JOHN RUTHERFORD

Turnbull Library Record, Volume 7, Issue 1, 1 May 1974, Page 15

JOHN RUTHERFORD

Ormond Wilson

Among recent acquisitions in the Turnbull art collection is a portrait, from a series of London ‘street characters’ painted about 1830 by George Scarf, of the one-time pakeha Maori, John Rutherford. It shows him carrying a bowl of nuts in one hand and a gambling board in the other. 1 His face is heavily tattooed in Maori fashion and tattooing of a symmetrical hatched design is shown on his left wrist and lower forearm. From its detail and precision we may assume the portrait to be a careful likeness.

In The New Zealanders by G. L. Craik (a work published anonymously in 1830 by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge) there is another portrait of Rutherford ‘from an original drawing taken in 1828’. 2 It is reproduced here. Though in style and quality, and probably also as a likeness, it is much inferior to the oil painting, the tattooing on the face and forearm show the same designs. Each therefore confirms the accuracy of the other. As far as the body tattooing is concerned we have Craik’s assurance that it too is accurately represented. 3

The circumstances under which Rutherford acquired his tattooing and his subsequent adventures in New Zealand purport to be told in two somewhat divergent published accounts. They appear, in very brief outline, in an eight page leaflet (one edition dated 1829, the other undated) 4 and, at length, in Craik’s work. 5 This latter account is in turn based on a manuscript which Craik says Rutherford (who was illiterate) dictated to a ‘friend’ during his return voyage to England, supplemented by additional information Craik gleaned during discussions with the seaman in January 1829, when the two of them went through the MS and Rutherford elaborated on aspects of it. 6

One doubt must immediately arise in the mind of any reader of the pamphlet and of the passages from the MS actually quoted by Craik. Neither present Rutherford’s story in the language of an illiterate seaman. Like an engraving done from a painting or a police statement of a suspect’s interrogation they are obviously touched up by the author. Though Craik refers to some ‘grammatical solecisms’ in the MS, 7 none appear in the published version. However, in view of Craik’s statement that they went through the document together we must assume that it conveys what Rutherford wished to say. Whether he likewise confirmed the accuracy of the pamphlet we have no means of knowing.

Craik describes Rutherford as £ a person of considerable quickness, and great powers of observation. . . . His manners were mild and courteous; . . . and he was evidently a man of very sober habits. . . . He greatly disliked being shown for money, . . .’. 8 Such a description would hardly seem appropriate to a man who had just won himself space in the Sydney Gazette and the Australian which on 5 December 1828 both published

the same small news item: ‘A fellow named Rutherford, who was shipwrecked on the coast of New Zealand, and was tattooed and naturalized among the natives, is now in London, practising the trade of a pickpocket under the character of a New Zealand Chief.’

Perhaps Craik may be excused for presenting Rutherford in rather too favourable a light. The work on which he was then engaged is a study of the manners and customs of the New Zealanders in so far as these had, at that date, been described in published works, together with Craik’s own reflections on various similarities and contrasts with other primitive peoples gleaned principally from classical writings. Apart from an account of Te Pehi’s visit to England in 1826 given him by a Dr Traill who had befriended the chief in Liverpool, 9 Craik had access to no other source material. It is not surprising therefore that he should be excited and deeply impressed by the personal record of a seaman who had actually lived with a Maori tribe and could give a firsthand report on tribal life as seen from within—and still more by the opportunity to talk with the man himself. In consequence, Rutherford emerges as his chief exhibit and throughout the book Craik illustrates the accounts of explorers, travellers and missionaries by reference to Rutherford’s comments. Rutherford’s own story of his adventures is spread over several chapters and is frequently used as a peg on which Craik could hang his own reflections. Sometimes indeed it is unclear whether Craik’s or Rutherford’s opinion is being expressed. For the most part however the actual narrative is placed within quotation marks and is presumably printed more or less verbatim (allowing for some additional touching up of style) from the MS.

Without the accounts of Te Pehi in England and Rutherford in New Zealand Craik’s book would today possess only antiquarian interest. It is not possible for us, however, to accept Rutherford’s story, as Craik did (and James Drummond, whose John Rutherford the White Chief consists mainly of extracts from Craik), without making some effort to test its validity*.

