Artwork Information

The whare whakairo (carved meeting house) Rauru was carved by Tene Waitere, Ānaha Te Rāhui (circa 1820–1913) and Eramiha Neke Kapua (1875–1955). An extraordinary work of art, Rauru demonstrates some of the ways in which Waitere and other carvers broke with tradition as they responded to new opportunities.

Rauru is not a whare tupuna tūturu (ancestral meeting house). It was commissioned by Pākehā businessman Charles E Nelson, owner of the Geyser Hotel in Whakarewarewa, as a tourist attraction and was used for performances. Regardless, as contemporary carver Lyonel Grant observes, Rauru was 'imbued with the real, the full measure of spiritualism and quality that came with a real tupuna whare'.

Waitere's great-great-grandson Jim Schuster explains the choice of name: 'Rauru was a god, so it's not like most of the other meeting houses around here that are named after an ancestor who we descend from. Rauru is supposed to be the inventor of carving'.

Nelson sold the house to a German museum around 1910, and it is today on display at the Museum am Rothenbaum — Kulturen und Künste der Welt in Hamburg, where Adams photographed it.

Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua, 2025