MAORI ART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 1 (Supplement)

MAORI ART.

ORIGIN OF- DESIGNS.

EVOLVED IN NEW ZEALAND.

(By J.C.)

It is the custom among most speakers and writers dealing with the subject of Maori art in wood-carving and other forms to assign remote foreign origins to many of the patterns and designs. Foi the bases of the curvilinear forms which are the most prominent in carving and painting in Maori decorated houses they go to Asiatic and other sources, and find even in North European primitive art the concepts which could be the original inspiration of our native New Zealand woodwork design. Bishop Bennett in a recent lecture mentioned the close resemblance between scrolls carved on ancient monumental stones in Ireland and the double spirals in the prow of a Maori war canoe, and referred to the likeness between certain other Maori carvings and emblems in Assyrian and Hindu mythological art. Other authorities have cited sculptured figures and symbols in many parts of the world, such as Cambodia and Mexico, and have built thereon a structure 'of derivations designed to show that the Maori simply perpetuated here art motives which he had brought with him in his long migrations from the older-peopled countries. I am disposed to take the opposite view, and to offer the suggestion that the Maori derived his chief inspiration from his peculiar New Zealand environment, and that the resemblance between his carving and tattoo patterns and other forms of artcraft and the sculpture and carving of far distant lands are in the nature of coincident developments of art such as might be expected to arise in any country inhabited by a people given to close observations of natural objects. The spiral design in particular is one which, in every part of the world, is exhibited in primitive or semi-primitive art. It is the Maori who has brought it to perfection, his "pitau" pattern, which enters so largely into every branch of artistry. The New Zealand Scene. Superficial likenesses have often _ led students as well as casual observers into linking up the Maori-Polynesian with Old World peoples. Undoubtedly certain links exist, as in language, religion and customs. But it seems to me to overstrain the probabilities to assert an Asiatic basis for carving, and to declare —as in a recently published book—that the Maori probably derived his tattoo patterns and his style of fortification from Melanesian sources. It does not seem reasonable to deny originality of idea to the Maori and to overlook the probability that lie found his principal inspiration in these islands of ours, with their great land masses, after the circumscribed ; tropic isles of the Pacific,

their vast forests of tall timber, their wealth of ferns and wild flowers, and the innumerable aspects of. beauty in Nature and human life which would inevitably impress the eye and soul of an artcraftsnian.

It must :be remembered that , the islands of New Zealand were first colonised by Polynesians more than a thousand, years ago, and. that such a period would give abundant time in which such a race could evolve arts and industries entirely sui generis. In clothing, in buildings, in canoes and fortifications the Maori certainly displayed an originality and skill bom of long centuries of effort in adapting the natural resources of the country to his needs. Similarly, in art designs, he may be conceded the credit of having evolved the most characteristic forms of decoration from his surroundings and life after arrival on these shores from the Eastern Pacific. The Whence of the Spiral. The pitau, or spiral, which the Maori carver and tattooer used and elaborated could have been derived from many sources independently of such origins as the snaky coil of Asia and Europe and America. The coiled serpent, "type of the endless and unknown," is seen alike on ancient Aztec temples and on Celtic memorials. But the coil of a rope might easily suggest itself as a like pattern to the artist's eye, just as the shape of the bishop's crosier may have been suggested to our European forefathers by the curling shoots of a fern. Indeed, old Maori carvers, the artcraftsmen of the past generations, have told me that the pitau was derived from the young closelycurled fronds of the tree fern. Again, a carver turned up his thumb and said, "Observe these tine close curved lines — are they not like the pitau I am carving here?" Yet again, as that most gifted of all Arawa carvers, the venerable Anaha, once told me, the web of a spider (whare-pungawerewere) is exactly a spiral; and this indeed is the motive, complete to its connecting or supporting lines radiating from the centre, which is copied in the openwork designs of the war-canoe figurehead.

Other sources and suggestions have been indicated to me by ■ the skilled artists of various tribes. There is a celebrated white sandstone cliff called Otamahuka, on the Bay of Plenty coast hear Matata, where the vertical face has been weathered into a variety of curious forms. Spirals are there, and gargoyle and all manner of grotesque faces in relief; and the driving sand in gales from time to time wear new figures in the rock. There was a tattooing artist and carver long ago, Tamahuka, after who the chief of pictures was named; he studied the rock-face, says tradition, and obtained therefrom the inspiration for his line cliisel-work.

In other art forms, such as the black and,, red rafter paintings, the original motive was taken from nature. The curl of a wave is there, the drooping blossom of a kowhai, the curve of a cumulus cloud, the volute of a shell. The carved maraki-hau, a kind of seagod, seen in Bay of Plenty and Urewera meeting houses, is, too, a local concept, peculiar to New Zealand. The source of the manaia, that Strange figure with a bird beak, is more obscure.

There is a Bay of Plenty; tradition, but it partakes of the fabulous. Wo have yet to clear up its oceanic origin. Tattooing Origins. I have seen it suggested that the Maori borrowed his moko or tattoo patterns 1 from the Melanesians, and also some of his carvings. He had no need to go to such a source; the-Melanesians certainly did not tattoo like the Maoris. There 'is ' a certain small Melanesian element of very remote origin in the Maori; but the black Melanesian was an inferior race, uncouth and uncultured by comparison with the Polynesian. Nor did the Maori bring the moko we know with him from Polynesia. The face tattoo of the warrior as well as the kauwae, or chin and lips tattoo of the women, was purely of New Zealand origin and development. The ancient tattoo of Polynesia was very different, rectilinear as opposed to the Maori curvilinear. We read of that Eastern Pacific tattoo in Herman . Melville's "Typee." He describes the warrior who looked out as from behind bars, his straight-lined face-mask. Down at Moeraki, on the North Otago coast, 30 years ago, I saw the very last relics of this Tahiti-Marquesas design of moko. There were two old men there, Ira Herewini and Wi Pokuku, whose faces bore horizontal blue lines, across nose and cheeks. There were two straight lines across Ira's face and one on Pokuku's, crossing from ear to ear. They were the last men tattooed with the * "Molco-a-Tamatea," which the old people explained was the pattern used by the chief who commanded the canoe Takitimu, one of the ancestral sailing craft from Tahiti. Tamatea was a skilled tattoo artist, and he and some of his crew settled awhile at the south end of Lake Te Anau, after he finally landed in Southland, and there he tattooed a number of his young men after the manner of the tropic homeland with nianv lines across the face.