W. L. Williams long ago disposed of Rutherford’s explanation of how he found himself in New Zealand and of his claim to have lived from 1816 to 1826 on the east coast. 10 There are in any case discrepancies between the version told in the pamphlet and the MS used by Craik. One must therefore suppose that when Rutherford came to tell his story to the compiler of the pamphlet he had forgotten some of the details related earlier to the writer of the MS. Presumably also the pamphlet had not appeared, or Craik had not seen it, when he met Rutherford and so was not in a position to cross-examine the seaman on these discrepancies. Had he done so, doubts might have been aroused in his mind as to Rutherford’s reliability. But he could not have put forward the case

against Rutherford which W. L. Williams was able to establish sixty years later. Briefly stated, and ignoring discrepancies between the two versions, Rutherford claimed that in 1816 the American brig Agnes on which he was serving had been sacked by Maoris at a bay called ‘Tokomardo’ on the east coast, the captain and most of the crew killed and eaten, while the few survivors were forcibly tattooed. Thereafter Rutherford’s shipmates vanish from the scene, he himself was married to the two daughters of a local chief with whom he took part in various tribal wars and expeditions, until the appearance of another American vessel in 1826 gave him the opportunity to escape. In 1890, however, W. L. Williams reported that he could find no Maori tradition of any such dramatic event as the sack of the Agnes on the coast, nor of the chiefs Rutherford names or the events he describes. Williams points out that though Rutherford claimed to have met Pomare at East Cape he appeared to be quite ignorant of other Ngapuhi invasions which brought devastation to the district. Rutherford’s actual knowledge of the east coast, he remarked, appeared to be limited to one name only, Tokomaru. Obviously therefore his story must be treated as fictional. To this it may be added that among all the records available today no vessel of the name Agnes is reported to have been in New Zealand waters during the period concerned.

It is also apparent that Rutherford had only the haziest knowledge of New Zealand’s geography. He places Taranaki on Cook Strait, thus discounting any possible reliance on his account of a remarkable journey to this imaginary destination. 11 The only geographical details indicated with reasonable accuracy are the relative positions of the river Thames, the Hauraki Gulf, the Hokianga, the Bay of Islands and the site of the battle of Te Ika-a-Ranganui, at which he claimed to have been present. 12 W. L. Williams presumes that the whole of Rutherford’s account of his life in New Zealand was designed to conceal the actual truth: that he had deserted from a ship in the Bay of Islands and had spent his years there. Whether or not this assumption is correct Rutherford was certainly able to provide Craik with sidelights on Maori life —particularly the seamier aspects of it—and embedded among the fictional details of his life are references to actual people and events.

A difficulty in disentangling these facts from the fiction lies in the rendering of Maori names. That of his patron is given as Aimy and those of his two daughters, whom Aimy is said to have given him as wives, Eshou and Epecka. The name of another chief who appears several times is spelt Nainy while a third is written as Plama. 13 These may all be invented names, though Nainy could be a rendering of Nene. But of Rutherford’s list of chiefs killed at Te Ika-a-Ranganui, on both sides, only Hongi’s son, ‘Charly’ (Hare) is recognisable as a known casualty. Ewanna, Nainy, Ewarree, Tometooi, Ewarrehum and Erow do not correspond with any

names of the fallen recorded in the accounts collected by Percy Smith. 14 If Rutherford’s ‘Mootyi’ could be taken for the rendering his amanuensis gave to Moetara (who is recorded as being among the Hokianga contingent at the battle), there is no independent testimony that, as Rutherford declared, his two sons were killed there. If ‘Ewarrehum’ is to be read as Te Whareumu, he certainly survived the day.

Despite his years of residence in New Zealand Rutherford may never have acquired a proper feeling for the language, nor may the ear of his amanuensis have been attuned to its sounds. But when it comes to the names of known persons, Maori as well as European, most are transcribed in easily recognisable form. Though Rutherford does not admit to having encountered any of them nearer home than at Te Ika-a-Ranganui (in the Whangarei district) it is notable that they all, with one possible exception, belonged to the Bay of Islands or the Hokianga. Moreover, the minor details regarding them are all confirmed from other sources, or are in keeping with known facts. Pomare, for instance, and the missionary Kendall are described as living close to one another, and an interesting piece of additional information is given about Pomare: he was in possession of a cabin trunk with Captain Brind’s name, and his ship’s, on it. 15 In view of Brind’s predilection for chiefs’ daughters it would not be surprising if the company of one had been paid for in this currency.

