NEW BOOKS

Kaea, Issue 3, 1 June 1980, Page 22

NEW BOOKS

ART OF THE PACIFIC Brian Brake, Janies McNeish and David Simmons Oxford University Press in association with the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council: $39.95

Few New Zealand books have been heralded with as much well-orchestrated acclaim in the media and the press as that which has been accorded Art of the Pacific. It has even achieved that near unique distinction of two full pages of praise in the Listener at the hands of no less a reviewer than Bruce Mason. So generously has it been baptised in adjectives that it is with hesitation that a differing perspective is put forward in this review.

This large book is in itself a taonga in that it is beautifully made a museum without walls within which the taonga of the Pacific which are stored in some of New Zealand’s museum collections are displayed by Brian Brake’s camera. Brake is a photographer whose craft has been refined into art. His art is to reveal for us the art of other and unknown artists the old people of the Pacific world who

shaped into these things their beliefs, their dreams and their idea of what was beautiful. He presents us with his view of 166 different taonga from the Pacific and from different parts of Maori New Zealand. As pictures they are superb but they are very much Brake’s pictures and I am uneasy as to the extent that his vision interferes with the quality of the taonga that the old artists produced. I turned to the pictures of those things that I know well, that I have sat gazing at in wonder for a fair part of my life and I knew that Brake saw them very differently. He was fascinated, for instance by the head of the great rei puta in the Canterbury Museum and he cropped the picture. We are faced by the head with its slanted, menacing eyes staring out from a darkened background and that’s all. The rest of the long curving body and the intricately woven flax cord which is so perfectly integrated, so much a part of the whole, is denied us. Though I appreciated the way in which the clever lighting has emphasised the rich, mellow quality of the bone I felt cheated it was as though the thing itself had been broken, that there was something to hide.

Much the same sort of thing can be said of the effects that are used to show off the pounamus, the adzes and some of

the carving detail. They were respected and familiar friends that I did not readily recognise. The taonga that I do not know so well, or even at all, I rejoiced in meeting. The pictures are superbly crafted, kaikanohi a feast for the eye. I could delight in the caring precision with which these things were made, wonder at the kind of society that could afford to impart such beauty to simple things. I could sense the art in artefact. The joy is tinged, though, with reserve. Would those who feel possessive about the things that were new to me feel as I did about the photographer’s intrusion into my vision? Or would they, in a more generous spirit, respond to another man’s eye and feel enlarged, their own awareness expanded? These less resentful souls will be able to feel with their eyes the worn and handled quality in the carved flute, the stark carving of the bone casket uncaressed and spiritually isolate. They will touch the matt blacks and reds and feel the texture of the symmetrically woven lashings. Brake the artist will have served them. He does not spring open my own half-closed eyes. David Simmons of the Auckland Museum introduces the collections from which these taonga are drawn with a lucid and up-to-date introductiori encompassing the origins, distribution and artistic cultures of the Pacific peoples represented. Each group of artefacts is treated to its own introduction in crisp, informed, commentary and each article has its own note which identifies and locates it. His task is confidently and professionally accomplished. For those of us who have witnessed the recharging of Maori communities as they have rediscovered tribal arts and skills and sensed the communal power as marae have been renewed, Simmons’s line:

“Identity can be lost in a changing world, art can give it back” has a ring of truth that cannot be denied. James McNeish contributes immaculately polished interviews with

contemporary people of the areas from which the taonga originally came or, less usefully, from people who just happen to be contemporary. This is superb journalism of a tried format that McNeish has offered us with distinction in earlier work. In this context however it is incidental, almost irrelevant. I am reminded of my old Latin teacher, anxious always to encourage, who would console me for some stupid answer with “No, no boy! It would do very well for another question, though!” The bulk of these interviews should have been published in his earlier Larks in a Paradise, or in another volume of the same type. They are excellent in themselves, they convey rich insights into people, but they do not belong here. If the interview approach was to be used it should have had a much more controlled focus. How do the contemporary inheritors of Pacific cultures infuse the things they make with beauty? How do they see the things their tupuna made? How does the artistic and creative urge survive and flowers in their lives?

