Maramataka expert, Tūtakangahau

Maramataka expert, Tūtakangahau

Tūtakangahau, a Tūhoe chief from Maungapōhatu, stands on the left. He was an acknowledged expert on genealogy, and the last tohunga to be schooled in the tribe’s traditional whare maire (school of learning). He provided the ethnographer Elsdon Best with detailed and important information about the maramataka. Best called him: ‘the most trustworthy of authorities on old-time lore.’