Maori Arts in the British Museum | Part I
P A R T I
Maori Arts in the British Museum
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
He toi whakairo, he mana tangata
“Where there is artistic excellence, there is human dignity.”
Last month, Art of the Ancestors showcased a selection of especially fine traditional Māori art stewarded by American museums. In the same spirit of kia mau ki nga mahi toi (to remain steadfast in creativity), we believe our readers will also enjoy the next installment of our series, exploring the extensive collection of Māori material in the British Museum. The British Museum houses more than 2,300 relevant items. While this amount pales compared to what resides in New Zealand's institutions, it is arguably the finest grouping of Māori art outside of Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud. It's a remarkable collection whose genesis began with Captain Cook's three voyages (1769-1780), followed by a steady flow of deposits from subsequent visitors, officials, and collectors. Many of these items are imaged online and accompanied by excellent descriptive notes. The Maori Collections of the British Museums by Dorota Starzecka, Mick Pendergrast, and great friend and scholar to many of us, the late Roger Neich, is a marvelous and authoritative publication we highly recommend as a journey well taken.
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 include wood, bone, shell, greenstone (nephrite), flax, and feathers. The entire process of creation was stitched with 'wairua,' a state that profoundly links us to one another and to the natural world. In this setting, a master artisan, known as a tohunga, a chosen or appointed one, became an acknowledged expert. A tohunga could produce creations that evolved into taonga, or taoka in the South Island, that essentially became living treasures. In woodcarving, the way of becoming a tohunga might involve years of apprenticing to masters in order to attain a high level of insight and artistic realization.
This process was partly 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, 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 would become skilled so that the objects of their creation, be they personal items, adornments, weapons, or the carvings on structures such as a communal meeting house (marae), private dwelling (whare), storehouse (pataka) or canoes (waka), celebrated not only the glory of one's lineage but illuminated and projected the mana (the presence and prestige) of its creator. The English word '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 in what artisans created.
Mana and tapu are present in the items of personal use illustrated below. In the realm of bodily adornment, the British Museum has three rare 18th-century rei puta, whale-tooth pendants ending in a distinctive face with engraved eyes inset with black pigment. Two of these, including the one illustrated in this presentation, were originally collected by the London Missionary Society. Captain Cook acquired a third example on his first voyage in 1769. This archaic pendant type was recorded by the expedition's artist, Sydney Parkinson. It was published in 1773 and widely circulated as The Engraving of a Maori Warrior.
Other neck pendants, such as hei-tiki, were generally fashioned from lush-looking greenstone (nephrite or the more translucent bowenite) or pounamu. The pendant's figures are said to represent fertile embryonic-like beings that could be handed down as taonga or heirloom treasures from one generation to the next. While these pendants are ubiquitous, the two examples of hei-tiki depicted here are quite unusual. The first example's head is split into two distinct beings or double tiki heads en profil. The material is also a gorgeous pale blue-green nephrite with whitish undertones that the Maori reverentially refer to as inanga. The second tiki is also a very old one from the Northland region whose arcane frontal-seeing head and animated body language still speak to us. To make precious items from pounamu, whether a hei-tiki, other ornaments, or a hand club, took immense labor to source, grind, rub, and polish such an intractable material in a pre-metal using culture.
When hafted and attached to a carved handle, an especially revered and potent dark green nephrite blade is known as a toki poutangata (literally 'the adze that establishes the man'). These blades were carried out for ceremonial and oratorical purposes. The same can be said for some of the most refined and beautiful weapon forms that were potent ceremonial props and functional arms. Such items possessed compounded multi-generational mana. They were used for accenting or articulating specific points while speech-making. A rare Northland wahaika or hand club may have served such a purpose. Another masterpiece of its genre in this grouping is the shark tooth serrated sacrificial knife (maripi) that depicts a mythical being that is part bird, part human, and known as a manaia. Like a number of the works presented here, this piece is from Hokianga in the 18th century.
