Mereana Mokomoko’s father was Apanui Hamaiwaho, chief of Ngātiawa at Whakatane who built the house Mataatua. She was the widow of Chief W. H. Taipari.
Biographical sources
- Mokomoko, Mereana and Gilbert Mair. "The Building of Hotunui, Whare Whakairo, W. H. Taipari’s Carved House at Thames, 1878." Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 30 (1897): 41.
Other
- "The Building of Hotunui, Whare Whakairo, W. H. Taipari’s Carved House at Thames, 1878." Told by Mereana Mokomoko, widow of the late chief, W. H. Taipari, to Gilbert Mair, 12th July, 1897. Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 30 (1897): 41-44. Rpt as "The Building of Hotunui Meeting House 1878." Whakatane and Districts. Historical Society Review 8 (1960): 26-27.
- Mokomoko presents a background to the construction of the whare whakairo, Hotunui, by Ngāti Awa in the 1870s. The carving was completed in May 1878 and Mokomoko describes the rituals surrounding the erection of the building, the whai kawa ceremonies that removed the tapu from the house and the role of women to takahi te paepae - to tread on and cross the threshold which then allowed women free entry into the house. Mokomoko notes the Ngāti Awa subtribes involved in the construction of the house and she gives a detailed description of its dimensions and names the carved ancestral figures. This paper was read before the Auckland Institute on the 6th September, 1897.
Other
- Taylor, C.R.H. A Bibliography of Publications on the New Zealand Māori and the Moriori of the Chatham Islands. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford UP, 1972. 112.