The meeting house is presented as one of the most important cultural symbols of Maori society and represents many different ideas and values. As the building that houses the poupou of the Maori people's ancestors and their stories, it is a symbol of their rich heritage and a link between the living and the dead. As a place where the community gather together for religious services, meetings, celebrations, funerals, and much more, it also emanates a parental "warmth of embrace" (88) and therefore symbolizes the strength and support that the Maori people offer one another as a community. The centrality of this building to the lives of its people is demonstrated by their steadfast refusal to leave the land or have the meeting house moved, and, following the fire, in their inconsolable grief over its destruction. In short, the meeting house is the very identity of this community and its destruction would mean "an end with no new beginning, a nothingness" (152).

Stories, and ideas about what stories are, and what their significance is, are a striking and recurrent motif in the novel. Stories about dead ancestors, like those the children share with each other at the cemetery, and mythological tales are passed down orally from generation to generation and are, therefore, central to Maori history and its preservation.