The house that Riwai Pakerau built
On Labour weekend 2002 I returned to Mihikoinga marae at the request of the kaumatua of Ngai Taharora to attend a wananga.423 The main item on the agenda was a validation of the paintings and carvings on the front porch of Taharora whare nui. What was problematic for a number of the attendees was the turquoise blue colour of the porch carvings. Since the installation of the paintings and the carvings in November 2001 the house had attracted the attention not only of Ngai Taharora, Te Whanau a Iritekura and Te Whanau a Rakairoa but also hapu of the Tairawhiti and beyond.424 Not unexpectedly the colour was perceived as non-customary and an affront to the memory of Riwai Pakerau.
The main adherents for a return to the orthodox red paint were a small group of kaumatua led by Queenie Te Maro who maintains a return to red even today. However, I was able to convince the attendees at the wananga that Riwai Pakerau was an innovative painter who incorporated non-customary images of European import into his house paintings like text, trees, lions and crocodiles, and was not averse to using non-customary colours for kowhaiwhai including green.425
Figure 34. Heke details. Mauitikitiki a Taranga. Auckland Museum (45994).
Using the Ngati Porou narrative of the origin of carving from the realm of Tangaroa, the god of the ocean, I related the use of the blue colour to the sea as the original realm of the art of carving.426 As a further endorsement of the appropriateness of the colour blue,
423
Chief among the kaumatua were Tom and Queenie Te Maro, Waho Tibble, Tamati Reedy, Mona Rasmussen, Harata Jahnke and Elder Rangiwai.
424
While attending the Te Waka Toi awards in Auckland in September 2002 I met with Mate Kaiwai the daughter of Apirana Ngata who reiterated the phrase that became a hallmark of the oratorical presentations – ‘Blue is the sky, blue is the sea, blue is the house’.
425
According to Jew Maraki (pers comm. November 2001) Riwai Pakerau used green to symbolise the new life.
426
In Ngati Porou narrative tradition Ruatepupuke is assigned the task of wrestling the art of carving from Tangaroa. See Version by Romio Mokena in Mead, H. M. (1986). Te Toi Whakairo The Art of Maori. Carving Auckland: Reed. pp. 8-11.
allusion was made to the customary use of a ‘blue-grey, produced by a slimy clay known as Tutaewhetu’ (star excrement) in the Waiapu district.427 At the conclusion of the wananga there was general consensus that the house should remain blue as a tribute to the innovative practice of Riwai Pakerau who is also commemorated on the interior back wall of the meeting house with a toki poutangata, symbol of a tohunga whakairo.428
Chapter Six will focus on identifying the specific stylistic elements that separate the carving and painting style of Riwai Pakerau from those of his contemporaries with whom he is associated in the carving of meeting houses. That is those carvers who also employed the two-ridged haehae, shoulder and thigh bands, and the distinctive cursive amo and the unique tongued amo and raparapa intersection that are part of the Iwirakau style.429
Within the Iwirakau style, a school of carvers maintained an idiosyncratic approach to the application of rauponga comprising pakati and haehae in which a two-ridged haehae composition featured alongside the three-ridged evident in most areas outside the East Coast.430 Beginning in the late 19th century, a two-ridged haehae convention emerged in carvings associated with Hauteananui o Tangaroa acquired by the Canterbury Museum in 1873 and a series of carvings associated with ‘Tumoanakotore’.431 The convention persisted into the 20th century in three houses associated with the carver Riwai Pakerau of Ngai Taharora – Kuri (1900), Iritekura (1910) and the restoration and relocation of Mauitikitiki a Taranga in 1913. It is also used relatively consistently in Hinerupe (1880s) and St. Mary’s Church at Tikitiki (1928) where Hone Ngatoto was responsible for the two-ridged haehae.432
In particular, the carving style of Riwai Pakerau needs to be separated from that of Hone Taahu and Hone Ngatoto. While there were a number of other carvers who used the two-ridged haehae convention Hoani Ngatai deserves special mention, not only because he
427
Hamilton, A. (1896-1900). Maori Art: The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race in New Zealand. Dunedin: Ferguson & Mitchell for the New Zealand Institute.
428
This symbolism can also be found on the portrait of tohunga whakairo Raharuhu Rukupo inside Te Hau ki Turanga in the National Museum of New Zealand.
429 While maps do not constitute a critical reference for this thesis Ngati Porou locations can be found by referring to Simmons, D. (2006). Meeting-houses of Ngati Porou o te Tairawhiti An illustrated Guide. Auckland: Reed. p. 8.