Rutherford clearly found himself poised on the horns of a dilemma. It is natural enough that he should wish to spice his fictional narrative with little titbits of fact. His problem was that the only facts he knew concerning people and events all belonged to the north and he could not admit to personal contact with them there. His attempts to get round this difficulty were ingenious, but flawed, and the flaws betray him. Claiming to meet Pomare at East Cape, he said he saw the cabin trunk there. But even if an illiterate seaman could have recognised ‘Brind’ and ‘Asp’ stencilled or engraved on it, the likelihood of Pomare having brought this trunk all the way to East Cape seems remote. Still less likely is that he told a disreputable pakeha Maori that a missionary of the name of Kendall lived in his district in the Bay of Islands. Yet this is what Rutherford would have us believe.

So too he professes that it was at Te Ika-a-Ranganui he met John Marmon who then divulged his life story: that he was born at Port Jackson, had escaped from the naval vessel Tees in the Hokianga (within fifty miles of the Bay of Islands, as Rutherford mentions) and had acquired the daughter of Raumati for his wife —all of which details were subsequently recorded in Marmon’s reminiscences. l6 But when Rutherford reports that Marmon told him of the recent sack of a vessel at Whangaroa (it was the Mercury) he exceeds the bounds of credulity. The Hokianga party had passed through Kerikeri on its way to Te Ika-a-Ranganui on 9 February 1825. 17 The Mercury was not sacked until 6 March, 18 by which

time the expedition would be out of reach of such news. So, too, Rutherford had to profess not to be able to recognise Hongi at Te Ika-a-Ranganui and to ask for him to be pointed out. But he cannot resist giving a potted history of Hongi’s trip to England, and in a passage which reads as if it may have been inserted by Craik in response to an inquiry, during their conversations, as to what he thought of Hongi, Rutherford altogether forgot that he was supposed to know nothing of local affairs in the Bay of Islands: ‘I still consider him to be one of the most ferocious cannibals in his native country. He protects the missionaries who live on his ground entirely for the sake of what he can get from them.’ 19 Rutherford’s perspicacity betrays him.

The most intriguing of his avowed encounters with fellow countrymen is his account of meeting a young man, ‘James Mowry’, well tattooed, who said he had lived eight years in New Zealand and who now spoke Maori better than he did English. This meeting is supposed to have taken place at Taranaki on Cook Strait, where Rutherford watched anxiously for a ship by which he might escape the country. 20 In fact, the likelihood of a ship being seen at this period—about 1824 —off either Cook Strait or the Taranaki coast is as remote as the chance that a pakeha Maori was living in either district. ‘James Mowry’ sounds very like James Maori or, more probably, Maori Jim —rendered in Maori as Hemi Maori, as Rutherford would have heard it. This in turn suggests that he could have been the ‘Jim’ who appears briefly in Marmon’s reminiscences of his early days in the Hokianga, probably late in 1824. They were then, Marmon says, the only Europeans living there. 21

Two other clues point also to Rutherford living in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands. Professing to reach Te Ika-a-Ranganui from the south he necessarily had to place his tribe among the Ngatiwhatua forces. But, as W. L. Williams points out, he gave victory to his own side, and Ngapuhi were undoubtedly the victors. The slip could easily enough be made if Rutherford had in fact been with one of the Ngapuhi contingents. In this case he could have been the runaway seaman mentioned in a detailed account of the expedition given to George Clarke by one of Hongi’s followers, Pakira. 22