To speak of 'human dignity' as defined by our lead-in proverb is to further appreciate the refinement, beauty, and humor of making something special that might otherwise be mundane. We have included from the museum's collection four items: A wonderfully decorated gourd (hue) where the stalk end was cleverly incorporated as a spout, a decorated footrest from a digging stilt, the figurative top of a weaving stick or a functional peg of some sort, and a marvelously elaborated kite (manu tukutuku) that combines human and avian characteristics.
In the realm of memory, we present a seldom-seen mortuary box from the Bay of Plenty that's haunting and eroded, with slight traces of red ochre or kokowai still lingering on the wood's surface. Like many areas in Indonesia, the Māori also practiced secondary burial rites. After being naturally stripped and cleaned, the bones of chiefs were sometimes deposited in carved upright boxes in the shape of human effigies before being placed in caves. Another box or chest, this time of the living, depicts an engaging three-fingered figure. It is from the 18th century, possibly Arawa, and harbors a shallow rear cavity that was once used for storing tapu items such as toki poutangata.
Māori communal life was generally centered around a marae or open assembly area near the chief's dwelling. Although existing long before contact, grandly constructed meeting houses (wharenui) grew in physical and ceremonial stature in the 19th century as focal points for village and tribal identity. The meeting house is considered a sacred place where decisions of importance, religious significance, remembrances, political discussions, and community entertainment are still conducted. The frontal face and entryway to any important Māori structure, ranging from chiefly dwellings and storehouses (pataka) to the great meeting houses, were often festooned with exterior carving and exuberant decoration that recognized the crossing of one threshold into another. From the British Museum, there is a magnificent open-worked pare or lintel that once stood above a dwelling's entranceway. The central figure or wheku (literally carved face) most likely represents an important ancestor for whom the house was named. This central figure is flanked by two sinuously fecund manaia. Another virtuoso architectural wheko-faced carving is a left-sided house panel. This panel and its mate once served as posts to a meeting house's sloping front exterior roof gables. To experience a venerable, well-constructed Māori meeting house is like entering a well-maintained, beautifully decorated sacred edifice.
Old free-standing, centrally placed figures from meeting houses are extremely rare. They represent the ancestors of a particular marae, wharenui, hapū (a cluster of families descended from the same ancestor), or an iwi (a Māori tribe). The statues were often affixed or attached to the base of the structure's most important load-bearing central post. Similar to what one sees in many areas of Indonesia, clearing a safe space for the figure's descendants between the floor (the earth) and the roof (the sky) is an important aspect of a great house or communal structure. The first statue is a remarkable female figure of traditional tooling that, while bold, tends towards a naturalistic style. It dates to the early 19th century and comes from Wanganui on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. The second figure, a male (sans genitals), is from Poverty Bay/Hawke's Bay and is also an early 19th-century creation. With an imposing face depicting a revered ancestor with a full moko (tattoos), slightly downturned gaze, and massive four-fingered hands, it's a dramatically haunting and powerful figure.
A finely built and well-carved house was likened to a canoe, "a fine canoe floating on the ocean," as the old Māori saying goes: "Me te waka whakarei e tau ana i te moana." The largest war canoes, waka taua, were said to measure up to 130 feet long with an upper gunnel-to-gunnel span approaching a 7-foot beam at its center. Pierre Monneron, who chronicled de Surville's expedition, which arrived just after Captain Cook in 1769, commented on waka taua: "Their boats, as a rule, are very long. The bottom part is of one piece. To raise the boarding, they sometimes make use of one or two planks. In the front and hind parts of the canoe are found some pieces of carving."
War canoes were also considered to be very tapu. Every stage of their construction was highly ritualized. Special priests, who were also accomplished naval architects, oversaw every aspect and detail of a war canoe's construction and launching. Our introduction to the British Museum's Māori collection would not be complete without a prow or stern ornament associated with an important waka taua or war canoe. We have chosen a very special 18th-century canoe stern ornament (tauihu/tuere) from Hokianga that sinuously depicts five interlocking and elongated manaia. These creatures' otherworldly bodies move with remarkable fluidity. Each is connected to the other by sensory touch or conjoined through the spiraling and arched looped open-work background. Like feathers or tendrils, the background unites and spreads each manaia in a manner that conveys a powerful and timeless statement of identity and authority.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
1
Shark-Tooth Knife | Maripi
18th-century
Wood, leather, shark tooth, mother-of-pearl, haliotis shell
Donated by Sir George Grey in 1854
Oc1854,1229.9
2
Ceremonial Adze | Toki Poutangata
1830-1845 (?)
