House-board
- Gallery: Room 24
- Culture: East Coast
- Made in: East Coast (New Zealand)
- Date: 1870s
- Object type: house-board
- Materials: wood; haliotis shell
- Museum number: Oc1922,0512.1
- Museum: The British Museum
- Collection record: British Museum website
- Image © The Trustees of the British Museum, shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
Listen to the free audio guide
About this object
Before you is a carved house-board known as a poupou. This artwork was made by Ngāti Porou carvers on the East Coast of New Zealand in the 1870s. It is made of wood with delicate haliotis shell inlays for the eyes of the figures.
Look closely at the two figures stacked vertically. Each is richly decorated with spirals and patterns called whakarare and rauponga. The figures have intricate details such as mania, lizards, and dogs—some of which may symbolize aspects of Māori mythology and identity.
This piece originally belonged to a large meeting house never built for a local chief. The house was later dismantled, and many of the carvings traveled abroad, ending up in this museum as part of a gift exchange in 1922.
See it in person
House-board is on display in Room 24 at the British Museum on Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, London — free to enter. Choose British Museum on audioguide.london and take a photo of it to hear this free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
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