A HEADBAND FIT FOR A QUEEN

Te Ao Hou, Royal Tour 1953, Page 52

Women's World A HEADBAND FIT FOR A QUEEN by Beatrice Ashton One of the Coronation gifts the Maori people sent Her Majesty the Queen was a tipare or taniko headband. It was not difficult to find out whose skilled fingers made the headband for the Queen, but quite impossible to persuade the maker to enjoy any publicity. ‘Just say that I'am a member of the Wellington Maori Women's Welfare League … there are so many women who taniko as well as I do, and some of them much better …’ I asked her how she had become so expert. ‘Taniko is not so difficult!’ she said. ‘Once you have the patience to master the first steps, the rest is easy. About the time I left school in Rotorua I watched my aunt making a taniko belt. When I asked her to teach me how to make one for myself I certainly didn't realise that I was giving up one whole day of my young life! My aunt wouldn't let me stop until I had managed the first steps, and by the end of the first day I was in tears.’ It is her opinion that anyone should be able to learn the fundamentals of taniko in one day with or without tears, but that the hard thing is to master the weaving of the main fabric—the body work. Taniko is an art that has always been handed on from one expert to another, but now that Mr Mead's book Taniko Weaving is available I asked what she thought of it as a guide. ‘I think it is very good and easy to follow once a person has had one lesson. There is a knack to taniko that you can really learn only from watching someone working.’ Indeed, she told me that the old taniko experts jealously covered their work from the curious eyes of their friends who could take in a new pattern at a glance. Some even went so far as to camouflage the true pattern by combining another design with it, so that only a close examination would reveal the secret. Like their great-great-grandmothers, modern

taniko experts are always on the look-out for new designs. ‘I'm a conservative, and can't be bothered with the fern-leaf and star patterns,’ she told me, ‘though I'm tempted to try a Fair Isle design because the bases of taniko and Fair Isle are very similar. For the Queen's headband I went to the Museum, and studied the old designs, and then set the patterns off on a very solid black background. Any expert in Maori design would recognise the patterns I used immediately.’ We discussed the many possibilities for using taniko. The modern materials, macramé twine and hanks of silk thread, are as far from the patiently prepared flax fibres used originally as the modern wallet is from the ancient cloaks with their taniko borders. But more and more women are learning to taniko through the efforts of the Maori Women's Welfare League, and experiments are being made with circular weaving, which is a complete departure from the traditional method. Coin purses, serviette rings, watchbands and belts have been made from taniko for many years, but the modern taniko worker is always discovering new ways to apply her art. The fabric is firm, even stiff, and it makes excellent panels for leather bags and good, heat-resistant table mats, and it has been used as cuffs for gloves and jackets. Taniko has decorative possibilities for shoes and sandals if some commercial firm were enterprising enough to use it. The idea of putting taniko to commercial use led us to discuss the desirability of making it available to the tourist market. ‘I have always regarded taniko as something special. I've often been asked to sell some of my work, but I feel I should lose a lot of pleasure if I began to make money out of it. If I did my work on an assembly line basis the pleasure of working out the design, and of giving something creative and unique would disappear. But nowadays the interest in taniko is very wide, especially among pakehas, and I'm sure the time will come when it is sold commercially.’ In the beginning a certain amount of tapu attached to taniko, and even in her lifetime certain rules were observed. ‘My aunt used to do her taniko only in the day-time—a rule I have broken long since. But one piece of advice I always observe. She used to say that aho tapu, the first line in taniko, is your brain-child, the beginning of your design, and that you must carry that line right to the end without stopping.’ It is a long way from Wellington to Buckingham Palace, but the gift chosen for Her