Te Pou Herenga Waka o Rehua: The Story of Rehua Hostel and Marae – The First 50 Years: 2022

At 79 Springfield Road, in the Christchurch suburb of St Albans, stands Rehua Marae. Many who live in this most English-looking of New Zealand cities may not know that it is there; many will perhaps have little idea of its remarkable story. Rehua began as a hostel for young Māori women coming to the city to work. The first of its kind in the South Island, it was established by the Methodist Mission in Stanmore Road in 1952. After less than two years, it became part of a pilot for the Māori Affairs Trade Training Scheme, in which young Māori men were selected as apprentices to various city firms and also trained through the technical institute. Both the hostel and the scheme proved a success, and there would eventually be three more hostels in Christchurch: Te Kaihanga and Te Aranga, for young Māori men, and Roseneath for women. It was a very different world for boys who mostly came from small North Island papakāinga in remote rural areas. The churches, local Ngāi Tahu kaumātua, Māori welfare officers, the technical institute tutors and the apprentices’ employers did much to help the new arrivals to adjust and cope. When they found their feet, they were eager to embrace city life. Many married local women, Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā, and made Christchurch their home. Today they are part of the wider Māori kaumātua community in Canterbury. The opening of the beautifully carved wharenui, Te Whatumanawa Maoritanga o Rehua, in 1960 began a new chapter in Rehua’s history, widening its role. In the early 1980s the government stopped subsidising Rehua hostel. From later that decade, Rehua Marae began to provide hauora (wellbeing) services. Now, as a multi-tribal and multi-cultural marae, it is a centre for recreation, hui and tangihanga, worship and much more, and welcomes many visitors every year. Dr Terry Ryan has devoted his life to Rehua since first arriving at the hostel in 1966. His deep knowledge of and love for this special place fill this book, which has been thoroughly researched and accessibly written by Claire Kaahu White, whose parents were the first master and mistress at Roseneath. Told through the voices of former hostel residents, kaumātua and others associated with Rehua, and in a wealth of superb photographs, this is a lively and very human account of a significant part of New Zealand’s, and Christchurch’s, history.