THE ORIGIN OF MAORI CARVING

Te Ao Hou, April 1958, Page 30

This Lintel from the carved house of Tawhitinui (now in Wanganui Museum) is an example of the art of the Wanganui River. The squares, oblongs and triangles on this carving, dating from the 1870's, would at first sight seem European, but Mr W. Phillipps (Carved Maori Houses, 1955) says that ‘the same general features exist on the oldest authentic river carving, the cenotaph Nga Rangiorehua, said to be over 120 years old’ and thinks the panel is a copy of an ancient type. (T.W. Downes photo) THE ORIGIN OF MAORI CARVING by SIR APIRANA NGATA We have obtained permission from Mr Henare Ngata, Sir Apirana's literary executor, to print this important unpublished essay on the origin of Maori carving. It was written around 1936, when Sir Apirana was deeply interested in Western and Northern carving styles because of his work on the Waitara carved meeting house. Although the text was not left ready for publication the thought of the essay is fully worked out and clear. Our text follows the original with a few very minor changes which he would undoubtedly have wished to make before publication. From 1933–36, Dr Gilbert Archey published several papers on Maori carving, one of which proved of very particular interest to Sir Apirana. This was ‘Wood Carving in the North Auckland Area’, printed in the Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum, Vol. 1, No. 4, p. 209 foll. This paper contained a passage dividing the Maori carving tradition into two main schools, one of them belonging to Rotorua and the East Coast, and the other to Northland, Taranaki and Hauraki. Both were regarded as of New Zealand origin. The main difference noted by Dr Archey was that in the latter areas human figures were more prominent and more naturalistic, and the intervening decorations generally less developed than in the Rotorua and East Coast styles. He put forward the theory that the carvings of the north-western areas are “related local schools of an art that is essentially Maori, an art that might even be considered as not very far removed from the generalised Polynesian habit of figure portrayal. “In the Bay of Plenty-Poverty Bay areas we find a different convention, both in the more stable attitudes of the human figures and in the general composition, these differences on the whole having to do with the greater perfection and increased use of the spiral. Even when human figures are used prominently in a design, the deeply carved spirals on their hips, shoulders and facial features not only reduce the prominence of the human form, but also frequently assert themselves above it. But it is in the intervening pierced detail of the Central-East Coast areas that the spiral has exerte its full sway, subduing and often almost eliminating the human figures, and certainly displacing them as the medium for conveying the sense of vigour and rhythm which the Maori carver of olden days seldom failed to express.”

Sir Apirana accepted most of these findings, but was anxious to find out the ultimate origin of the carving schools. In this essay, he puts forward the theory that originally there were not two Maori carving styles, but only one and he thought that the common centre lay somewhere between Whakatane and the East Coast. Here a tribe of Toi blood appears to have made carvings in the 14–16th, century in a style from which nearly all known Maori carving in New Zealand has been derived and this parent style would have been close to the styles described by Dr Archey for Northland, Taranaki and Hauraki, Northern carving died in the stone age, retaining most of its original characteristics while the Bay of Plenty-East Coast style was still alive at the time steel tools were introduced. It is likely that until then Eastern carving was in many respects fairly close to Northern. Steel tools brought to Eastern carving the burst of ornamentation by which it is distinguished to-day. Sir Apirana Ngata's essay puts forward this theory with a wealth of proof from old chants and traditions. Much of this will be new to the student, even though since 1936 many new facts have been uncovered showing a far greater variety of Maori carving styles than was then assumed to exist. The general reader will be fascinated to follow the workings of the great leader's mind and absorb some of his deep understanding of the essence of Maori culture. Sir Apirana Turupa Ngata (S. P. Andrew Photo)