Nephrite, wood, haliotis shell, New Zealand flax
Field collected by Rev John Blackburn
Purchased from Yorkshire Philosophical Society Museum in 1921
Oc1921,1014.4
3
Standing Figure Atop a Pole
1820s-1830s
Wood, shell
Purchased from Samuel Vesty in 1903
Oc1903,1015.1
4
Whale-Tooth Pendant | Rei Puta
18th-century (?)
Whale tooth, flax
Purchased from the London Missionary Society in 1911
Oc,LMS.154
5
Anthropomorphic Pendant | Hei-Tiki
Nephrite, sealing wax
Donated by Henry Christy between 1860-1869
Oc.1724
6
Neck Ornament
A unique combination of hei-tiki and hei matau.
Late 18th-century—early 19th-century
Nephrite
Field Collected by Comdr F W R Sadler and Tītore Tākiri
Donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks in 1896
Previous owned by Belle S.M. Sadler
Oc1896,-.925.a
7
Feather Cloak | Kahu Huruhuru
19th-century—early 20th-century
New Zealand flax, kaka feather, pigeon feather, feather (white)
Donated by C H Waterlow in 1913
Oc1913,0612.1
8
Incised Bowl with Spout | Hue
Late 18th-century—early 19th-century
Gourd
Field collected by James Thomas Hooper, Penzance Natural History and Antiquarian Society, Rev William Colenso (?)
Purchased from Christie's in 1977
Oc1977,08.5
9
Birdman Kite | Manu Aute
Early 19th-century
Wood (manuka), cotton, mother-of-pearl, shell, kahu feather (New Zealand harrier hawk), fiber
Field collected by Captain Manning
Donated by Reed in 1843
Oc1843,0710.11
10
Wooden Club | Wahaika
Wood
Donated by Henry Christy between 1860-1869
Oc.1696
11
Nephrite Club | Mere Pounamu
Nephrite Club | Mere Pounamu
© The Trustees of the British Museum
1830-1839
Nephrite
Donated by Sir Charles Hercules Read in 1907
Oc1907,1223.1
12
Door Lintel | Pare or Korupe
1800s-1820s
Wood, haliotis shell
Donated by Sir George Grey in 1854
Oc1854,1229.89
13
Figurative Burial Chest | Waka Tupapaku
18th-century—early 19th-century
Wood
Field collected by Capt A J Higginson
Purchased from Bideford Town Council in 1950
Previously owned by Miss Venables
Oc1950,11.1
14
Houseboard with Two Carved Figures
1830-1850 (?)
Wood, haliotis shell
Purchased from Lady Ada Sudeley in 1894
Previously owned by Algernon Gray Tollemache
Oc1894,0716.3
15
Figurative Foot-Rest or Spade | Teka
1800-1820
Wood, haliotis shell
Purchased from Ellen Higgins in 1904
Previously owned by Turvey Abbey
Oc1904,-.249
16
Female Central-Post Figure | Poutokomanawa
1830-1850 (?)
Wood, haliotis shell, animal hide, New Zealand flax, wool
Field collected by Rev Dr William Sparrow Simpson
Donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks in 1871
Oc.7228
17
Interior Central-Post Figure | Poutokomanawa
1820s-1840s
Wood, haliotis shell
Purchased from Clinton Engleheart in 1892
Oc1892,0409.1
18
Figurative Container
Wood
Associated with Sir Edward Maunde Thompson
Purchased from Ellen Higgins in 1904
Previously owned by Turvey Abbey
Oc1904,-.245
19
War Canoe Prow | Tauihu (Tuere)
18th century
Wood
Field collected by A D Passmore
Purchased from Rollin & Feuardent in 1900
Oc1900,0721.1
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of the British Museum.
© The Trustees of the British Museum