**Whareumu

House of the Oven**

It would be difficult to find anywhere in the world a race of people, other than the Maori, who made such intelligent use. of primitive materials. This is especially true of the way in which they prepared and cooked their food, and also of the manner in which they preserved it for future use.

The men caught eels and fish in pots and nets, and on lines; snared birds; hunted and killed the giant moa birds; dug for shell fish (toheroas), and gathered from coastal waters the mussels, oysters, paua and seaweed. The women prepared, cooked and stored all these, as well as kumaras and berries, dried the fern roots, and made the raupo bread and hinau cakes

• tedious work that went on throughout the year.

It is believed today that the Polynesian people originally came from Malaysia and surrounding areas to the islands of the Pacific. In the centuries that they lived on islands built up of coral, they lost all knowledge of the art of pottery, and when they came to New Zealand where they could once again work in clay, they had no memories of this craft.

Without metal containers, it is hard for us to imagine how they boiled food, or heated water. One container was a gourd or calabash, called a wharehinu, the seeds of which they brought with them from Polynesia in 1350. These grew to all sizes, some being immense, They were placed in the sun and when dry the top was cut off, and the dried seeds and pulp scooped out with a long-handled implement made for the purpose. A small piece was cut from the top if the gourd was to hold water, and a larger piece if partly cooked pigeons were to be stored for the winter. For this the gourds were encased in a loose mesh of flax, and hung in the storehouse. Sometimes these gourds were placed on short legs like tripods. The names of the birds contained in the gourds were shown by bunches of their feathers tied on the outside.

The gourd was often filled with water, and leaves, or other material, and then hot stones were dropped in, which heated the contents.

The principal method of cooking was to steam food in a hangi or earth oven. This method cooked enough food for several families, or the whole community if it was a small one. A hangi was constructed by first digging a circular or square pit about four feet in diameter, and eighteen inches to two feet deep, with an earthen or clay floor. The pit was filled with pieces of wood of all sizes and a number of stones placed on top. The best stones were of a type that would not crack with the heat; so porous, volcanic rocks were often chosen. These stones were called parangahu, or taikowhatu.

When the wood had burned away and the stones fallen to the bottom of the hangi, the embers were raked aside, and some of the stones levelled over the floor. The remainder were taken out to put on top of the food.

A plaited band of green flax, two feet wide, was then placed round the sides of the oven, to hold the food together and away from the earthen sides. A layer of fern fronds, leaves of rauriki and other green stuff was placed on top of the heated stones. The various foods to be cooked (which had been prepared while the wood was burning) were packed on top of the ferns and leaves. These could be kumaras in baskets, fish and eels wrapped in leaves, birds, which sometimes had a small hot stone placed inside, pork, shell fish, and any other food in season. Another layer of leaves covered the food. The

remaining hot stones were then put over these leaves. Then a good quantity of water was sprinkled over the contents to make steam, more leaves laid, and lastly a large flax mat thrown over to keep in the steam and cover the oven. Often sods of earth were placed on top of the flax mat. This was left to cook slowly for some hours.

The contents varied in different localities, depending on the food that was available.

More simple cooking methods were common among families, small communities or when time was short. Birds were wrapped in clay and baked in a hot fire. Eels and fish were wrapped in leaves, tied up and cooked among hot embers.

When the food in the hangi was ready to be eaten, some of it would be put into large wooden containers, which were richly carved on the outside. These were used for tribal feasts.

The remainder was divided into small round flax baskets called kono, one for each person.

These were used for food once only, fresh ones being plaited for each meal. Food was eaten held in the fingers,'th0ugh “pickers” of bone, to extract fish from their shells, and forks made of bone have been found in excavations of old pa sites.

If more food was cooked than was needed, the remainder was put into baskets, covered with leaves, and hung up on poles out of the way of dogs and rats and, I should imagine, children tOO. Each pa had two pataka or wharerangi. These were the storehouses for food that was to be kept, especially that needed in the winter months to eke out their fresh food supplies. They evolved from simple platforms with a cover of totara bark to the later stages of Maori culture, when they became elaborately carved replicas of Maori houses, with openings for ventilation, and a door through which the food was carried, which was reached by a ladder. They stood on high platforms, supported on tree trunks, or carved posts ~ a large one for the community, and a smaller one for the chief and his family.

In these were stored dried fish, the birds preserved in their own fat in gourds, berries, dried fern root — in fact, all foods, except kumaras, which had to be stored in pits (see kumara).

Kumera pit

An ingenious container was made from bull kelp (Durvillea antarctica). Here I can write from first-hand knowledge. For some years we had a Maori shearer, who afterwards went south to join the mutton-birders, and later he always sent us a kelp bag filled with mutton birds, which had been split open, boiled, and packed in their own fat. He told us how they made the bags. They chose a large piece of kelp, between thirty and forty inches long. They made a hole in one end by pushing in a stick; then, with their hands they enlarged the hole by working with their fingers down the centre of the kelp until it was hollowed out, then they blew into it, as we blow up a balloon, and tied it at the top until it was needed.

Ours always sat in a plaited flax basket which came half—way up the bag. The top half was covered with flax leaves or long pieces of bark, and held together with a fibre rope. I can only say that we never found a bird that was not always perfectly preserved. He told us that they could boil water in a kelp bag, the water preventing the bag from burning. Also, that these were filled with cooked shell fish and buried in the sand, where they would keep for a year.

Hollowed out wooden bowls were used to serve food from, or to store food in. They often had extremely fine carving on the outside, as did the gourds.

Maori people were most particular with the vessels used for food. They were stored in a separate place and never used for any other purpose.

Large shells made drinking cups and ladles. In permanent communities, the hangis were dug out in the centres of the kitchens, which were always separate buildings, and used only for cooking purposes. They varied from simple lean-to shelters, thatched with nikau palm leaves, and those with tree fern log walls, to the most elaborate of all, the rectangular carved whareumu, which had window openings with shutters, and an outlet for smoke. All had one thing in common - a huge pile of cut wood stored inside.

Ahi mate was the name given to a pa when an epidemic sickness resulted in no one being able to keep the fires alight. Celtic people in ancient days called this tragedy “the cold hearth stone”.