A STRANGE TRADE

Otago Witness, Issue 3596, 13 February 1923, Page 22

A STRANGE TRADE

DEALS IN MAORI HEADS. (By T. Dunbabin in Sydney Sun ) In 1814, the year in which Senior Chap“n Marsden first preached the Gospel to the heathen of New Zealand and brought back a cargo of pork and pine, another pioneer showed something new in art to the connoisseurs and dealers of Sydney, lhis was \A iliiam Tucker, to whom the South Island Maoris amongst w'liom he had lived for some time had given the more poetical name of Wioree. Amongst other articles of trade Wioree brought up with him a masterpiece of savage art. On an oval surface had been traced a bewildering variety of designs in which a spiral that might have been inspired by the just uncurling baby fronds of the tree-fern was conspicuous. Other curved lines recalled the arabesques of Moslem art, while the colour scheme was a rich blue on the brown ground. it was, in fact, a Maori head, a fine specimen of the tattoer’s art, carefully smoke-dried and preserved. Art collectors were rare in the Sydney of that day, but such a work as this was bound to attract respeettul attention. If local patrons failed, there was a market overseas for such a treasure. Bo Wioree benefited by his enterprise to the extent of £2O, which gave a very fair profit on the few shillings’ worth of old iron which he had laid out for the head in New Zealand. But, like many another before and since, Wioree lost his head as a-result cf his success. In 1817 he sailed with James Kelly, master mariner, of Hobart Town, on a sealing and trading voyage to New Zealand The Otago Aiaoris, no doubt resenting Tucker’s earlier interference with the Dunedin art gallery of the day, fell upon the unlucky dealer and clubbed him to death. BOOM IN ART. In spite of this untoward ending for the pioneer in the popularisation of Alaori art, the trade in heads flourished apace. Dried heads scon took their place with pork, pine spars, and flax amongst the chief exports of New Zealand. It was not necessary to rob the tribal art galleries of the ancestral heads, for the eminent Alaori who loved a fight for its own sake, but liked to inake war pay, too soon took to this trade. After eating the rest of his slaughtered enemies he could, sell the heads to the Sydney traders at a good jpriee in gunpowder anti other munitions of war, and thus acquire the means of collecting more heads. j\ raid was an easier and more sporting way of securing muskets, powder, and tomahawks than the alternative of scraping flax or cutting and hauling spars. Sometimes a chief would enter into a contract to supply so many heads, at that moment still on their owners’ shoulders, taking payment in advance. He always tried to deliver the goods, but occasionaty lost his own -head instead. It is related of the chief Te Hiko that he used to parade his moving pictures before the dealers, who picked out the heads that pleased them best. Te Hiko would then have them taken off and nicely dried all ready for export. It must be admitted that trickery did occasionally creep into art, and that old masters were faked. Slaves were usually not tattooed, but some unscrupulous chiefs had the heads of their slaves specially tattooed, and then cut them off, dried them, and sold them as genuine works of art. Apart from the doubtful morality of this practice, the slaves sometimes ran away with their master’s property after their heads had been tattooed and before the next step was taken. One or two chiefs of the baser sort descended to even greater depths of trickery. They had the heads tattooed after they had been cut off, and tried to pass them off as genuine works of art. Such a fraud was soon detected, for tattoo marks made in this way faded after a short period. With the waves of war and slaughter which rolled over New Zealand just about a century ago as a result of the introduction of raids on a great scale by such chiefs as Hongi Ika and Te Rauparaha, the supply of heads began"’ to outrun the demand. The price, once as high as £2O. slumped to £2. Art was brought within the reach of the middle classes. In 1826, when the bottom was nearly out of the market, a Sydney merchant was walking down George street when he met a seaman with something rolled up in a handkerchief. Thinking that it was a coconut or some such thing from the islands, he asked the sailor what he was carrying. The latter obligingly unrolled the bundle and displayed a dried head with long black hair. This, he said, was the head of a New Zealander which he was going to sell for two guineas to a gentleman about to embark for England. EXPORTATION PROHIBITED Not long after this Governor Darling put his foot down. He prohibited under heavy penalties any importation of or dealing in Alaori heads.' Had the demand been really brisk the heads would no doubt have been smuggled into Sydney, but with the market so dull it was not worth while. In New Zealand itself there was a little deal in heads nearly 40 years later, but it was not a matter of art. During the Ilau-Hau outbreaks in Taranaki an officer, weary of chasing elusive Hau-Haus through the bush, and sickened by evidences of their savagery, said in the hearing of some

Maori auxiliaries that he would gladly pay £5 each fer the heads of the Hau-Haus. That night a little deputation of Maoris came to his tent bearing bags. They opened the bags, and out rolled a dozen IlauHau heads.