This artwork by Toi Te Rito Maihi, 'Te waiata o te harakeke', was used on the cover of anthropologist Joan Metge's book, New growth from old: the whanau in the modern world. Metge explained the symbolism of the pā harakeke (flax bush) as: 'a favourite Māori metaphor for the whānau. A flax bush is made up of a number of fans in which each new blade emerges between two larger blades, a child protected by parents, and the roots of the fans are so intertwined that they stand or fall together as one.'
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