Throughout the Pacific the indigenous arts are thrusting back, nourished in the flames of cultural renewal, vitalised by tools and techniques that our forebears would have seized with avidity. The time is past for bemoaning shattered culture and the destruction of past things. The old taonga are inspiration, like language and the other arts, to the fresh, confident regrowth of cultural identity and expression. It is not enough for the Western Ozymandias to sip his sherry and make tears for past beauty, he must also recognise that the heritage from which the beauty sprang is a continuing heritage, bruised like all well worn

heritage, but living. Simmons, in closing his introduction, recognises this: “Successive attacks on the religious and social fabrics of Pacific societies have damaged the context of the mana but the new artists rising out of the chaos of conflcting values and conventions are making images and symbols in which can be seen a rebirth, not only of art, but of social pride.” With one notable exception the point seems to have by-passed McNeish. That exception is contained in a piece called “The Pedestal ”, an interview with a Maori carver working in a New Zealand provincial town. It is frank and honest, stripped of the mystique so frequently attributed to custom and to carving. His regrets and his frustrations surge out but he cannot disguise his compulsion to create. People such as this exist in all societies and they are certainly present in the societies McNeish visited. It is a shame that he by-passed them. Apart from the frontline artists, what about the ordinary people at Whakatane, at Manutuke, at Koriniti and Kaikoura? The ones who are weaving into their lives the threads of their own artistic roots? What are their feelings? How do they see the beauty in what they are making and doing? These are the kind of people

McNeish should have been talking to. And he should have been talking about art! McNeish has a great gift for capturing the spirit and the concerns of ordinary people without in any way diminishing them. This gift could have been used to adorn this book. Instead he has attended too much to the well-rationalised conflicts of educated Maori and Pacific people. He has succumbed to the obsessive fascination that academics seem to have for the destructive elements in cultural conflict, to the fixation with the culturally divided personality. He should at least have balanced this by speaking with some of those who see interaction rather than conflict, who rejoice in their plural personality and who are too busy living it to worry very much about the fiddling inconsistencies in their lives. I will treasure this book. I will learn from Simmons and I will be provoked by Brake. I will treasure McNeish too but I will be constantly saddened by the knowledge of what he could have given it and annoyed that what he has written is not between different covers.

MAORI DUNEDIN

Marire Goodall and George Griffiths Otago Heritage Books: $5.85

I can never forget the utter frustration in trying to teach the Maori history of the Wellington region to a group of earnest school teachers. They were enthusiastic and willing and well realised the simple truth that a Maori curriculum should best proceed from the Maori environment which surrounded the child. They were utterly locked though, into their own geographical reference, into Naenae or Porirua, the Hutt or Island Bay. They could not cope with the idea that Maori geography is different and that, together with its associated history, it has different sets of reference from those into which New Zealand is today divided. Maori regions and Maori history are tied to tribal and hapu relationships and just as ancient Maori Wellington relates more to the Wairarapa than to Horowhenua and the Manawatu, so too Maori Dunedin must be seen in the context of its

surrounding coast from Moeraki down to Taiari (or The Taieri as it is now known). Maori history only makes sense when it is related to its own boundaries. It is in grave danger of becoming a quaint colouring-in of a Pakeha idea when it is deprived of its own essentially tribal framework.

Marire Goodall knows this well enough but he has been cramped and his story distorted by the publisher’s determination to confine Maori Dunedin to the Pakeha drawn boundaries of Pakeha Dunedin. After approximately five columns of

introduction this little book reaches out to the regional Maori reference points only rarely and then almost furtively.

