from a complex negotiation between Hinemihi’s People in which past relationships are reinterpreted in light of present experience and future hopes. The conservation approach to Hinemihi has shifted from seeking to understand her as an object of built heritage to an object-centred network of reciprocal social relationships between people and each other and between people and things. This points to an embodiment of social activities in cultural materials that give rise to concepts of identity from the level of the individual up to the level of the world composed of the things in it (Latour, 2007).

The conservation of Hinemihi becomes a distorting lens through which to understand the realities of people’s lives and relationships. As part of this work, we are able to look into the performance of culture as a representation of these networks through the traces left behind in the making of the world around us. The conservation process is able to reveal this journey, not as a singular moment in time past, but to document the perpetual narration of moments to the present, thereby revealing the traces of past networks constructed by people in the making of the world around them (Nancy, 2007). This allows an investigation of the artefacts of conservation that are created in the associations, networks and relationships of things, including people (Henare et al., 2007: 3).

The enduring nature of the material past provides an opportunity for cultural practice to be rethought, reimagined, recreated, reinvigorated and revitalised. The physical survival of our material past, as the National Trust would have it, provides this potential ‘forever for everyone’ (National Trust, 2010b). Caring for Hinemihi therefore means caring for these relationships. The conservation of Hinemihi provides an opportunity to invest in the relationships between Hinemihi and her people in order to sustain Hinemihi’s care in the long term. The details of adopting such an approach reveal the difficulties of engaging in participatory processes, while utilising conventional heritage conservation procedures.

The need for Hinemihi’s conservation to have direct relevance to British cultural heritage has been acknowledged as an essential element of a British Heritage project (Heritage Lottery Fund, 2012). This project, therefore, is required to transcend the essentialising limitations of Hinemihi being solely about Maori culture, instead necessitating a location of Hinemihi’s People beyond the obvious connection between Hinemihi and Maori. As a Maori cultural building, Hinemihi provides means to encounter Maori. The role of Hinemihi in the ‘Origins: Heritage of First Nations’ project emphasises the ability of a specific cultural focus to have relevance in intercultural understanding (Origins, 2012). In providing the potential for intercultural exchange in a multicultural Britain, we are able to investigate ideas of transcultural activities that hybridise our rigid concepts of singularity, purity, polarity and monocultural identities that tend to be essentialised within and between nation states as a mechanism of political expediency (Bhaba, 1994; Latour, 1993: 10). This provides the ability to build a sense of Britishness in and around the multicultural communities that make up contemporary Britain, understood through relations rather than identities, governed by exchange rather than possession (Thomas, 1999: 279).

In encountering Hinemihi, people in Britain have the opportunity to reflect on Britain’s colonial and post-colonial relationships that have implications in the present. We must also acknowledge that part of what it is to be British is making meaning through the conservation of heritage. Conserved heritage therefore becomes an artefact of engaging in conservation as culture, inside rather than outside heritage (Smith, 2006: 88). Our inability to dissolve the boundaries around heritage suggest that we are forced to contain the process within these self-acknowledged limits. Our strategies therefore must exist clearly within its boundaries and may not make sense when viewed by those outside. In doing so, it is necessary to acknowledge that the conservation of heritage is the answer to a question of its own making, a tautological process that is self-fulfilling and self-generating. This provides a justification for the formation of a heritage community, in relation to the conservation moment, that may not have reality beyond it. The examination of what it is to be British alongside what it is to be Hinemihi’s People opens up the opportunity for Hinemihi to be used as a regular classroom for local Clandon schoolchildren as much as space for wananga for Kohanga reo tamariki (personal communication, Gallop, 2012).