21 Maori Treasures in American Museum Collections
21 Maori Treasures in American Museum Collections
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
For the month of May, Art of the Ancestors presents an assemblage of Māori arts from nine American institutions.
Māori arts, with well-chosen materials and beautiful surfaces, diverse forms, and often richly detailed overlay of patterning, are such that nothing beats experiencing the breadth and profundity of this material in person. In the United States, the landmark exhibition Te Māori: Māori Art from New Zealand Collections (1984) set a standard for exhibiting this material. It included an addendum of virtuoso pieces with a detailed text edited by the renowned Māori leader, Sir Sidney Moko Mead. This show traveled from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to St. Louis, Chicago, and San Francisco in what was then a novel collaboration and consultation between American museums and Māori elders.
Māori art is based on a thorough understanding of the utilization of balancing form and function coupled with a feeling for what was understood as the animate quintessence from within a given material. Traditional materials ranged from wood, bone, shell, greenstone (nephrite), flax, and feathers. The entire creation process was stitched with 'wairua,' a state that profoundly links us to one other and the natural world. In this setting, a master artisan, known as a tohunga, a chosen or appointed one, became an acknowledged expert. In woodcarving, for example, this process might involve years of apprenticeship from masters in order to attain a high level of artistic realization.
This process was partially governed by two additional entities: mana and tapu. Mana can perhaps be best described as a state that embodies and cultivates: "prestige, authority, control, power, influence, status, power, and immense charisma." Mana is also a supernatural force that flows through important persons, places, and venerated objects. It was expected that persons of rank and importance would become skilled so that objects of their creation, be it personal items, adornments, weapons, or the carvings on structures such as a communal meeting house (marai), private dwelling (whare), storehouse (pataka) or canoes (waka) celebrated not only the glory of one's lineage but illuminated and projected the mana of its creator. Our word in English, 'taboo,' originates from the Polynesian word 'tapu.' If something is tapu, it should be avoided, not touched or altered, as tapu involves forms of knowledge coupled with restraint. These concepts played an essential role in how one lived and what an artisan created.
Mana and tapu are present in the items of personal use and adornment illustrated here that connote accomplishment and rank. The fine nephrite neck ornament or hei-tiki in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is said to represent an embryonic-like being that suggests fertility that could be handed down as a taonga or heirloom treasure from one generation to the next. Imagine the dedicated time involved in sourcing, grinding, and polishing this intractable and beautiful jade-like stone (pounamu) in a pre-metal culture. Other items of treasured pounamu can be seen below, including a handsome greenstone club, also stewarded by the Met, and by an outstanding late 18th century scepter-like hand axe that enshrines an especially revered and potent nephrite blade that is housed in the University of Pennsylvania's collection. Two shimmering feathered cloaks are also featured. One resides in the Denver Art Museum, while the other is housed in Pennsylvania.
Objects of personal usage that reflected an individual's mana, and that were also considered tapu, are the two treasure or feather boxes (waka huia — formed from the word 'waka' for a vessel or canoe and 'huia,' which refers to the feathers of the huia bird). These were hung from the rafters on two cords, hence the pommels at each end. Typically, they contained precious nephrite jade, feathers, and small valued ornaments. One 19th-century example is from the Teel collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, while the other is an 18th to very early 19th century northern style box from the Morton May collection in the Saint Louis Art Museum. Traditionally, while a Māori carver may show his own skills, most carvings are bound by a convention or frame, boundaries to which an item's aesthetics, shapes, and forms should conform. Feather boxes are different. Carvers could invent and put their individual stamp on their own creations. Aside from regional styles, perhaps this explains the astounding variation and creative solutions in the workmanship of waka huia. Two feeding vessels, one from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the other from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, are also reproduced. A person's head was not to be touched in non-approved ways. Such stemmed cups were used while a person was in a state of grace or tapu when they received incised facial tattoos (moko).
Magnificent examples of carved lintels (The Cleveland Museum of Art and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) and a gloriously carved framing post from an important structure (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) attest to skills born of a deep attachment to mythology while celebrating life as being ever-present and effervescent. Also from LACMA and the Met are provocative images of ancestors (te puna) that were used as the central gable apex ornament (tekoteko) of a meeting house's front that often faces a marai or the open-air assembly ground of the tribe. Old free-standing central house figures are extremely rare. Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, displays a superb figure dating from the early 19th century that was once tied or attached to the base of the structure's most important load-bearing central post.
There are many important museum holdings of Māori material in the U.S. that are not yet digitized, and it is our hope that more Māori material will become more available online and further exposed in public exhibitions. In the meantime, here are twenty-one stellar objects from American museum collections for engaging one's imagination and sense of appreciation and reminding us of an astute Māori proverb:
He toi whakairo, he mana tangata
"Where there is artistic excellence, there is human dignity."