This jointly authored book has been published to coincide with the opening of Stage 1 of the new Dunedin Marae, Araiteuru, so the fixation with contemporary boundaries is probably understandable. The authors go so far as to note:

“We are at all times concerned only with the viewpoint of residents in urban Dunedin.” This tightly constrained concern places severe limitations on the Maori adequacy of the book. The new marae, Araiteuru, in the Kaikorai valley commands a separate chapter in its own right and the story of the name Araiteuru another. This will be valuable in the future. Few marae have fully recorded the enormous human effort and commitment that goes into their creation, the backbreaking, and often lonely, dedication that finally sees them standing proudly as a symbol of Maori community, as a mark of hope. A useful testament to that effort and those who made it is contained here as well as some indication of the dreams that powered the sweat, the idea that Araiteuru might succeed in harbouring within its mana the mosaic of tribes that constitute modern Maori Dunedin. The emergent

relationship of the new people with the takata whenua, the Kaitahu-Kati

Mamoe, is based on an innovative formula that could well work. If it does it could offer some directions for those Northern communities in which such relations have been sometimes less than satisfactory. Two chapters are devoted to the Otago Maori Land sales to the Crown of 1844 and the subsequent claims and political battles which still remain largely unresolved. Whilst these are factual enough they are clearly written from a Pakeha perspective and a pretty provincial one at that. To have such a perspective in a book carrying the title Maori Dunedin must have Ellison, Taiaroa, Topi Patuki, Timoti Karetai and other past warriors of the Otago land struggle turning uneasily in their sleep. Perhaps the least acceptable aspect of the treatment of land matters is, however, the picture we are given of the great Walter Mantell. This articulate and dedicated fighter and defender of the Maori interest has his lifelong commitment to racial justice disposed of as a sideshow to mask his Anglican prejudice of Dunedin’s righteous Presbyterians. Both as Commissioner of lands and in later life Mantell sought the implementation of the agreements he had made on behalf of the Crown; his correspondence in the archival record demonstrates his stand with Rusden, Martin and their lonely Parliamentary compatriots for a just and equitable settlement of the grievances over land. That they were largely defeated by the powerful provincial settler lobbies of their time is understandable, if not forgivable. Why the perspectives of the Otago settler lobby should continue to be advanced here is incomprehensible. An important feature of the book is the amount of attention devoted to the “Taranaki occupation” the period

when Te Whiti and his Parihaka followers were confined in the South Island as exiles from their Taranaki homelands. The unique photo portrait of Te Whiti is reproduced as is also a photo of “Te Waipounamu”, the house at Otakaou in which he and his people held their religious meetings. Although the Taranaki prisoners were compulsorily used in several major public works in Dunedin, the fact that is important to the Otago Maori is the strong relationships which developed from the support and manaaki that they were able to offer the Taranaki exiles. The hospitality of Otakou was returned in kind by the Taranaki and the memory of the exchange is treasured to this day. A number of the northerners are buried in the South and a section, returning to Patea, named themselves Ngati Otakou to commemorate the kindness shown them and their dead who remained behind. The emphasis accorded this phase of the history reflects Marire Goodall’s personal fascination and involvement with it. It protrudes a little from the story of the land itself particularly when the restriction on coverage referred to above is remembered. It is a subject, however that merits attention in its own right and it is to be hoped that before long Goodall or another historian will attempt a serious study of the Taranaki sojourn in Te Waipounamu. The important relationships between Maori and Maori must take their place alongside those of Maori and Pakeha in this country’s story. The chapter on Araiteuru and its origin is a further contribution to discussion of an important element on Waipounamu myth and tradition but it is less than satisfactory. One of the southern versions of the story of the Araiteuru canoe has been retold in double vowel Maori by the author with a matched translation in