430
Prior to European contact the number of haehae in rauponga surface patterns varied ranging from one to five with three prominent in a papahou (treasure box) collected by Captain James Cook in 1769 in the British Museum Collection. This is also evident in a house panel taken from Pourewa Island on the East Coast by Cook’s party now in Tuebingen, Germany. By 1842, a three-ridged haehae convention appeared consistently around the country coinciding with the spread of Christianity beyond the North. Concurrently, patterns like unaunahi composed of clusters of crescents and ritorito were also subject to a tripartite configuration. This led to an inevitable association between the emphasis on the number three and the Christian Trinity.
431
Hone Taahu and Tamati Ngakaho from Ngati Porou went to Christchurch early in 1874 to complete the house. The house was finally completed in December of that year. The carvings for ‘Tumoanakotore’ have recently been re-ascribed to a house built for Karaitiana Takamoana, a Hawkes Bay chief who died in the late 1880s before the house could be erected.
432
In 1996 Hinerupe was all but destroyed in a fire at Te Araroa. Hone Ngatoto carved this house, which featured the two-ridged haehae convention. The house was restored with house panels based on surviving carvings. In 2001 I, together with others, installed the maihi, amo and koruru carved by Simon Lardelli of Ngati Konohi on Taharora whare nui at Ohineakai. The carvings, based on Mauitikitiki a Taranga, commemorate the two-ridged haehae surface pattern convention and carving style of Riwai Pakerau.
is credited with having worked on Tuwhakairiora (1872) with Haare Tokoata, Ohinewaiapu (1885) with Hone Ngatoto and Ruatepupuke (1861) in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, but his style can also be identified in the Otago Museum collection.433 A pane in the Tairawhiti Museum accredited to Riwai Pakerau should be attributed to Hoani Ngatai on the basis of a stylistic kinship with poupou from Ruatepupuke and the Otago carvings.434 Although Hoani Ngatai is not mentioned in connection with Mauitikitiki a Taranga it is not inconceivable that Hone Taahu would have invited him to contribute a carving for the house given his status as ‘leader of the Tapere School’. While his use of the two-ridged haehae is inconsistent, and his figurative style is diametrically opposed to that of Riwai Pakearau, his status as tuakana (elder descendant) of Riwai Pakerau demands acknowledgement.435
Whakapapa of Hoani Ngatai436
Hingangaroa Hauiti Hinekura Tutehurutea Kuku Rangitawaea--- Pohuakina Manupokai Rangohuariki--- Nohomai Rangiahoa Whakaihonga Matekaikai
Te Pupuke Ngahara Urimaitai
Tukutuku Hinekai Hineitungia
Tangiawha Hamiora Taopirau Riwai Pakerau
Hoani Ngatai Tamati Ngakaho
Te tataitanga o Hoani Ngatai: the legacy of Hoani Ngatai
433
According to Ngarino Ellis ‘Ngatai is probably best known today for his carving of the house Ruatepupuke II, currently in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago…Ngatai was the leader of the Tapere School in the late nineteenth century despite the fact that he worked on only three houses: Tumoanakotore, O Hine Waiapu and Ruatepupuke II’. W. Ihimaera and N. Ellis (Eds). (2001). Te Ata Maori Art from the East Coast, New Zealand. Auckland: Reed. p. 37. This house was originally named Tumoanakotore when it stood at Mamaku at the north of the Waikohu River. Hoani Ngatai began the carvings that were completed by Haare Tokoaka in 1872. It was renamed Tuwhakairiora at Mihi Kotuku’s insistence in 1954 when the house was re-erected in the township of Hicks Bay. Taiapa, P. (1959). Tuwhakairiora (Souvenir Booklet). Gisborne: Te Rau Press. pp. 7-8.
434
A 1988 Museum label suggested that ‘This Meeing House [Mauitikitiki a taranga] was originally built at Paerauta, just north of Tokomaru Bay, It was moved to Tokomaru Bay, about 1885 and finally re-erected as a Ringatu Meeting House at Hikuwai in 1913 by Riwai Pakerau. The large portion of the tahu (ridgepole) was probably carved by Pakerau but the raparapa and panel [amo] came from the original house’. Hone Taahu is associated with the carving of the house when it was originally erected at Parauta marae in about 1865.
435
Hoani Ngatai and Riwai Pakerau are both descendants of Hauiti the younger son of Hingangaroa and Iranui. However, Hoani Ngatai is descended from the tuakana (elder sibling) line from a common ancestor called Kuku.
436
Tibble, W. (1989). MSS. Nga Tohunga Whakairo o Ngati Porou. This whakapapa shows the connection between Hoani Ngatai who carved Ruatepupuke, Tamati Ngakaho who was responsible along with Te Kihirini for Porourangi and Riwai Pakerau who was associated with Mauitikitiki a Taranga and Iritekura. Rangitawaea and Pouhuakina are siblings as are Rangohuariki and Nohomai.
