Just in case you were wondering! Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand meaning “Land of the long White Cloud”
Hotunui or Meeting House.
Interior view of Hotunui, a carved meeting house built in 1878 for the Ngāti Maru people, Thames, New Zealand, by carvers from the Ngāti Awa tribe of Whakatane, as a wedding present when Mereana Mokomoko, a Ngāti Awa woman, married Wīrope Hōterene Taipari, a Ngāti Maru leader. The house has been in the Auckland War Memorial Museum since about 1920.
The walls are decorated by poupou (wall posts) depicting ancestors. The carvings are flanked by decorative tukutuku panels. The rafters are decorated in swirling white, red, and black kōwhaiwhai designs.
This is a Pataka, basically a fridge, larder/pantry all rolled into one, food was kept in pataka, The building is raised off the ground to be free from rats and damp-ness.
A large pataka was the sign of abundance of food and their fore a wealthy chief.
