1886: Te Tiki a Tamamutu

April 14, 2020

By AHNZ

Wharenui Te Tiki o Tamamutu is stuck in limbo for political reasons. It is a very rare thing, a privately owned Maori meeting house and one that dates back to 1886. As seen in this photo (left) it was used for a dining room for 60-odd years at the Spa Hotel, Taupo.

My first thought was that this 1900 photo displayed another one of those Fake Plastic Maoriland tourist scenes. That turns out to be technically true because Te Tiki o Tamamutu never served as a meeting house and it was purchased and its construction completed to serve the tourist market. However, this building is the real deal not some fabrication for display purposes only. It started out as the project of a real fighting Maori chief, was made by genuine Maori master carvers, and depicts actual figures from Ngati Tuwharetoa.

Hohepa Tamamutu, the Oruanui (north-Taupo) chief (image right,) initially set about creating Te Tiki o Tamamutu but re-purposed those carvings for his wife’s, Rangihao’s, mausoleum when she died in August 1883¹. The work began again but apparently this time the project was abandoned because the master carvers could not be paid. Thus, in 1886 the unfinished work was sold on to the Taupo Sanatorium c.30km down the road where it still stands to this day.

“In 1886 he purchased a beautiful Maori meeting house called ‘Tiki o te Tamamutu’. It was the second house of the name carved for the Oruanui chief Tamamutu, the carvings for the first having been buried with his wife after her death.”- Ruffell

“…according to Tere Waitere’s great-great-grandson, James Schuster, the chief sold it on to a European when it was half-finshed.

“He says the house wasn’t completed because Wero and his great-great grandfather, Tere hadn’t been paid.” – Descendant hopes hapu can purchase whare; RNZ

The Taupo Sanatorium

The story of how this meeting house came to be part of Taupo’s tourist industry began when the NZ Armed Constabulary marched into town in 1869. During the war with Te Kooti (after his jail break and massacre), it was decided that commanding this central transport hub was a strategic must. The constabulary’s quartermaster was English, ex-Navy, one Edward (John/Jack) Lofley and he was a survivor of the wreck of HMS Orpheus. The camp they established came to be named Lofley’s Glen.

Quartermaster Lofley was discharged from service by 1870 and continued his hospitality enterprise privately. The AC moved to a more tactically sound site nearby after Te Kooti’s “massacre” of the nearby AC contingent at Opepe. Jack stayed where he was and became the publican, hotelier, and proprietor to the hot spa as well as a renowned local guide. Civilian life agreed with Lofley who owed his stake to the Constabulary, not least of all for his military credentials supplying the canteen licence he needed to sell alcohol to the AC and civilians alike. A licence to print money. Jack even got political help from a visiting Premier William Fox to turn his squatting rights into property rights as if blessed by some fairy godmother!

By the mid-1880s Lofley’s Glen hit some kind of snag and fell out with the AC. Jack was beaten up, his premises set on fire. He had raised the price of alcohol at his pub and threatened to exclude the AC from the spa. Apart from the violent Honour Culture physical responses with fists and fire, the AC also created their own competing spa, A.C. Baths & The Spa. Lofley’s dream run was over. He shipped out² and sold up to John Joshua, a recent immigrant from England.

Taking over Lofley’s Glen in 1886, J.Joshua renamed the place the Taupo Sanatorium and brought in Te Tiki o Tamamutu in c.June of that year. The building cost him £150. Some say it was due to Chief Tamamutu dying but as he lived until 1891³ the story about him not paying the carver and abandoning the project does fit. JJ made the meeting house into a dining hall and so it remained for the next 60 years.

John Joshua apparently enjoyed his new role as Spa Owner for the next 4 years, committing adultery with multiple women while his sick wife convalesced. Eventually the law caught up with him and the Supreme Court found Mr Joshua guilty.⁴ For this, JJ’s wife was granted a divorce and JJ himself was hit in the pocket for everyone’s court costs. That appears to be his exit from New Zealand history and the Spa Hotel, Taupo.

In 1935 the new owner, Thomas Heath, had been experiencing staff difficulties. Maori waitresses refused to work in the Te Tiki a Tamamutu because their elders and chiefs had placed a curse on the building. As a general rule, Maori meeting houses are not places for eating meals and to do is is religiously offensive. Heath decided to oblige, building a new dining area out the back and converting the old one to a lounge. For this, the curse was lifted and the labour force restored.

Stuck in Limbo

Te Tiki a Tamamutu is currently stuck in limbo, unable to be enjoyed or filled with life by anyone at all. It seems to be in place where it has always been but invisible behind a fence. Others say it has been dismantled and scrambled…

“still there fenced off and not used….the fence is so high if you took a photo it would be of a fence and part of the roof lol”- Rana Mihimamao

“It was supposedly on sold $12 million dismantled…I believe it’s still in Tamaki Makaurau in storage but we lost sight of it many years ago , I also believe the dismantler did not keep them in order therefore mixing the carvings , now the dont know how it goes back together .”- Warner Kinita

Ref. NZH&NH; Facebook

The problem is that private property rights are not respected. Rather than buy what they claim to value, Victimhood Culture Maoris consider themselves entitled to objects and places like these and demand that it be given them. Instead of being given a kindly pat on the head and told to keep taking their pills this sort of resentment is encouraged and capitalised upon by politicians. There is even said to be⁵ an act of parliament over this building to give it extra-legal status (although I cannot find the legislation.)

“when it has our Taonga in it, it’s ours!!!…Don’t bloody tell maori what’s theirs and what’s not!!..and when our culture, Taonga is used it becomes ours, us!!..Cultureless idiot!!”- FB commenter

This is in no way New Zealand property law but something entitled people say when trying to put their fantasy into words. As if Air New Zealand belonged to Maoris because it has a koru design for a logo!

In reality we must earn our treasure not declare that it simply belongs to us and demand someone hand it over because it resembles our particular design profile preferences. Politicians, The State, is always willing to exploit that desire for the un-earned.

In this case, New Zealand is missing out on an important building that has been placed in political limbo because people with no right to it simply desire it. Really really wanting something and throwing tantrums until they get it does, sadly, carry great currency these days.

—

1 Ref. Wanganui Herald and Ref. Waikato Times

2 Mr Lofley died in 1889, ‘It is not known where or when his wife died’ says Te Ara. Mrs Rosanna Lofley appears to have died in 1917 having lived an active life right to the end from what I can easily find online currently

3 Ref. NZ Herald

4 Ref. Hawke’s Bay Herald

5 Ref. New Zealand Permanent Force Old Comrades Assn- A Short History; W.L. Ruffell; #57, The New Zealand Gunner  1987; The Royal New Zealand Artillery Association (Inc)

Image ref. Dining mode, c.1900; National Library of New Zealand; NZH&NH; Facebook

Image ref. Chief Hohepa Tamamutu; Alexander Turnbull Library

Image ref. The Dining Room. Spa. Taupo; Frederick George Radcliffe; Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

Ref. Lofley, Edward; Te Ara

Image ref. Spa Hotel Maori Meeting House, Taupo, N.Z. – fine interior carvings; G B Scott Publications Limited; Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections

Image ref. Empty dining room; Help save Maori Heritage- Tiki O Te Tamamutu; Give A Little

Image ref. Interior, Te Tiki-a-Tamamutu, The Spa Hotel c2001; Mark Adams; Govettbrewster.com

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