Runaway seaman, shipwrecked mariner or escaped convict? The question is merely of academic interest except in so far as one seeks an explanation for his elaborate efforts to cover up his tracks. These suggest that he had something disreputable to hide, though the evidence of his having returned voluntarily to New South Wales both before and after the New Zealand episode implies that he had committed no offence punishable at law. It is an odd aspect of Rutherford’s narrative that only the accounts of his arrival in New Zealand and of his sojourn here appear to be entirely fictional. The leaflet provides merely an abbreviated report of his move-

ments between leaving England in 1815 and returning there some twelve years later. In the MS however, or at least in his conversations with Craik, additional details were supplied—details which can be checked against recorded shipping movements and other historical facts. One may discount his dramatic story of escaping from his tribe on the American brig Avenger, Captain Jackson, bound for California, and the ship itself does not appear among shipping records available here. But Rutherford gives satisfactory evidence of having reached Tahiti and of spending at least some months there in 1826. Whether, as he claims, he persuaded the missionary Pritchard to marry him to a Tahitian woman, and whether he acted as interpreter to ‘Captain Peachy, of the Blossom sloop of war’, is immaterial. Unless however he had been in Tahiti at this time he could hardly have known of George Pritchard’s presence (he had arrived only in 1824) 23 nor of F. W. Beechey’s voyage of exploration in the naval vessel Blossom which spent March and April 1826 at Tahiti. 24

Rutherford says he left Tahiti in January 1827 for Port Jackson on the Macquarie, Captain Hunter. The vessel is in fact recorded as arriving at Port Jackson from Tahiti in November 1826, and though neither the name of the master nor the muster of the crew on this voyage have been located, John Hunter had captained the Governor Macquarie at least from 1821 till 1825. 25 Rutherford’s story, allowing for a slight error of date, is therefore probable enough. Certainly he was in Sydney early in 1827: he could not otherwise have known of the return from New Zealand, in February that year, of Herd’s abortive expedition to found a colony here. 26

Some of the details in Rutherford’s account of his subsequent return to England via Hobart and Rio, particularly of the interest taken in him by consular officials and of financial assistance from benevolent patrons, read like embellishments intended to impress Craik. The verifiable nugget of fact is that the naval vessel Blanche, on which he claimed to have sailed from Rio to Spithead, returned to England after three years’ duty at South American stations in September 1827, 27 and Rutherford was undoubtedly back in England by the end of 1828.

Rutherford’s account of how he spent the years before reaching New Zealand also includes some useful clues. Any attempt to check on the details of his life before 1815 would be unprofitable and irrelevant, but the particulars he gives of his voyage out from England that year seem to dispose of the possibility of his serving a convict sentence. The absence of his name from the list of convicts on the Ocean (‘John Rutherford’ could be an alias) is less conclusive evidence than his own statement that he sailed on the vessel—an unlikely admission if he had been a prisoner rather than a seaman. And though the figure he gives of the ship’s tonnage is not exactly correct, nor his date of its departure, his knowledge that the voyage which ended at Port Jackson on 30 January 1816

had included a stop at Rio provides further confirmation that he was aboard. 28 On the other hand, while apparently accurate enough up to this point, Rutherford’s own account of his movements thereafter disproves the claim that he arrived in New Zealand this same year. Craik quotes Rutherford as mentioning a couple of trading voyages from Port Jackson into the South Seas, the second of which was made on the three masted schooner Magnet, Captain Vine, and as saying that he left this ship at Hawaii, to be taken on board the Agnes a fortnight later. 29 Even if the Agnes story had been true the date could not have been earlier than 1819. Cumpston lists the Magnet, answering Rutherford’s description, under the command of G. Vine, as making several voyages between Port Jackson and China on one of which, departing from Port Jackson in September 1819, it sailed first for the South Seas. 30 This presumably was the voyage on which Rutherford joined it. On the assumption that having deserted from the Magnet at some port of call in the Pacific he was picked up by another vessel from which in turn he deserted at the Bay of Islands, he could hardly have landed there earlier than the beginning of 1820. This would allow him six years in New Zealand, not ten —but still ample time to achieve a reasonable command of the Maori language, to attain sufficient insight into the Maori way of life to excite Craik, and to acquire that facial tattooing.

