Much like totem poles, pou whenua tell a story. They are significant to the Māori people, representing their contributions to the cultural heritage of the New Zealand. They acknowledge the association between the people (tāngata) and the land (whenua). Specifically, they reflect the relationship between the ancestors, environment, and the reputation or standing of the tangata whenua
This group of pou stand in a group in the central square of Hastings, which has a large Maori population, outside of the Library/Art Gallery. The sculptures show the significance of Maori (that's the correct plural) and their culture alongside other cultures (predominantly, but not all, white), in Aoteoroa (the Maori name for New Zealand, which means,'land of the long white cloud'.
Other features of Maori culture which are very obvious in NZ are the names of places, which white people often mispronounce, and architectural features such as marae
The marae is a sacred building of traditional shape with numerous sculptures similar to these pou all over it where people meet for various cultural activities.
The Maori built meeting houses before the period of contact with Europeans. The early structures appear to have been used as the homes of chiefs, though they were also used for accommodating guests. They did not exist in every community. From the middle of the nineteenth century, however, they started to develop into an important focal point of local society. Larger meeting houses were built, and they ceased to be used as homes. The open space in front of the house, known as a marae, is used as an assembly ground. They were, and still are, used for entertaining, for funerals, religious and political meetings. It is a focus of tribal pride and is treated with great respect.
Front of the house with carved end posts on either side of the veranda, maihi (carved barge-boards), raparapa (projecting boards at the end of the maihi), tekoteko( anthropomorphic figurative carving at the front of the apex of the roof), koruru (carved mask depicting the ancestor the house is named for, placed below the tekoteko), pare (carved lintel above doorway), and carving above the window; two people sit in front of the house: a Maori man sitting on the platform in front of the house, wrapped in a stripped blanket, and a Maori woman in Western-style clothing sitting on the ground in the foreground, on the right of the image.