wharepuni

plural wharepunis

1. New ZealandA large building in Maori communities for communal sleeping or for group meetings; a meeting house.First known use 19th c.

   Wharepuni increased greatly in size to the kinds of dimensions that would become common in the twentieth century.

   2003, Michael King, The Penguin History of Aotearoa New Zealand, Penguin, published 2023, page 231

   2 more examples

   The dwellings of the chiefs are surrounded with enclosures of pole-fences; and the Whares and Wharepunis, some of them exhibiting very fine specimens of the Maori order of architecture, are ornamented with grotesque wood-carvings.

   1867, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, translated by Edward Sauter, “Ngawhas, and Puias; boiling springs, solfataras and fumaroles”, in New Zealand: Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History […], Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, →OCLC, page 423

   A notable recent event was the construction of a fourth wharepuni. These wharepuni are in themselves fully fledged meeting-houses, although the decoration inside is simple, in accordance with their function as dormitories.

   1954, Forefront: A Monthly Survey of New Zealand Affairs, volumes 1–5, London: High Commissioner for New Zealand in the United Kingdom, page 19, column 3