So far as documentary evidence goes, unless some chance discovery unveils further details of his life, this is as much of Rutherford’s unimportant and somewhat unsavoury career as we are likely to be able to hold against him. Speculation on two aspects of it seem nevertheless permissible, even to be called for. One is the reason for his tortuous and, we may now suppose, fruitless efforts to disguise the manner of his arrival in New Zealand and the district in which he lived, and the other is the origin of the tattooing on his body. The first can merely be a matter of guess-work; the answer to the second, on the basis of Rutherford’s own story and its supporting evidence, was presumably Tahiti. But some other Polynesian source cannot, on the record of his movements, be ruled out. We can be fairly certain that he was not picked up at Hawaii by a vessel called Agnes —or certainly not brought to New Zealand in such a one. We have no independent evidence that he left the Magnet at Hawaii, nor that wherever he did in fact desert from it, he remained there merely a fortnight. Six months or a year, reducing his time in New Zealand by an equivalent period, could easily have been spent anywhere in the ‘South Seas’ at which a trading vessel, in search of sandalwood, sealskins, tortoiseshell or other items useful in the China trade, might call. The question thus poses itself: can that indelible evidence, his nonMaori but apparently Polynesian tattooing, be traced to a particular island or island group? Fools rush in. . . . This researcher innocently supposed that a corn-

parison with illustrations of various Polynesian tattoo patterns would give an answer as readily and surely as a mere glance at his facial tattooing confirms that it is of Maori origin. It quickly became apparent, however, that in contrast to the wealth of material on other Polynesian art forms, and to the many comparative studies of artifactual and linguistic variations among different island groups, no comprehensive study of Polynesian tattooing had been published and that the records of distinctive tattoo patterns in different areas were of uneven quality. And though descriptions of such patterns, often conflicting, abounded in the journals and reports of explorers, travellers and even missionaries, only in the case of Marquesan tattooing were illustrations to be found comparable in range and quality with the wealth of Maori examples available. 31

Thanks at this point to the competent assistance of Mr Murray-Oliver one admirable unpublished document came to light: a thesis presented in 1965 for a master’s degree at the University of Hawaii, of which the Turnbull Library held a microfilm copy. 32 This, as the author claimed, being the first study of Polynesian tattooing as a whole it might hopefully rescue a swimmer in uncharted water by now far out of his depth. The hope exceeded the realisation. The thesis offered insufficient firm evidence of the various Polynesian tattoo styles and patterns to identify Rutherford’s; it did however provide enough to eliminate the majority. On various grounds it seemed extremely unlikely 1 that he could have acquired his particular markings in Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands or any of the lesser islands or island groups. Hawaii, the Marquesas and Tahiti remained possibilities.

On the basis of an excellent bulletin published by the Bernice P. Bishop Museum Hawaii seemed improbable. 33 Though it gave evidence of many variations in style over the years and in different localities, two general features appeared to characterise Hawaiian tattooing, and neither the descriptions of large geometric patterns, often roughly executed, nor the illustrations of naturalistic representations of familiar objects (European introductions as well as indigenous flora and fauna) corresponded in the slightest degree with the designs on Rutherford’s body. As between a Marquesan and a Tahitian origin the problem then intensified. Even, as investigation proceeded, a Maori origin for the whole of Rutherford’s tattooing (to which he apparently laid claim) seemed not altogether out of the question. While the vast majority of illustrations of Maori tattooing conform to the normal spiral pattern on face, buttocks and thighs, exceptions have been noted. Two illustrations, one belonging to Cook’s first visit 34 and the other to d’Urville’s in 1840, 35 show facial tattooings of predominantly straight vertical lines, overlaid with only slight spiral designs, and as late as 1905 James Cowan sketched two South Island Maoris with parallel horizontal lines across the cheek. 36 Possibly Cowan went too far in speculating on the basis of his two cases that the spiral pattern had

superseded an earlier geometric style, though this might explain the other more striking deviations from the typical eighteenth and nineteenth century designs. More relevantly to this particular discussion, might one ask whether, in view of these recorded exceptional cases, Rutherford’s might not be another?

