Conclusion

Urban marae are needed in cities and suburbs where there are sizeable concentrations of Maori people. Although the most urgent need for marae is to provide for the tangi, where people can come to wail for their dead in customary fashion, there are other social considerations of no less importance.

Firstly, the marae serves as a focal point for community sentiment. The marae as an institution is intimately bound up with the identity of the Maori as a people. The marae is one institution where any Maori has Tuurangawaewae (standing) in relation to the dominant Pakeha in our society. The marae removes the inequality of minority group status. It is the one place in New Zealand society where the Maori is exalted to the front rank and the Pakeha to second place. On the marae the Pakeha is the guest, the Maori is the host. As a focus for the communal emphasis of Maori society, the marae serves as an antidote to the individualism and anonymity of urban life.

Secondly, the marae is central to the concept of Maoritanga. Maori oratory, language, values and social etiquette are given their fullest expression in the marae setting at tangi and 'huihuinga. For this reason, urban marae are urgently needed, so that the second generation of city born Maoris can imbibe their culture and take pride in their identity. There are few things more pitiful than the deculturated Maoris of urban life who still have the physical characteristics of being Maori without a satisfactory underlying social identity.

Thirdly, the emergence of new Maori protest groups and radical movements emphasis the urgency of the need for urban marae. The elders, the leaders and the responsible members of the Maori community need to meet young people who are leading those movements to discuss and "thrash out" what are after all problems of mutual concern. The old need the injection of new ideas from their young people while the young need to have their ideas tested against the wisdom of their elders. The marae is the forum where new ideas can be put through the "kill or cure" test of the truly democratic processes of Maori society.

Fourthly, the creation of urban marae can help to breach the social separation of the Pakeha and integrate him into Maori society. The middle-class Pakeha insulates himself where possible from lower class people and ethnic minorities by living in select suburbs. Since Maori marae are inclusive rather than exclusive as some Pakehas think, the marae provides common ground where the Pakeha can gain some awareness and insight into Maori life, and the importance of bi-culturalism.

The experience of urbanisation in Auckland has illustrated the importance of the marae as an institution. Where in the initial stages of urban migration (here were no marae in Auckland various substitutes were introduced and developed to meet this fundamental Maori need. At the minimal level we have the "little marae" the state house serving the purpose of the tangi. An improvement in the state house is the extension of the little marae by the addition of an enclosed garage on the section of the head of the family group, The next stage is when a larger descent group, usually a tribe, club together buy and operate a community facility or ultimately a marae.

Two alternatives to the kinship principle have emerged in Auckland as a basis for organising a Maori community facility. The first of these is religious affiliation which has proved to be successful at Te Unga Waka and Otara. The second is based on a secular, non-tribal committee organisation. The group al Te Alatu is working together successfully to raise money for its project, when their marae is completed, the group will have to face up to the idea logical difficulty of running a multi-tribal marae.

At Otara, the spontaneous attempt to create a multi-racial marae met with little success, only a minority of the Maoris (30 out of 6000) supported the idea. The concept of multiracialism was abandoned, and the new marae committee, an off-shoot of the Maori committee reverted to the concept of the marae as a Maori institution. The lesson to be drawn from the Otara case is that the concept of multiracialism must not be foistea on the Maori people. A marae is essentially an institution run by Maoris with inclusion granted to other groups on their terms.