maori and pacific

Serious in Intent, Playful in Manner

April 1, 2018 Leave a Comment

Simone Oettli-van Delden

Sleeps Standing Moetū by Witi Ihimaera with Hēmi Kelly (Vintage, 2017), 221 pp., $35

This book defies simple definition. Its inputs are multiple. Primarily it is a book about the Battle of Ōrākau, the final and decisive onslaught of the Waikato land wars, in which 300 Māori men, women and children are estimated to have fought with outstanding bravery against 1700 or more British Imperial troops. The Māori warriors withstood constant bombardment by artillery for three days, from 31 March to 2 April 1864. Witi Ihimaera adds a contemporary touch by having the narrator Papa Rua and his sister, Hūhana, recount the tale to their nephew, a young Māori named Simon who lives in Australia and is keen to hear stories about his ancestors. Simon is particularly interested in Moetū, a nineteenth-century sixteen-year-old boy from the Rongowhakaata Iwi in Tūranga (Gisborne), because he and his pregnant wife want to name their unborn son after him. [Read more…]

Radical Acts of Transgression

November 1, 2017 Leave a Comment

Vaughan Rapatahana

Black Marks on the White Page, edited by Witi Ihimaera and Tina Makereti (Penguin Random House, 2017), 336 pp., $40

You can certainly judge a book by its cover, in this case. On the dust jacket of Black Marks on the White Page, starkly smudged in black and white, James Ormsby has depicted a marvellous indigenous historical panorama, incorporating a Pacific vista wider than the terms ‘Oceania’ or the so-called ‘Australasia’ might denote. I was also impressed by the stories and tales inside, sprawled across the white pages like internecine moko; they are universally compelling reading, both for their content and for the ways in which they are written. Almost all articulate distinctive indigenous Pasifika voices in refreshing refrains. Some are especially brilliant. [Read more…]

Tracing One Iwi’s Carving Style

February 1, 2017 Leave a Comment

Andrew Paul Wood

A Whakapapa of Tradition: One hundred years of Ngāti Porou carving, 1830–1930 by Ngarino Ellis with new photography by Natalie Robertson (Auckland University Press, 2016), 304 pp., $69.99

The arrival of Pākehā in Aotearoa was not a good thing for Māori whakairo taonga; vide the denuded whare of Ngāpuhi, their carved ancestors deemed pagan and too sensual by prudish missionaries. The more discerning Victorians castrated such carvings with hammer and chisel, which echoes down the ages as recently as 2010 when a local became distressed on a visit with his four children to Te Parapara Garden at the renowned Hamilton Gardens, when confronted by the symbolically heroic scale of the graven genitalia on display. Oh dear. Even carvings in the nation’s museums as late as the mid-twentieth century weren’t safe, and were given a generous coating of red enamel paint in the run-up to special occasions like royal visits. [Read more…]

Ask that Mountain

November 1, 2016 Leave a Comment

Gerry Te Kapa Coates

Te Whiti O Rongomai and the Resistance of Parihaka by Danny Keenan (Huia Publishers, 2015), 275 pp., $45

It is some time since I read Dick Scott’s Ask That Mountain, so Danny Keenan’s book is a welcome refresher, informed as it is by his ancestry, contacts and biography of Te Whiti in the Dictionary of NZ Biography. It is a readable, inspiring but ultimately sad tale about how colonial power and injustice was imposed on Māori. The book is well illustrated by present-day images of Parihaka, and a beautiful 1903 painting of Te Whiti by the artist and photographer James McDonald. The book starts slowly with a chapter on origins and whakapapa, and then gathers momentum. There are some minor quibbles regarding absences in the index and not quite enough mentions of dates to allow the reader to get a sense of chronological progress, but nevertheless this is a welcome addition to the canon of work on our greatest peaceful warrior, whose mana regarding ‘passive resistance’ equals that of Gandhi. [Read more…]

Have I Got Time to Look at This?

October 1, 2016 Leave a Comment

Max Oettli

A Beautiful Hesitation by Fiona Pardington, with Kriselle Baker and Aaron Lister and others (Victoria University Press, 2016), 264 pp., $70

Have I got time to look at this? Books of pictures always seem to have a time signature built into them, and from that point of view Fiona Pardington’s A Beautiful Hesitation is a very long book. The ‘score’ is clearly Adagio. You have to give it the time to unfold, to enable you to engage with at least some of the layers of meaning and beauty it contains. A Beautiful Hesitation has, for me, a whole weave of significations; it must be approached slowly and with respect. There is no quick spasm of ecstasy here; we’re in for the long haul.

Peter Ireland remarks in a slightly bitchy review of the accompanying exhibition on the EyeContact website that it is unusual and possibly dangerous to do mid-career survey exhibitions, feeling that they can ‘suddenly clarify nagging doubts about an artist’s general approach, and begin to settle questions about the depth of the philosophic and conceptual claims made for their work’. Seems a good idea to me here, actually, as it does mark a kind of mid-career milestone in this artist’s chequered and varied output. As for the book, sumptuous and well made it certainly is, with immaculate reproductions, good editorial calls, and an important typographic contribution by the artist’s brother (and also a photographer) Neil Pardington. [Read more…]