On the evidence of reliable illustrations, however, Rutherford’s bodily tattooing—and specifically those circular designs on his chest and the closely woven pattern on his forearm—correspond very nearly with some in Karl von den Steinen’s great work on Marquesan tattooing. 37 Exact correspondence is not to be looked for. No two tattoo patterns, anywhere in Polynesia, seem ever to have been precisely identical. The general style and the use of particular features distinguish the tattooing of one island group from another. The specific application of this style and these features, and their arrangement on different parts of the body, distinguished one man from another. Individuals might be recognised as well by their distinctive tattoo patterns as by their facial and bodily features. But if details of Rutherford’s tattooing match details to be found in the Marquesas, in one general respect his differs conspicuously. A remarkable feature of Marquesan tattooing was its density, often covering the whole body—like a coat of mail, as a note in Cook’s journal put it. 38 Moreover, those flowing lines, stemming from the discreetly concealed base of Rutherford’s belly, or from his thighs, do not match the usual Marquesan style. Thus, by a process of elimination, the inquiry was driven back to explore the most likely source of all: Tahiti.

At this point a word of apology is due. A devious approach to the obvious was not embarked on voluntarily. It became necessary only when a search of Tahitian material in the Turnbull Library disclosed that despite the vast output of books on this other Cythera, references to Tahitian tattooing were few and reliable illustrations even fewer. Those referred to by Sparks in his thesis are, as he rightly remarks, among the most confusing in the literature of Polynesian tattooing. 39 One painting, purporting to depict the cession of Matavai to the missionaries, does indeed include tattooing on the bodies of some Tahitians with circular designs highly reminiscent of Rutherford’s. Sparks, properly, makes no mention of this picture: it was painted by a Royal Academician, and even its inclusion in an otherwise reputable book by the Rev. William Ellis can hardly be taken as authenticating its details. 40 Other illustrations, from Cook’s first voyage, are no more conclusive. Many Tahitians, it seems, appeared to be wearing black pants and one of Banks’s artists sketched this particular form of tattooing. 41 But whether Rutherford had been decorated in like manner we have no means of telling. The head of a Tahitian by Parkinson, on the other hand, with a tattooed collar not so unlike Rutherford’s armlet, comes to us only in the form presented by an engraver who used the broadest of hatchings 42 One would like to see

Parkinson’s original drawing before placing reliance on this clue in isolation. What seems to be much the fullest —and because it was written about the time of Rutherford’s visit there, what ought to be the most relevant—account of Tahitian tattooing is provided by Ellis. Though he tried to suppress tattooing itself he did so, he says, because of the ‘immoral practices’ invariably associated with the process. Unlike his fellow missionaries in New Zealand he nevertheless permitted himself to admire those Polynesian examples of the tattooing art which he regarded as simple, tasteful and elegant. Tahitian, he considered, fulfilled these criteria. ‘Though some of the figures are arbitrary, such as stars, lozenges, &c.; the patterns are usually taken from nature, and are often some of the most graceful. A cocoa-nut tree is a favourite object; and I have often admired the taste displayed in the marking of a chiefs’ legs, when I have seen a cocoa-nut tree correctly and distinctly drawn, its root spreading at the heel, its elastic stalk pencilled as it were along the tendon, and its waving plume gracefully spread out on the broad part of the calf.’

Ellis also described tattooing on the feet which gave the appearance of an ‘elegant Eastern sandal’ and lines up the side of the legs which appeared like the seams of pantaloons. ‘From the lower part of the back, a number of straight, waved, or zigzag lines, rise in the direction of the spine, and branch off regularly towards the shoulders. But, of the upper part of the body, the chest is the most tataued. Every variety of figure is to be seen here. Cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees, with convolvolus wreaths hanging round them, boys gathering the fruit, men engaged in battle, in the manual exercise, triumphing over a fallen foe; or, as I have frequently seen it, they are represented as carrying a human sacrifice to the temple. Every kind of animal—goats, dogs, fowls, and fish—may at times be seen on this part of the body; muskets, swords, pistols, clubs, spears, and other weapons of war, are also stamped upon their arms or chest.

