Lamplit pūrerehua at Maungapōhatu

pūrerehua

pūrerehua: Māori, 'moth', for the sound of its wings.

On the night of 10 November 1990 the Tūhoe composer Hirini Melbourne played the old instruments inside Tāne-nui-a-Rangi, the meeting house at Maungapōhatu, late into the night by a kerosene lamp and a candle. Maungapōhatu lies at the foot of the mountain sacred to Tūhoe; the prophet Rua Kēnana built his New Jerusalem there in 1907, and an armed police expedition came there to arrest him in 1916. Melbourne had come in with the museum party preparing an exhibition on Rua, and Linda Tyler, who was working on it, never forgot "the eerie sound of the pūrerehua as it spun on the end of its cord." Outside, the museum photographer left his camera open from half past ten until three in the morning, and the stars wheeled over the house.

I remember the eerie sound of the pūrerehua as it spun on the end of its cord.

Linda Tyler, “Urewera Triptych,” McCahon 100 (McCahon House)

Particulars

Object

A pūrerehua spun on the end of its cord; one of the taonga pūoro Hirini Melbourne brought to Maungapōhatu.

Function

Played by the Tūhoe composer Hirini Melbourne, with other taonga pūoro, inside the wharenui Tāne-nui-a-Rangi late into the night of 10 November 1990.