One hundred years of craft at Feathers and Fibre exhibition

Tu Tangata, Issue 6, 1 June 1982, Page 30

One hundred years of craft at Feathers and Fibre exhibition

Feathers and Fibre is an exhibition of traditional and contemporary Maori Craft to be mounted at the Rotorua Art Gallery, July 19th to August 22nd 1982. High quality and unusual items are being loaned by present day crafts people and by museums and private collectors, to demonstrate a wide range of techniques and fashions covering a time span of over a hundred years.

Plaiting, weaving, netting and wickerwork techniques are all included, and visitors will have the opportunity to study at first hand, changes that have occurred and those elements which have remained consistant in the crafts'.

The plants which provided the Eastern Polynesian ancestors of the Maori, with the raw materials for their clothing, basketry and fishing gear, were not available in New Zealand and the settlers were forced to find alternatives, of which harakeke, the so called New Zealand flax proved to be the most valuable.

Loomless weave

By . pair twining, sometimes called loomless or downward weaving (in loom weaving the work proceeds ‘upwards’ or away from the weaver), warm soft and beautiful garments were manufactured from the fibre. The traditional twining technique, already known in Island Polynesia, was developed and utilised on a much wider scale in New Zealand, being further sophisticated into coloured taniko borders which edge the finest cloaks.

Strips of flax leaf, and to a lesser degree, other materials were used to plait a wide range of mats and recepticals for specific purposes; crops were harvested in work baskets and other types were made to gather sea food. Special kits were made to carry loads on the back, to extract the juice of the tutu, to steep karaka kernals in water, to extract the oil of titoki and to store weaving materials. With changing life styles many of these have become obsolete, and museum specimens of these are to be included in the display.

Fine kits

Another focus is on the kete whakairo, the fine kits with decorative patterns. Modern examples borrowed from present day plaiters will be displayed alongside the work of the ancestors from museum collections.

Baskets made from other materials such as kiekie, paopao, houhi, pingao and cabbage tree are all to be included as are other minor artifacts such as sandals, fire fans, oven covers and surrounds, kites and food baskets, and netting and fish traps.

It is doubtful if an exhibition of this range and quality has been mounted before and besides its interest to the public and to crafts people in general, it will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and inspiration from examples from the past, for contemporary Maori plaiters and weavers.

The display is intended to show all

facets of fibre craft work both from museum collections, private collections, contemporary crafts people and others. Naturally the important areas of plaiting kete and floor mats and the weaving of cloaks and taniko will form a major part of the exhibition. In these areas the exhibition organisers are seeking to borrow specimens

of exceptional workmanship or unusual construction techniques, or outstanding and uncommon patterns and decoration. They would like to obtain specimens of netting and wickerwork such as is used for eel and crayfish pots and less common and often obsolete minor items such as kites, bird snares, sandals, fire fans and oven covers.

The Maori Queen, Dame Te Ata-i----rangi-kaahu, and her retinue were among the 5000 people who assembled at the Manu Ariki marae on the property of Mr Alex Phillips, chairman of the Te Kohitanga Building Society Inc at Okahukura, near Taumarunui, for the opening of a meeting House-dining room complex and the unveiling of a large carved wooden statue of the Madonna by the Maori queen.

After a ceremonial triple wero by three warriors and a karakia by Mr Sonny Waru, the queen’s party proceeded straight to the meeting house where Mr Henry Tuwhangai chanted the karakia to lift the tapu on the building. Dame Te Ata then proceeded to the statue which is reputed to be the biggest wooden statue in the Southern Hemisphere. As the curtains parted the intricately carved figure was revealed backed by a richly carved pole surmounted by a canopy. Behind the statue is a kowhaiwhai mural and in front are carved tekoteko representing each of the Maori districts.

The carved figure of the madonna has a foot resting on a pile of taniwha and even the feathers of her cloak are individually carved.

Te Kotahitanga Society originally announced the vision of the Madonna of the Waterfall near Te Kuiti and a party of Australians and Italians from Rome who have visited the waterfall, attended the unveiling and dedication service.

The meeting house complex, named Pareuira, is able to sleep 150 and the wharekai to seat 112. The complex was blessed and dedicated by representatives of eight denominations.

Hikurangi meeting house on the Wharauroa marae at Taumaranui had a much publicised start in life.

It was the meeting house used in the Television series, ‘The Governor’. Norman Selwyn of Taumaranui built the house for Television New Zealand to be used at the camera location of Manakau, Otaki.

Through the influence of his brother Don, a leading actor in the series, the meeting house was donated back to the Wharauroa marae after the previous house ‘Hikurangi’ burnt down in 1976.

Much of the framework of the television set was retained, with an extension at the rear of the house. The carving of the house was carried out under the guidence of Bill Johnathon using local talent.

Opened in October last year, Hikurangi is already providing great service to the people, with lots of school children using the facilities. Homework classes are held at night with weekend live-ins for the youth of the area.