‘They are not all crowded upon the same person, but each one makes a selection according to his fancy; and I have frequently thought the tatauing on a man’s person might serve as an index to his disposition and his character.’ And finally, while confessing that despite the chiefly edict against tattooing, young men still sometimes had it done, Ellis claimed that the commonest offenders at this time of writing (apparently about 1821) were foreign seamen ‘who often evinced as great a desire to have some figure tataued on their arms or hands, as the natives themselves’. 43 That side-swipe against his own countrymen apart, could any verbal picture—so typical of many romantic accounts of Tahiti and the Tahitians—present an image more different from Rutherford’s actual patterns? Certainly Ellis mentioned ‘stars, lozenges, &c.’ and ‘straight, waved or zigzag lines’, both emphasised by Cook and Banks, who wrote of indented

arches ‘drawn one over another as high as the short ribs’ 44 —which might indeed be taken as descriptive of the designs on Rutherford’s chest and belly. But without even a hint of those blackened buttocks or the coconut tree on legs and back, could one with any certainty ascribe a Tahitian origin to his tattooing?

Before at this point giving up any hope of identifying it there seemed to be only one last straw to clutch at. In the bibliography Sparks included with his thesis he listed an article on ‘Tatu in the Society Islands’ by H. Ling Roth, published in the Royal Anthropological Institute Journal of 1905. Prospects of its usefulness were slight. Though a diligent researcher Roth would have seen no Tahitian tattooing himself. Nor indeed did the article itself do more than report on already familiar source material. It also however included illustrations, and along with those from Cook’s voyage, already mentioned, Roth presented the Craik portrait of Rutherford. But this, lacking any authority for its inclusion, merely begged the question. Then followed another page of illustrations, brilliantly exemplifying Roth’s flair for locating unlikely clues. In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London he had found preserved portions of tattooed skin taken from the body of a Tahitian who died in England in 1816 45 At once the verbal descriptions offered by Cook, Banks and Ellis sprang to life. The patterns are by no means so precise, nor do they exactly correspond with the shapes and designs in Craik’s engraving. But taken along with that other engraving of the Tahitian portrait by Parkinson all those separate elements—the hatching on Rutherford’s arm, the arches on his belly and, most surprising but also most conspicuously, the elaborate circular designs on his chest —could at last find similarities in authentic Tahitian counterparts.

Rutherford’s tattooing having been identified it remains only to speculate on the fictional aspects of his story. In part it was probably invented out of a desire for sensationalism: to have his ship sacked and most of the crew eaten would be more newsworthy than merely to confess that he had deserted from it; to claim forcible tattooing in New Zealand more dramatic than to admit that he had voluntarily undergone the operation in New Zealand and Tahiti. But mere desertion from a ship—common enough in the Bay of Islands even by 1820—hardly justifies the elaborate attempt to cover up his tracks. Some shocking offence while here which he expected to gain more notoriety than it actually did seems indicated. None would be more horrifying to his countrymen, no less to the disreputable among them than the respectable, than participation in a cannibal feast. The battle of Te Ika-a-Ranganui would have been his opportunity. His sense of shame afterwards, particularly if word got round the Bay of Islands that the runaway seaman who accompanied Hongi’s forces had so degraded himself, could induce him to flee the country at the first opportunity, and afterwards to pretend

he had never been near the Bay —though he could not resist talking about the battle, probably the only one he had witnessed. He may then also have adopted, as an additional cover, the name by which he is known to us. This would explain one missing link in the chain of evidence by which some dozen years of his life have here been traced. The Mitchell Library holds musters of the crew on all the outward voyages of the Magnet between 1815 and 1821, but the name Rutherford is not among them. 46 We must then either believe that it was not his real one, adopted only when he left New Zealand, or else all the substantiated details in his story cease to offer proof of his direct involvement in them. Even, in this case, his account of Maori life and his report on people and events in the Bay of Islands might be considered suspect. If he knew only of the Magnet, the name of its master, and its voyage to the South Seas by hearsay, then, it could be supposed, he knew only of New Zealand and Tahiti in the same way—or could be so supposed but for the indelible evidence on face and body. Whatever else is fiction, the portrait proves that he lived among the Polynesian people of those islands.

