A VANISHED ART.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 266, 9 November 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

A VANISHED ART.

THE MAORI MOKO

LAST OF THE TATTOOED MEN.

(By J.C.)

The disappearance of an ancient and beautiful form of primitive artcraft is always a matter for regret. One of these branches of skill practised by the craftsmen of Polynesia, and of the Maori in particular, is the art of tattooing the facs and body. New Zealand was once pre-eminently the land of

"moko," the general Maori term for the designs of tattoo. The symmetrically moko'd warrior face lias long been a distinguishing badge of this country with the kiwi and tlie fern tree. We have long had it on our banknotes, on our tourist posters, in many of our books, and many a traveller has come £b this country expecting to see, among other strange and wonderful sights, Maori warriors with black-

scrolled faces stalking the city streets. Indeed that spectacle was once familiar enough, but not within the last quarter of a century or so. Only on the women's chins and lips can the blue-black lines of tattoo be seen nowadays; and they are becoming a rare sight in most districts.

The great assemblage of tribes at Rotorua in 1901 to greet the Empire's Roval couple was the last large congress of the native race, the last parade at which the tattooed men of the old generation were seen. To see them after that was an increasingly rare ; incident. The benevolent, shrewd old face of Patara te Tuhi, made famous by Mr. C. F. Goldie in his paintings of tattooed types, was one of tlie last seen frequently in Auckland. Patara survived until 1911. Another of Mr Goldie's subjects, Kamariera Wharepapa, of Mangakahia, a Ngapuhi chief with a romantic history, was one who outlived Patara. But the dark-chisel led face of the old New Zealander was after that period only to be seen in the outer parts of the land, here and there —tlie Waikato,. on Taupo's shores, and in the Urewera Country. That was where the ancient art Inst lingered. The last three tattooed warrior faces I saw were at Ruatoki, Waimana and Ruatahuna, in 1921; venerable guerilla busli fighters of the Urewera, old scouts and mountaineers, lone relics of a wild and thrilling pasfthat survived into the Wtginning of a new era for the Maori. Pictures Of The Last Relics. The last tattooed male Maori has "one; never again will living man gaze upon his face, so splendidly, so heroically carved with the classic chisel ot Mataora. The last survivor to my knowledge was Ngakuru Pana, a fine-looking chief of the Hokianga sections of Ngapuhi; his home was at Waimaniaku. He told mo that lie was born, he estimated, five years before .the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. When he visited Wellington on native land business many years ago I took him to the Government photographer, as was usually my way when a tattooed acquaintance of mine came to town. The old-timers were pleased to be photographed on such occasions. There was'a time when the camera, like the surveyor's theodolite, was an object of suspicion in the kainga. No photographer was ever allowed to obtain a picture of Te Kooti or of Te Whiti. Their sacred niana was jealously hedged about by their followers. But there were many I have known who were very willing to have their deeply-trenched lines of facial decoration gone over with a fine brush and black colour in order that the photograph should reproduce the moko fully and clearly. King Tawhiao's cousin, the old Ngati-Mahuta chief Mahutu te Toko, was one of those whom I conveyed to a studio for the purpose of a portrait. Wβ very carefully heightened his handsome moko with, black paint; with the result that when he looked in the mirror ho was so delighted that he declared he would not wash" his face for a month; his youth had been renewed; he looked as if he had just been tattooed (without pain this time) and coloured with the black Ngarehu pigment from the soot ot burning kauri gum, "Warrior of the Tlrewera. For many years the study of moko and its details and variations has been one of my pet interests, in the course of researches into matters Maori. There ( were- often small differences in patterns followed by the various tribes which only close study would reveal. To the casual eye one face-suit of moko would exactly resemble another. Very often this was the case; but the tohunga-ta-moko, the artist who plied the bone or steel chisel and the little tapper or mallet, woiild occasionally vary his design, in accordance with his hereditary teaching or the suggestions of his client—or patient. When I made a careful pencil drawing of the tattoo that stood out like a fierce black mask on the features of Netana Whakaari, one of the last Urewera chiefs of the old brigade (the scene, was on the bank of the° Waimana River), I saw that the tattooer had made a curious break in the two middle rows of curved "tiwhana," the arch-like moko on the forehead. This interruption, of an inch or so, is peculiar, I think, to the Urewera and Arawa' districts. I i have very seldom seen it broken in that manlier and then continued in a symmetrical zigzag to the side of the head. The only "example I can recall just now besides old Netana (who sat very latiently for me and talked of his bush warfare" days while I copied his facepicture) is not a living figure but a wood carving, the Hou-taiki effigy, at the foot of the Ngati-Whakaue flagstaff in front of the carved house Tama-te-Kapua at Oliinemutu. Netana told me that he was tattooed at Tauarau, Ruatoki, before the beginning of, the Taranaki war, 1860; the artist-operator was a hunchback man whose fathers before him had beea tattooers and carvers. Comparatively few men were tattooed after that period; in the King Country there was a revival of the art about 18C5, by King Tawhiao's order, in keeping witrr the revival of other olden practices. Netana's moko gave him a singularly fierce appearance; it was very black, and his glittering eyes looked as from a closelyfitting mask of curves and spirals, varied by the straight lines down the nose. Popular Errors. , I have read many an erroneous account of moko by those who knew nothing about the subject at first-hand. It has been asserted, for example, that no two patterns of tattoo on men's faces were alike; -and that elaborate tattoo was the prerogative of a chief; that it was his exclusive badge. Obviously it was impossible that there should be tens of thousands of different designs. Of the many hundreds of tattooed faces I have seen there were a great many which as far as I could discover exactly resembled each other. There were, of i course, many variations, duo to the! artist's taste or the tattooed one's fancy, I

or to inability to endure a complete jiioko operation. So far from the decoration being exclusive, anyone could be tattooed fully and artistically, whatever his status in the tribe, provided he could recompense the artist well. Wanted—An Art Renaissance. The old-time nioko artists I knew, the grand old moko'd faces we used to see, have all passed to the Reinga. But the art could readily enough be revived. An expert wood carver could also practise tattooing. We have all the old designs, preserved ill pictures and on the figures in carved houses. All that is needed is the olden spirit that admired and endured. Will any of the Young Maori Men's Tarty volunteer and submit their lamentably smooth faces to the beautifying touch of the "Uhi-a-Mataora," in the noble joint cause of science and art? The women, as a class, are more conservative than the young men. Now and again a tattoo of the modern type punctures and pigments the chin of brown beauty; and very handsome those "kauwae" patterns are. But, alas, the paleface lipstick and powder dab have the preference,; the Maori is losing the olden sense of the artistic fitness of things.