Hoani Ngatai’s style is quite distinctive when compared with that of Hone Taahu, Hone Ngatoto and Riwai Pakerau.437 It is characterised by a certain naivety, imprecision and experimentation in which patterns like ritorito (unaunahi), rauponga, taratara a kae, and pakura appear alongside spirals ranging from rauru, ponahi and pikorauru on a single poupou.438
According to Simmons,
‘Hori [Hoani] Ngatai of Rangitukia, who died in 1910, is credited with Ohinewaiapu but the work is so clearly Ngatoto’s that it is unlikely. He may have assisted. The carving style in Ruatepupule 2 in Chicago’s Field Museum...and a pair of epa formerly in the Auckland War Memorial Museum and now in Chicago, would seem to represent his work’.439
Like Hone Taahu, Hoani Ngatai demonstrates a penchant for asymmetry but in a less formal manner. Limbs are often elongated disproportionately depending on the arrangement of the two-figure poupou composition as evidenced in the Otago Museum poupou. When a hand is raised to the mouth he will often drop the shoulder, sometimes to waist level, to facilitate hand and mouth interaction (Figure 34 right top). In comparison, Hoani Taahu shortens the arm length. A two-figure composition, with legs of the upper figure placed on the shoulder of the lower figure, in piggyback fashion, (Figure 34 top middle) or an inverted lower figure assuming the copulation position is unique to Hoani Ngatai.440 This compositional strategy is evident on the Maui pane, Otago Museum poupou and endemic in Ruatepupuke in the Field Museum.
Figure 34. Poupou details. Whare nui for Takamoana Karaitiana, Otago Museum (D96.13). Pane
detail. Mauitikitiki a Taranga, Gisborne Museum (64-2338-A). Poupou details. Unknown whare nui, Otago Museum (D31.1355). Poupou and poupou details. Ruatepupuke whare nui, Field Museum.
437
W. Ihimaera and N. Ellis (Eds.). (2001). Te Ata Maori Art from the East Coast, New Zealand.
Auckland: Reed. p. 37. 438
There is much more consistency in style apparent in Ruatepupuke in the Field Museum in Chicago. In this house rauponga is the dominant surface pattern.
439
Simmons, D. (2006). Meeting-houses of Ngati Porou o Te Tairawhiti An illustrated Guide. Auckland: Reed. p. 162.
440
See National Museum of New Zealand photograph 25850 1/1 and Otago Museum poupou reconfigured as an epa. The carvings by Hoani Ngatai are also exceptional in that the upper figures in the National Museum of New Zealand photograph hold a patu and kotiate respectively. However, several weapons are featured in Ruatepupuke in the Field Museum in Chicago.
Chicago. Field Museum (967.143961).Carved by Hoani Ngatai.441
There are a number of idiosyncratic traits that are associated with the tataitanga whakairo of Hoani Ngatai particularly in Otago and in Ruatepupuke apart from those alluded to previously. Hands are four or five digits with the palm often carved with pakura and naturalistic knuckled fingers. However, he sometimes continues the pattern from palm onto fingers or thumb, and places pakati notches on the inner nostril (usually one side only) with a pakati cluster below the upper lip, and favours the pikorauru spiral over others.
Figure 36. Poupou facial detail. Unknown whare nui, Otago Museum (D31.1355,). Amo and poupou
facial details. Whare nui for Takamoana Karaitiana, Otago Museum (D88.40, D96.13). Carved by Hoani Ngatai.
Figure 37. Amo details. Whare nui for Takamoana Karaitiana, Otago Museum(D8840).Carved by Hoani Ngatai.
Taking into account all these stylistic traits, Hoani Ngatai is responsible for a two- figure poupou that appears stylistically incongruous within a corpus of carvings associated with a house carved for Karaitiana Takamoana of Ngati Kahungunu in the Otago Museum. However, taken holistically in relation to his total early oeuvre and contextualised against Ruatepupuke, this poupou (Figure 36 top centre) may be assigned to an earlier period, probably predating the Otago epa (Figure 36 top left) and the amo (Figure 36 top right).
What makes this poupou (Figure 36 top centre) particularly dissonant is the almost horizontal orientation of the wheku style eyes. However, the hallmarks of Hoani Ngatai’s style are evident in the experimental nature of pattern combinations, the preference for the pikorauru spiral (with edge notching), the concentric nature of limb patterns complimenting rhythms initiated by shoulder and hip spirals and the use of the pakura on the arms and legs of the upper figure.