References 1 For identification of artist’s name, details of portrait and other incidental information see G. A. O. Fox Bibliographical Notes on John Rutherford & Barnet Burns published by History & Bibliography, Christchurch 1950. The Turnbull portrait was from the Fox collection 2 Craik op cit p 87 3 Ibid p 143 4 See Fox op cit for details. ATL holds the undated edition and also a photocopy of a later pamphlet which is almost an exact reprint of the references to Rutherford in Craik’s book, Craik’s asides and all, though one section, more briefly summarised by Craik, appears to be printed in extenso from the Rutherford MS 3 Craik pp 86-97, 114, 134-7, 155-9, 191-8, 214-6, 246-7, 251-6, 274-9 6 Ibid p 278 7 Ibid p 86 s Ibid p 278 9 Ibid pp 317-36 10 W. L. Williams ‘The Story of John Rutherford’, Transactions of the New Zealand Institute Vol 23 (1890) pp 458-61 11 Craik pp 214-5 42 Ibid pp 247, 251-6 43 Ibid pp 155, 196-7 14 Ibid p 255; S. Percy Smith Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century (1910) pp 343-4 46 Craik p 215 16 Ibid pp 251-2; Marmon’s reminiscences were printed in the New Zealand Herald at intervals between 9 October & 11 December 1880. (A totally different version, published in part in the Auckland Star and in full in the Otago Witness appears to be mainly fictional.) 17 James Kemp Journal, 9 February 1825 (APL) 18 James Stack Journal, 6 March 1825 (Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society microfilm in ATL)

19 Craik pp 252-3 20 Ibid pp 214-5 21 New Zealand Herald 16 October 1880 22 George Clarke Journal, 7 September 1825 (Hocken Library MS 60/92) 23 F. Boase Modern English Biography Vol II Col 1649 21 F. W. Beechey Voyage to the Pacific & Beering’s Strait Vol I pp 267-312 25 Cumpston op cit pp 126, 136, 150, 154, 157. Australasian Almanack, 1827 p 165 20 Australian 14 February 1827 27 O’Byrne’s Naval biography p 755 28 Craik pp 87-8; for Rutherford’s information about the Ocean see the pamphlet p 2. (The statement there that he left the Ocean at Rio is incompatible with the fuller account of his travels reported by Craik.) Cumpston op cit records details of the Ocean. Neither Mitchell Library list of convicts on the voyage (AO 4/4005) nor its ‘lndexes to Convict Indents 1801-1818’ (AO COD 6) gives his name. 29 Craik p 88 30 Cumpston op cit pp 111, 117, 124, 127 31 Two major works on Marquesan tattooing are: Karl von den Steinen Die Marquesaner und Ihre Kunst Vol I (Berlin 1925) & W. C. Handy Tattooing in the Marquesas (Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulletin No. 1, 1922). Illustrations in the first are taken from paintings done in the early part of the nineteenth century and from von den Steinen’s own photographs taken in 1897; in the latter they are based on photographs of men still alive in 1921. There is no substantial difference between any of them.) 32 R. W. Sparks ‘Polynesian Tattooing’ (unpublished thesis in University of Hawaii, microfilm in ATL) 33 K. P. Emory ‘Hawaiian Tattooing’ in Bernice P. Bishop Museum Occasional Papers Vol XVIII (1946), No 17, pp 241-6 34 J. C. Beaglehole (Ed) Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks Vol II Plate 7 35 Dumont d’Urville Voyage Pittoresque autour du Monde (Paris 1839) facing p 379, (the artist is de Sainson) 36 James Cowan Maoris of New Zealand pp 192-3 37 See particularly von den Steinen op cit pp 67, 70, 90 38 J. C. Beaglehole (Ed) Journals of Captain James Cook Vol II p 373 (note 1) 39 Sparks op cit p 44 40 William Ellis Polynesian Researches (1829) Vol I facing p 64 (the artist is Robert Smirke) 41 Banks Endeavour Journal Vol I Plate 21 42 Sydney Parkinson Voyage to the South Seas Plate VII 43 Ellis op cit Vol II pp 464-6 44 Cook Journals Vol I p 125; Banks Endeavour Journal Vol I pp 335-6 45 Royal Anthropological Institute Journal Vol XXV (1905) pp 383-6 & Plates XXIII & XXIV 46 Mitchell Library ‘Ships & Vessels Muster Book December 1816-June 1821’ (AO 4/4771)