Mere Lodge

Mere Lodge grew up in Ruatoria, a small town on the east coast of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island, north of Kihipene Gisborne. The whenua of her upbringing and her Ngāti Porou whakapapa are strongly present in the paintings and sculptures she produced in the 1960s while studying at the University of Auckland’s Elam School of Fine Arts. Te Toka-a-Tōrea illustrates the kōrero behind the name Ruatoria, or Te Rua-a-Tōrea, meaning the storage pit of the renowned Ngāti Porou tipuna, Tōrea. Known for great agricultural ability, strength and resourcefulness, Tōrea lifted a huge boulder in order to use the resulting crater as a storage pit for kūmara.

whenua ~ land whakapapa ~ genealogy kōrero ~ narrative, account tipuna ~ ancestor Ngāti Porou ~ tribal group of East Coast area north of Gisborne to Tihirau

(He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil, 2025)