441
In the Otago carvings attributable to Hoani Ngatai two-ridged haehae appear on most of the facial forms and the central torso division. Two-ridged haehae also appear on the upper amo figure (Figure 37bottom left and left centre) as a mid-torso belt pattern, on the limbs and on one side of the lower torso as a counterpoint to the three-ridged haehae in the opposite side. It is also used on the lower figure’s left arm. The two-ridged haehae appears inconsistently on the poupou carved by Hoani Ngatai that are contemporaneous with those of Hone Taahu and even less consistently on the poupou ascribed to an earlier period. The central torso band of the lower figure is carved with the two-ridged haehae in a configuration of ascending ‘U’ shapes on the upper torso and descending ‘U’ on the lower torso. This motif can be found in Ruatepupuke and the set in the National Museum of New Zealand photograph 25850 1/1.442 In Ruatepupuke the arcs of central torso motif are more consistently unidirectional. However, Hoani Ngatai has a penchant for asymmetry and often disrupts pattern rhythm at whim. This is evident in the unique ‘L’ shaped amo in the Otago collection where he shifts effortlessly between the arcs and traverse whakarare.
Te tataitanga o Iwirakau: the legacy of Iwirakau
As mentioned previously Iwirakau together with Tukaki attended the Rawheoro Wananga at Uawa returning to their respective regions with the art of carving. The naming of the 19th century Ngati Porou style after Iwirakau commemorates this importan t event.443 The Iwirakau style is also known as the Tapere style after the first school of carving established in the Waiapu area of the East Coast.444 Phillipps quoting James W. Stack notes that ‘the style of carving employed [on Hauteananui a Tangaroa in the Canterbury Museum] is called Ponga’.445
In contrast with the Rawheoro style and the later Turanga style in which the head is flanked by spirals or manaia, the width of the head in the Iwirakau style normally spans the entire breadth of the panel with the mouth and brow equidistant. While the wheku facial form maintains a modicum of similarity with the Rawheoro, Rukupo and Tukaki Schools the crown detail is transformed into a pointed or rounded arch in the Iwirakau style although the crown detail persists, particularly in the koruru style head. However, the most distinguishing facial feature within the Iwirakau style is the idiosyncratic treatmen t of the tongues ranging from the conventional symmetrically recessed, symmetrical and asymmetrical protruding tongues or symmetrical back to back arches on either side of the
442
Tamati Ngakaho used a similar mid-torso division in Porourangi (1888) at Waiomatatini. 443
Sir Apirana Ngata speaking about the rebuilding of Ruakapanga at Tolaga Bay on the East Coast recorded that ‘The carvings represent three local schools – (a) Gisborne or Raharuhi Rukupo: (b) Iwirakau or Ngati Porou, and (c) Tukaki or Te Kaha. All are supposed to have spread from the famous Rawheoro School of learning at Tolaga Bay [Uawa].’ Phillipps, W. J. (1944). ‘Carved Maori houses of the eastern districts of the North Island’. Records of the Dominion Museum 1:109.
444
Tapere is the shortened version for Taperenui a Whatonga, a whare wananga that stood at the mouth of the Waiapu River one thousand years ago. W. Ihimaera and N. Ellis (Eds.). (2001). Te Ata Maori Art from the East Coast, New Zealand. Auckland: Reed. p. 29.
445
Phillipps, W. J. (1944). ‘Carved Maori houses of the eastern districts of the North Island’. Records of the Dominion Museum 1:111.
mouth together with strap-like extensions emerging from within the mouth to overlap the top or bottom lip or to overlap the side of the mouth (Figure 38). Apart from the conventional tongue treatment there are no fewer than 10 unconventional tongues used in association with the wheku or koruru facial forms amongst the Otago carvings attributable to Hone Taahu. There are two distinctive mouth compositions among this set of carvings featuring manaia transformations and the lizard entering the mouth of one of the poutuarongo figures. This detail will also feature prominently in Hinetapora (1896) where Hone Taahu was the chief carver and Tuwhakairiora (1872) attributed to Hoani Ngatai and Henare Tokoaka.446 The appearance of the lizard within the context of the poutuarongo may be viewed as a reference to the Maui narrative in which he attempted to conquer death by entering Hinenuitepo, the guardian of the under world by adopting a number of guises including that of a lizard. However, its appearance on ancestral poupou probably relates more specifically to a commemoration of ancestors associated with the art of ritualised intercession.447
Figure 38. Poupou, epa, heketipi and poutuarongo tongue details. Whare nui for Takamoana
Karaitiana, Otago Museum (D31.1344, D31.1346, E31.304, E31.304, E301.305, D31.1346, D88.42, D10.1). Poupou tongue details. Hinetapora whare nui, Mangahanea marae, Ruatoria, Carved by Hone Taahu.448
The earliest example of the Iwirakau style is associated with Hauteananui a Tangaroa, a set of house carvings originally carved for Henare Potae of Tokomaru Bay acquired by the