Story: Māori architecture – whare Māori

The English artist and explorer George French Angas sketched these pātaka (storehouses) in the early 1840s. The two elaborately carved structures were in the Taupō region. They are likely to have been used for storing the food or other possessions of a chief or other important members of the tribe. The small pātaka at upper left, found at Ahuahu near present-day New Plymouth, appears to have been made from a hollow log. The one at lower right is a roofed-over section of a canoe hull. These pātaka have not been decorated and were probably used to store goods of no special value.