ANGAS IN NEW ZEALAND

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32068, 16 August 1969, Page 4

ANGAS IN NEW ZEALAND

Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand. By George French Angas. A. H. and A. W. Reed with Johnson Reprint Corporation. 620 pp. Index. (Facsimile edition with original illustrations; 2 volumes bound in one). It is less than three years since Reed published facsimiles of Angas’s “The New Zealanders Illustrated” and “South Australia Illustrated.” “Savage Life and Scenes” was intended as a companion to these: first published in 1847, it provides a full text for the two collections of illustrations. The historical sign!cance of these books is almost too obvious to need statement: appearing when colonisation was just beginning on an appreciable scale, the image of this country they presented must have been crucial to many people contemplating emigration. Angas first came to South Australia in 1843, at the age of 21. In 1844 he visited New Zealand -for the first time, travelling extensively in the North Island, but not venturing further south than Marlborough. While he was here, he continuously ab-

sorbed the traditions of the Maoris, and took particular interest in tribal and racial relations. All bis observations appear to have been made with meticulous accuracy, although he may have been a little credulous at times of what European settlers told him. There is no evidence that he travelled much in the Pacific, but he was certainly very well informed about most of the islands. It is startling to read a very wellargued case for a Mexican origin of the Maori, and unquestioning acceptance of some of the Kon-Tiki theories. It might be expected that Angas be biased towards -the “noble savage” attitudes, and this might explain his emphatic preference of the Maori over the Australian aborigine.

eHe seems to be scrupuir lously fair to both races, but 11 he does tend to make the is most of the numerous tales of e cannibalism, although this 7, did not deter him from venn turing into the less civilised >f regions. d Angas was a Romantic at e heart, and felt a natural e attraction to the New Zeay land landscape; he says In his it preface that he came here is “actuated by an ardent ad-' 1- miration of the grandeur and n loveliness of Nature in her i- wildest aspect.” This enif thusiasm dominates the whole 5- narrative, and although there is no important new disit covery to be credited to e Angas, this whole book is d generated by a mood of peri- sonal discovery, communica•i ted perfectly in his brilliant s. visual language. _