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Download AudioTaonga collected by the late Pā Henare Tate, including many relating to the history of the Catholic Church in Aotearoa and the Pacific, have gone on permanent display at a remote north Hokianga marae.
Museum trust chair Geremy Hema says the two-story Raiatea Resource Centre at Motuti Marae near Panguru was a 30-year dream for Pā Tate, who died in 2017.
He meticulously catalogued and ordered the 10,000 items, including church vestments and artefacts, taonga Māori carvings, weapons and cloaks, early photographs, letters and maps, and writings and recordings of significant tupuna.
Mr Hema says as Pā Tate talked about in his waiata Karanga Hokianga, he wanted a place where uri could come back and tell their stories.
“Pā was a visionary. He was also a very ecumenical man and there are a number of korero and wall displays within this whare which celebrate his links to all the different waka wairua – the Mihinare, the Rātana, the Weteriana and as far afield as the Buddhist faith,” he says.
Geremy Hema says the name of the house was given to Pā Tate in 1987 by his aunt, Dame Whina Cooper, who reminded him the Raiatea was the vessel which brought Bishop Pompallier to Hokianga in 1838 to start spreading the Catholic gospel.
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