‘Historical Bone Picking’

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 10, 10 November 1977, Page 5

‘Historical Bone Picking ’

The speech by Te Arikinui Dame Te Atairangikaahu D.B.E. opening the exhibition “The Two Worlds of Omai” at the Auckland City Art Gallery on 1 November 1977.

I enjoy visiting an art gallery. In quiet and uncrowded space one can contemplate and appreciate man’s finer achievements. Perhaps more than any other place, it is in an art gallery that the good that men do lives after them. Nature might well follow art, for there one does tend

to meet people appreciative of the fine, the noble and the beautiful. Perhaps because of the time they spend in that environment the Staff of the Art Gallery are specially sensitive. Mr Smith — for all assembled here — I would compliment and thank you and your Staff for arranging this imaginative and unique exhibition. Historians and biographers are another species altogether! By their bent and vocation, they disturb the dust, disinter what often should remain buried and rattle the bones (if the anthropologists and ethnologists have not got in previously). Furthermore, they seem intent on banishing the very dream-stuff of history. How trying it must be for the English to learn that King Canute really never tried to stem the tide; that Dick Whittington’s fortunes were never influenced by a cat; for New Zealanders to be told that the Great Fleet is the Great New Zealand Myth. And now, in spite of Sir Joshua Reynold’s magnificent portrait of Omai, the “noble savage” was really not quite either, and he became a celebrated figure merely through an accident of history. One suspects that historians should really not intrude into the art scene. However, had it not been for that eminent scholar, historian and writer, Dr E. H. McCormick, the bicentenary of Omai’s re-’ turn to his homeland might have slipped by — and consequently this exhibition which Dr McCormick inspired and researched. It hardly need be said that Dr McCormick haunts the art galleries of the world. I would also commend to you the anthropologist and ethnologist, Mr D. R. Simmons, who with expertise and knowledge, selected and gathered from throughout New Zealand, for this exhibition,, the artifacts — many of which were crafted by the descendants of those who arrived in the Great New Zealand Myth.

This Exhibition opens to us a view of 18th Century art from two worlds, thousands of miles and a thousand years apart. But it also opens a prospect. In Omai’s lifetime, the social capsule of the Pacific was broken open. Within fifteen years of Cook’s final visit Utopia, Arcady, another Eden, tikitiki-o-rangi, a terrestial paradise had suffered cultural shock and social disintegration. Through the 19th and 20th centuries, there has continued an awkward fumbling as Polynesian and European have tried to understand each other. In this city, where has gathered the largest concentration of the peoples of Te Moana nui a Kiwa — the Pacific — there is an Omai in every street. When reading Dr McCormick’s book, I noted the reflective comment by a young European scientist on meeting Omai: “I found it not unpleasant to see my right hand in the grasp of another coming from precisely the opposite end of the earth.” This Exhibition amalgamates the art from our respective origins. It seems a moment of mutual recognition, understanding and appreciation. Hopefully nature will follow art. And I am sure, that during the next 35 months of your illustrious tenure. Your Worship, you and your Councillors will continue your strenuous endeavours to accomodate in every way the peoples of our Pacific region and of your city. Tomorrow — two hundred years ago — Tute or Cook sails away from Huahine. Before he dies, Omai will never see another English face. Cook will never see England. They, and the artists of their two worlds have left us, in their respective ways, this rich legacy. We are indebted to them. And I to you, Your Worship, for the honour I have in declaring open this Exhibition, “The Two Worlds of Omai.”