Gatley, JuliaEllis, NgarinoTreadwell, Jeremy2020-10-162020-10-162019http://hdl.handle.net/2292/5333019th century imperialism subjected Indigenous knowledge and its productions to multiple analyses and classifications. These were manifested in learned publications and in the expansion of metropolitan museums and their collections. Underpinning this work were assumptions of Indigenous backwardness. In imperialist discourse Indigenous technology in particular was utilised as evidence of European superiority. This ‘evidence’ was given everyday expression in colonial assumptions of Indigenous technical primitiveness.This thesis challenges residual assumptions of technical simplicity in 19th century Māori whare building. In particular, the thesis examines a specific Indigenous technology, cross sectional post tensioning, used to establish structural stability in the large meeting houses built following the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s. While known archaeologically, post tensioning in larger 19th century Māori architecture has been largely unexamined by scholars until now.The research into this technology was hampered by a very limited body of published literature. Accordingly, this study considered actual components of whare, held in museums and on marae, to explain the fabrication and the tectonic relationships they were part of. This material research enabled the construction of detail and large scale structural models, which revealed both the processes of fabrication and a compelling structural performance.Due to the persistent legacy of imperial thinking in Aoteoroa it was appropriate for this thesis to adopt a bicultural research methodology, which included both mātauranga Māori and European knowledge systems. Mātauranga Māori became available primarily but not exclusively through the relationships established with iwi, particularly Ngātira and their wharenui Tāne Whirinaki. These relationships produced mutually productive research outcomes.Central to these results was the realisation that Māori whare structure was profoundly different in conception, meaning and structural relationships from European timber frame buildings. The whare was established not through a repetitive assembly of generic timber sections but through the post tensioned integration of highly specialised individual components such as the poupou (wall posts), heke (rafters), tāhuhu (ridgepoles) and their supporting posts. Further distinguishing these crafted elements from a reductive functionalism is their indivisible embodiment within Te Ao Mārama (the Māori creation narrative). These different ways of understanding Maori building are entwined in this thesis in order to convey not a singular truth but a rich complexity.Items in ResearchSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.https://researchspace.auckland.ac.nz/docs/uoa-docs/rights.htmThesis2020-07-14Copyright: The authorhttp://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccessQ112950616