English. That does no particular harm even though it is only one version and runs the risk through publication of becoming “the” version. What is less acceptable is the sourcing of the tradition and the suggestion that the version offered is a peculiarly Otago-Murihiku one. This is not so and neither is the accompanying suggestion that the Uruao canoe tradition is in any way confined to Murihiku or Southland, an area in which it has far less currency than in the more northern parts of the Ngaitahu area. Within a tribal rohe as far flung as ours of Ngaitahu one must expect a range of variation in tradition, differences in emphasis and in detail. One also can expect that the essential unity in tribal traditions will be emphasised and the variations relished: that they should be

expressed in the ways of our tupuna to bond the people. That emphasis is not evident here. More importantly the authors fail to utilise the powerful capacity of Araiteuru tradition to build the cross-tribal kaupapa of the new marae. Wherever Araiteuru traditions occur in sourthern or northern Maori and in other parts of the Pacific, and particularly in Rarotonga, the role of Araiteuru is that of kaitiaki or protective force. Whether as an atua, a waka, a taniwha or simply as a geographical feature it is consistently protective. In the south where there is no whakapapa from Araiteuru this mauri can be inclusive, a cloak to enfold all those from different areas who commit themselves to it. The authors expres the hope that the traditional content contained in this

section will be of use to schools. The Mao.ri experience of what schools can do to our tradition exhorts great caution. All of this could be seen as negative carping about Maori Dunedin. It is not so. Within the limits set by its conception there is an enormous amount of valuable content. The section on place names alone merits the price. I know that the end result reflects a brutal pruning of available Maori material and is therefore not a fair reflection on its Maori authorship. It does not pretend to be authoritative but in the absence of readily available alternatives it will be indispensable to the caring seeker after the Maori content in the southern landscape. Tipene O’Regan

MAORI PLACE NAMES OF AUCKLAND: Their meaning and history George R. Graham, edited by D. R. Simmons Auckland Institute and Museum In 1926 George Graham published two papers on Auckland’s place names. These have now been edited into a single version by D. R. Simmons and published as an attractive booklet by the Auckland Institute and Museum. It is an interesting addition to the literature of New Zealand’s place names, most of which is very localised. An exception is A. W. Reed’s Place Names of New Zealand, but that book gives scant attention to names no longer in use. In this book, however, the majority of names are now obsolete. All the more reason, therefore, to get hold of a text which offers us not only the names themselves, together with translations, but wherever possible some explanation of how those names were given. In some cases the author went even further, as with Te Paneohoroiwi, where he quoted a whakaaraara pa, or sentinel’s

watch song. Te Paneohoroiwi is the name once given to the headland east of St Heliers Bay, and was visible from the watchtowers at Mokoia pa at Panmure: Tirohia Te Paneohoroiwi, Ka whakapukupuku, Ka whakatikitiki, Ki waho ra. A he kawau! He kawau! A he kawau-tikitiki Kei te eke ki runga Ki tahuna-torea. A he kawau tikitiki, he kawau! Such information enlivens what might otherwise be a dull, if worthy, gazetteer and adds greatly to the enjoyment and value to be gained from the book. There are instances, of course, where information is lacking. It is frustrating to learn, for example, that the site of the Waitemata Hotel was once known as Nga (H)uwera, without knowing why. What dramas lie behind the name, which means “Burnt breasts”? Most of the names listed have long been supplanted by European ones. But

even where they have survived it is clear that they have sometimes undergone change. The high-class suburb of Remuera, for example, was once Remuwera, and took its name from an incident nearly four hundred years ago when a young chieftainess from a visiting tribe was murdered and cooked by local people. And once upon a time Orakei was called Orakeiiriora, after the chief Rakeiiriora who came here on the canoe Tokomaru. It is difficult today, shopping in Karangahape Road or waiting for a bus in Queen Street, to think of Auckland and its environs as anything other than a vast sprawling city of freeways, paved streets and suburban homes. But here we are invited to look at a different Auckland, one of tribal movements and battles, of great chiefs and pa now vanished, of creeks and gardens and navigational landmarks. If our place names have not survived as place names, we must be grateful to George Graham and David Simmons for ensuring that they have not disappeared altogether.