“That is a very special place, Te Tou Rangatira, the gathering place of Rangatira. And to have the pou there of Ngāti Ruawāhia, it locks it in.”
– Māori activist & community leader Hone Harawira, on the significance of the Hawaiian pou (Mauipāikalani) at Te Tou Rangatira.

Following the successful voyage from Rarotonga, Cook Islands, Hōkūleʻa, Hikianalia, and their crews arrived in Waitangi, Aotearoa, where a ceremony was held to unveil Mauipāikalani (“Maui-who-reaches-towards-the-heavens”), a new Hawaiian poupou (carved post) representing the Hawaiian tribe Ngāti Ruawāhia, the sixth tribe of Te Tai Tokerau.

Located at Te Tou Rangatira, a sacred gathering place where Māori chiefs once convened to discuss and sign treaties, Mauipāikalani now stands among an impressive collection of ancestral posts.

For more than 30 years, the first Hawaiian pou, Māuipāmamao (“Maui-who-reaches-across-the-furthest-extremities”), stood as a physical anchor for Hawaiians in Aotearoa. Carved from ʻōhiʻa by the late William Puou and erected in 1992, the pou was weathered by time and the elements and was ready to retire and return home to Hawaiʻi.

The new pou, Mauipāikalani, was created in classic Hawaiian design by carver Jordan Souza and assistant Kepano Carvalho over six days and nights at Kā Uri in Awanui. The kauri log used for the carving, gifted by the Hekenukumai Busby Trust, once belonged to the late Sir Hector Busby, a Pwo Navigator and architect of the Māori voyaging renaissance. Tai Tokerau carvers Heemi Eruera and Billy Harrison, both closely tied to Sir Hector, prepared the log, supported the installation, and hosted the Hawaiian carvers during the creation of the pou.

Today, Mauipāikalani stands as a powerful symbol of Ngāti Ruawāhia and the enduring kinship between Māori and Kānaka Maoli. A physical anchor connecting our peoples across the ocean, it will welcome Hawaiians journeying to the Far North for generations to come.