Von Tempsky myths and his ‘ook’

Press, 7 August 1982, Page 15

Von Tempsky myths and his ‘ook’

American investors are interested in an epic movie based on a §650 tome about a legendary figure from New Zealand’s frontier days. BRIAN MACKRELL looks at

Major Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky, 1828-68, has always been something of a national pakeha hero: a swashbuckling frontiersman giving the Maori hell with carbine and bowie knife —

on a par with America's Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett.

His enemy reputedly feared and respected the man they dubbed Manu-rau (Many Birds), “because of the rapidity with which he could move from place to place in the forest when harrying them,” according to W. T. Parham, a 1969 biographer of von Tempsky.

But Maori nicknames for pakeha enemies were usually derisory not complimentary. “Man of War without Guns" and "The Lame Seagull” are two examples. “Many Birds." according to a Maori source, referred to the fact that a lookout on a highpoint could easily trace the progress of von Tempsky's Forest Rangers through the bush by the startled flocks of birds they sent up in their rapid and noisy movements!

The lookout would relay this information to his comrades in the bush by what von Tempsky himself writes of as “one of those highpitched shouts, half-song, half-scream, that travel distinctly over long distances, particularly from range to range.” The Maori fought Manurau when they wanted to, not as his Rangers’' “harrying" dictated, except on rare occasions when they were

taken by surprise. Confirmation of this may be found in von Tempsky’s own account of the fighting:

“At last, while the fire of our opponents had grown slacker, for very good reasons, a party was sent from our right flank to cut them off. We were to charge when the cheer of this party was heard. We rushed with frantic valour into the bush. The bush was calmer than ever.

“We traverse and jump from tree to tree. Strange is this bush fighting — mysterious: blue smoke, green leaves, perhaps a black head: cries, defiant, soul-rending. You hear perhaps — yes, you can hear them talking next door to you, coolly, familiarly, but you see nothing — nothing tanigble to grasp, to wrestle with.”

European myth-mongers have claimed that von Tempsky was more than a match for the Maori in the forest. But he was to die in that forest, killed by a Maori bullet.

Von Tempsky was born in Leignitz. now part of Poland, trained for war in a Berlin military school, and commissioned in the Royal Prussian Army in 1844. A restless, adventurous soul, he spent time in Central America, Mexico, and California before marrying an English girl, Emelia Bell, in 1855. By early 1858 he was the father of two sons, Randall and Louis. On the arrival of the latter he wrote to his own father: “Dear Papa, Hail Britannia! The battle is over — the victory is ours — represented in a chubby and smiling boy !!!!

“The battle commenced on Saturday 10 o’clock w'ith skirmishing. Mid-wife sent for as first reinforcement...

By three the battle commenced in good earnest, and shortly before five came the great struggle, followed by complete success — at five the boy was there.

“Emelia went through .all this, of course, and as it ever will be. like a brick! She is well, and so is the child.”

The family sailed to Australia the same year, von Tempsky lured by the gold of Victoria where, like many others, he had little luck. After the birth of a daughter, Lina, it was on to New Zealand in 1862 and the Coromandel gold fields. Again no luck with gold, but his exploits in the land 1 wars as a leader of the Forest Rangers were to immortalise a man described

by an Australian newspaper as having “an air of dash and bravado" and “a sash, in which were displayed a revolver and a showy bowieknife."

The latter was not simply for show. The Von supplied all his men with bowie knives at his own expense. They were used for marking bush tracks, and probably saved more than one Forest Rangers’ life in the hand-to-hand combat that sometimes ensued in the tangled rainforest.

It is obvious from his own records and correspondence that von Tempsky was keen for military glory and honours. He once wrote to the Superintendent of Wellington requesting his influence in getting the Victoria Cross for himself and a friend who had carried out a daring spy mission behind enemy lines. Von Tempsky probably deserved the decoration: his bravery is unquestionable and he was several times mentioned in dispatches. He was also an artist, of sorts, and the $650 volume now available from Alister Taylor Publishers features colour plates of his paintings which have a distinct “paint-by-numbers” quality. His action scenes depict Europeans, himself included, as allconquering heroes, while the Maori enemy appear as wildeyed savages being dispatched by sword, bayonet, and bullet.

This is fantasyland war, yet von Tempsky could write accurately about the reality: “It was the rum that kept us alive. We had so much wet, hard work, swimming and fording rivers and creeks ... On the enemy’s trail it was often unsafe to light a fire ... .because we never knew when we might have a volley poured into us ... We’d have been dead but for the rum.” He was later able to survive without the rum, as he wrote Emelia in early 1868: “My health is good ... As regards my determination to abstain from strong drinks, I do not find it difficult to adhere to it, although it is sometimes very hard to sit with dry mouth with others who are all making themselves tolerably comfortable

“I wish, though, that the religious element were stronger within me; this is for me a great difficulty. Now and again the hard worldly crust about my heart breaks, and I feel the nearness of God; but the opening closes again, and all seems darkness as before.”

Von Tempsky has been accused of being a ruthless racist, a man who encouraged his Rangers to loot captured villages and shoot fleeing opponents. Yet he had a respect for the toughness of his adversary and once saw to it that a Maori woman prisoner, who had tried to kill him, was allowed to escape.

In September, 1868, he died in Taranaki with a bullet through the brain in a forest battle with Titokowaru’s warriors. All this and more you can read about; and view the Von’s “art,” in “G.F. von Tempsky, Artist and Adventurer” — if you have $650 to spare. But is this monstrous. 37cm x 30cm, tome really a book? Or is it an “ook?” An ook is that which looks like but is not a true book. Oversized, over-weight, over-de-signed, and over-priced; they make ideal snob-appeal doorstops or coffee-table decorations.

Some people claim such ooks are ideal investments, hedges against inflation. Certainly this appears to have been the case with the first Goldie volume from the same publisher some years ago. Originally retailing at ?200 it now reputedly fetches up to $l5OO at auction — as long as there are interested buyers. Whether the von Tempsky tome will follow suit is debatable. Like all such "investments” it is a gamble. But von Tempsky himself would probably have been delighted with this monumental ook — and the Holly-wood-style movie, if it eventuates.