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
1
Greenstone Pendant
19th century
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Nephrite jade (pounamu), shell, pigment, and wax
Gift of Heber R. Bishop, 1902
02.18.315
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2
Hand Club | Mere Pounamu
19th century
New Zealand
Greenstone
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
1979.206.1459
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
3
Ceremonial Adze | Toki Poutangata
New Zealand
Greenstone, wood, shell
Purchased from the Estate of George Byron Gordon, 1927
29-93-13
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
4
Feather Cloak | Kahu Huruhuru
Late 1800s
New Zealand, Polynesia
Feathers, flax
Native Arts Acquisition Fund
1955.347
Denver Art Museum
5
Feather Cloak | Kahu Huruhuru
New Zealand, Polynesia
Feathers, wool fiber
Purchased from W. O. Oldman, 1912
P3081A
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
6
Treasure Box | Waka Huia
19th century
New Zealand
Wood, pigment, haliotis shell
Gift of William E. and Bertha L. Teel
1994.422a-b
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
7
Treasure Box | Waka Huia
Early 19th century
New Zealand
Wood, shell, and greenstone
Gift of Morton D. May
203:1975a,b
Saint Louis Art Museum
8
Treasure Box | Papahou
18th century
New Zealand, Bay of Plenty region
Wood, shell
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Purchase, Nelson A. Rockefeller Gift, 1960
1978.412.755a, b
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
9
Feeding Funnel | Korere
19th-20th century
New Zealand
Wood
Gift of William E. and Bertha L. Teel
1991.1071
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
10
Feeding Funnel | Koropata
Circa 1825
New Zealand (Aotearoa), Gisborne
Rongowhakaata or Te Aitanga a Mahaki tribes
Wood and Haliotis shell
Purchased with funds provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation with additional funding by Jane and Terry Semel, the David Bohnett Foundation, Camilla Chandler Frost, Gayle and Edward P. Roski, and The Ahmanson Foundation
M.2008.66.24
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
11
Door Lintel | Pare
1800s
Pacific Islands, New Zealand, Polynesia
Wood, pigment
The Mary Spedding Milliken Memorial Collection, Gift of William Mathewson Milliken
1962.350
The Cleveland Museum of Art
12
Door Lintel | Pare
19th century
Neke Kapua and Tene Waitere
New Zealand
Totara wood, abalone shell
Purchased from Thomas Edward Donne, 1904
29-58-159A
The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
13
Gable Peak Figure | Tekoteko
Circa 1800
New Zealand (Aotearoa)
Wood, shell, teeth, and traces of pigment
Purchased with funds provided by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation with additional funding by Jane and Terry Semel, the David Bohnett Foundation, Camilla Chandler Frost, Gayle and Edward P. Roski, and The Ahmanson Foundation
M.2008.66.18
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
14
Gable Figure | Tekoteko
Mid-18th century
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Wood, pāua shell
Purchase, 2019 Benefit Fund, several members of The Chairman's Council Gifts, Philippe de Montebello and 2020 Benefit Funds, Andrea Bollt Bequest, in memory of Robert Bollt Sr. and Robert Bollt Jr., Mariana and Ray Herrmann and Gordon Sze MD Gifts, and funds from various donors, 2022
2022.346
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
15
Standing Ancestor Figure
c. 1800–1840
Te Huringa period I (1800–1900)
New Zealand
Wood
AP 1989.04
Kimbell Art Museum
16
War Canoe Sternpost | Taurapa
Probably early to mid-19th century
New Zealand
Wood
Bequest of Morton D. May
1531:1983
Saint Louis Art Museum
17
Carved Panel for a Storehouse | Epa
18th century
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Wood
Purchase, 2019 Benefit Fund, several members of The Chairman's Council Gifts, Philippe de Montebello and 2020 Benefit Funds, Andrea Bollt Bequest, in memory of Robert Bollt Sr. and Robert Bollt Jr., Mariana and Ray Herrmann and Gordon Sze MD Gifts, and funds from various donors, 2022
2022.347
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
18
Gable Figure | Tekoteko
1820s
New Zealand
Te Arawa
Wood, paint
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
1979.206.1437
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
19
Weaving Peg | Turu Turu
18th century
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Wood and haliotis shell
Raymond and Laura Wielgus Collection, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
2010.21
The Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University
20
Carved Face
19th–20th century
Wood, haliotis shell
Gift of William E. and Bertha L. Teel
1994.399
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
21
Wooden Flute | Koauau
19th century
Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Wood and haliotis shell
Raymond and Laura Wielgus Collection, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
2003.168
The Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of their attributed museums.