Mārire

This seems to have somehow wound up being two blogs in one.

Anyhow, my sister and my mother came for lunch yesterday (we went to Seagers for lunch - really nice) and during the conversation we found ourselves remembering our grandmother (my father's mother) and her motel in Picton which she had named the Marire Motels.

Picton Harbour.

By the time ... my mother first met my father in Wellington in the 'fifties and he took her across the Cook Strait to Picton, my grandmother was a widow (my grandfather had died at age 52 from a blood clot following an operation) and she was running the Sunwick Bed & Breakfast on High Street. My father was one of five children and his two older brothers were already married. I think his sister was helping my grandmother at the time and the youngest brother was still living at home (just).

Actually it was just recently that this youngest brother (as he was driving us quickly to the Wellington airport to catch our plane home back in May) told my mother that he had been present at the dance when my father first met her. He had been with a group of blokes and she hadn't realised at the time that one of them was his brother on a visit to Wellington. It was a nice thing for him to tell her the story from his perspective.

Creating Families and/or Motels

A recent Picture of High Street, Picton

My parents married, and first me (1957), and then my sister (1959) were born in Wellington, then we moved to Taumarunui where my little brother was born (1961). Meantime my grandmother had decided that running a bed and breakfast place was getting too full-on and she wasn't getting any younger so she decided to build motels instead. She wanted to build them on the High Street, handy to the local shops and the beach which would take good advantage of the emerging tourist industry in Picton and had to push her case quite hard through the local council as no motels had been built on the High Street before.

She must have been around sixty at this time.

My first actual memory of my grandmother (I must have seen her before this but been too young to remember) was when our family left Taumarunui, which is in the middle of the North Island, more or less, to live in Blackball way down on the West Coast of the South Island. This was in October of 1962 and we had a really rough crossing over the Cook Strait (between the two islands). My mother had dolled up my wee brother to look really cute for his first introduction to his grandmother in Picton but he was fearfully sick on the ferry and arrived looking white and miserable - a very poor specimen of a grandson right then.

The Cook Strait rail and vehicle ferry Aramoana which was in service in 1962.

My grandmother (a very practical woman) had built her motels as single story units which surrounded three sides of the section of land and were open to the street. They were built of concrete block (I think that is cinder block in the US?), and painted in fashionable 'fifties pastels, each unit a different pastel colour, pink, lemon, pale blue or green. Between each unit was a single garage (the only motels with garages I have ever seen in New Zealand) and the forecourt was laid with small coloured shingle so that if any of the visitors cars dropped oil it could be easily got rid of. Each unit had two bedrooms, a kitchenette, shower and toilet, and a small lounge with dining table and chairs. A shared laundry (agitator washing machine) and several rotary washing lines were to be found in a group around the back of the units.

A corner unit had become my grandmother's home and office. She didn't get out a lot because she always had to be available to answer the phone for bookings but a large window provided her with a view onto the street so she could watch all the comings and goings as they unfolded on the street, and she was very handily placed for her friends to visit her each day. Her unit contained a couch in the lounge which folded out to become a bed, and also, us kids were fascinated by a large cupboard in her lounge from which a bed was pulled down when the cupboard doors were opened. There were also two bedrooms, my grandmother's room had two single beds and the other room had another two single beds and a large canvas cot for the youngest grandchildren like my wee brother, so she was all set up for when family came to stay.

Mārire - the motels, the word, and the meaning ...

My grandmother always had a strong respect and liking for the Maori people and wanted a NZ/Maori name for her motels, which meant something, rather than some irrelevant name dragged here from overseas. As children we never paid much attention to the name, Marire Motels but I remember my grandmother telling me that a local Maori woman had told her that the word meant peace. My grandmother was very pleased that the locals approved her choice of name for her motels.

So yesterday we checked my Reed Dictionary (my better Williams Dictionary is down in Christchurch at my sister's house) and it listed, mārire : quiet, gentle, discreet, placid.

The word mārire was also associated with a movement in the 1860's.

Pai Mārire (Good and Peaceful)

Pai Mārire followers around the Niu Pole

Te Ua Haumēne had been influenced by Christian missionaries after being captured by Waikato Maori back in 1826. It was these influences which shaped aspects of Pai Mārire. He had also learnt to read and write in Maori and became very familiar with the New Testament, especially the Book of Revelation.

Professor Ranginui Walker (Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou/ Struggle Without End, 1990; p 130) tells us that:

"The first overtly anti-Pakeha religious cult, founded by the prophet Te Ua Haumēne, arose in Taranaki, where the Land Wars began. Te Ua had fought beside Wiremu Kingi in the war and realised that something more than military prowess was needed to counter a standing army with superior numbers and weapons. Te Ua gained a reputation as a man of mana when the wreck of the Lord Worsley was attributed to his mystical powers of makatu. He communed with his god, Te Atua Pai Mārire, the Lord Good and Peaceful, and claimed visitation from the Angel Gabriel, who revealed a vision of Te Ua surrounded by all the tribes. The vision symbolised Te Ua's mission of unification, and his cult known as Pai Mārire (Good and Peaceful), signified the new relationship between tribes. converts worshipped around a Niu pole, rigged up like the mast of a ship, and expected to be endowed with the gift of tongues and a knowledge of science. Followers of the cult were promised that when every tribe was converted and unification achieved, the Pakeha would be conquered. They were also promised immunity to the Pakeha bullets if they went into battle crying 'Hapa Pai Mārire Hau! Hau!' It was from this battle cry that the Hauhau cult derived its common name. The cult initiated a new kind of guerilla warfare, which the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs had warned would be the consequences of confiscation."

Clearly the peace alluded to is between the tribes, and not between Maori and the colonists.

The flag at the top of this picture was Te Ua Haumēne's personal flag. The word ‘kenana’ (Canaan) shows his identification with the Jewish people, a people driven from their homeland. The bottom two flags belonged to Tītokowaru and Pēhi Tūroa, who were Pai Mārire followers.

Tourist Court Motels

A long time later my grandmother sold her motels and finally retired. They were renamed as the Tourist Court Motels and upgraded/modernised. They were repainted white and the single garages became studio units. Shops were built (one each side) at the front where there used to be taps and hoses for the visitors to wash their cars.