HC PUKCnga KOrerO Koanga (Spring). Volume 2, Number 1 . 1996

A SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY: TOWARDS ADEFINITION AND STRATEGIES FOR

CULTURAL SURVIVAL.Rangihiroa Panoho. Department of Art History, Auckland University.

The following paper was presented at the Toioho ki Apiti Maori Art Conference, Masscy University, PalmerstonNorth, June 26th -28th. 1996.

Whakarapopoto KoreroMai i te panga tuatahi mai o tc ao whanui, me ta ratoutiro manene, ko te tino arotahi a nga korero am haehaei nga mahinga toi tangata whcnua, ko te motuhenga onga taonga-a-iwi. Ara and hoki etahi Maori me a ratouwhainga torangapu, whainga ahurea ranei, c uta ana ite whakaaro haratau ki nga mahi toi a tc Maori. Ewewete ai nga herenga whakaaro nei, me tiki atu tetahio nga whakataukl i \vaihotia mai e Ihenga, koia hokitetahi huarahihei ata whakaaro atu ki te aria whakaoratikanga. He mea whai tikanga nga wahanga katoa o tetipu o te rengarenga, mai i tona whanautanga, ki tonahemotanga atu. I tenei tuhinga, ka tirohia te arotahinoa atu ki te puawaitanga o te toi Maori, me ona angaharatau, a, ka whakatltinatia te whakaaro terapea kaoree tika ana ki ta te Maori titiro.

AbstractInternational (Western) critical discourse with FirstNation artforms, from its first encounters, has oftenfeatured a concern on the part of those outside theculture with the authenticity of the tribal object.Orthodoxy in our artforms is equally a self imposedposition by Maori on other Maori servicing variouspolitical and cultural objectives. A whakataukl left usby Ihenga becomes a way of exploring the notion ofcultural regeneration outside these boundaries. Allparts of the rengarenga lily's life cycle, referred to inIhenga's proverb, are recognised as integral to it'ssurvival. This essay considers the concentration onsimply the flowering of Maori culture and its classicaltemplates as an unnatural and untenable activity.

'Me tupu i a wiwi, i a wawa, turia i te wera, piri kite rito o te rengarenga, waiho me whakapakari ki tehua o te kawariki.''

The roots of the rengarenga resprout forming asecond line of defence. The flowers of the rengarenga

may die in the day but final renewal at night and arematured like the kawariki.

Mapping territoryI wanted to start here with images which provide avisual exploration of the terrain I have set myself- thenotion of cultural dormancy and regeneration in Maoriart and culture. At the heart of this research is thismetaphor regarding the rengarenga plant which Ihengahas left us. The location for his whakataukl isgeographically the same Kaipara which I look out atthrough my sitting room window. This is a huge inlandwaterway, its fingers extending to my own ancestralconnections on the other side. In the distance, on mostdays, the strong triangle of Maungatapere stands outon the horizon. Near t h i s mounta in stands mygrandfather's tribal maunga, Whatitiri at Poroti, namedafter one of Ihenga's visits to the area. To the left arethe Tangihua ranges sheltering my grandmother's area.Her marae, Tirarau at Tangitirotia, lies on the otherside of these, nestled on a bend overlooking the upperWairoa ki Tai Tokerau.

Returning to Ihenga, Uriroroi and Parawhau (mygrandparents two major affiliations) are well awareof the journeys of this Arawa ancestor and his familyvisits in the Tai Tokerau area many centuries ago. Itwas further down the Wairoa river when Ihenga offeredhis famous reply, the basis of this whakatauki. Attackedby Nga Puhi warriors at one of his sons pa, Ihengaresponded to the taunts of his besiegers "Ihenga e! metupu i hea te tangata?" - "Ihenga from what source domen grow?" meaning, "how will men be found todefend the pa once it is taken?" which comprises thebasis of the above proverbial saying.

Anthropodium cirratum (rengarenga lily):a holistic metaphorOur ancestors saw themselves, their behaviour and

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culture reflected in the natural world. The growth pat-terns and natural characteristics of birds, plants andtrees were the inspiration for the many metaphors leftus. Although our biological diversity is more limitedwe still have access to the same types of plants (lilyand ranunculus) and landforms which comprised thephysical environment for Ihenga's words. It is thesesurroundings , the language he spoke and thedescendants Ihenga left which give us a real link tothe life behind and the meaning in his whakatauki.

Extending Ihenga's observation of anthropodiumcirratum I would like to connect the holistic principleof regeneration contained in his saying, with the widerissue of cultural regeneration as it applies to the artstoday. First a brief description of the natural propertiesof the rengarenga li ly. A monocotyledonous plant itproduces a single embryonic seed leaf with parallelveins and flowers with parts in multiples of threes. Itforms large clumps, supplied by fleshy roots whichvigorously feed the new rito.

Ihenga understood the principle of death andrenewal in plants: the death of the lily flower to himmeant the birth of the fruit. This hua (fruit) when dry,forms a seed capsule (ripening in January/February)which f a l l i n g to the ground is capable of selfpropagation. Ihenga likened his owned future to thefrui t ing of the rengarenga. The leader reminded hisattackers that his parental status ensured that therewould be another generation to look after and protecthim, or fai l ing that, to continue where he could not. InIhenga's mind, each component performed a functionvital to the overall life cycle of the plant. He understoodthat the rengarenga is not able to produce fruit withoutthe flower nor to supply seed without the fruit.

Other areas of the plant were important to itssurvival: the vigorous root structure of the rengarengaenables the lily to multiply quickly through division.However, no one component is more important thananother. The masses of white flowers produced on itslong stems in summer, although showy, are no morevital to its survival than the unseen roots which weresometimes cooked and used to supplement the Maoridiet. Another whakataukl, 'No te mea ra ia, he rakautawhito, e mau ana te taitea i waho ra, e to te kohiwi',illustrates a similarly holistic metaphor. Both sapwoodand heartwood possess different properties but areequally useful and essential to one another for thelongevity of the life system.

Permanent bloom ?: application of themetaphorWhile Ihenga spoke of the pua, he also respected thehua as the more vital component of the rengarenga. Incultural terms I believe we have become so concernedwith the flowering nature of our artforms that we oftenforget about the less spectacular but no less integralstages of the cycle. The fruiting, seeding, dormancyand more mundane aspects of a culture are equally asimportant as its more ostentatious phases. To furtherelaborate my use of the metaphor, there have clearlybeen spectacular periods in Maori tribal art history.During these high points some of our most giftedtohunga have produced beautiful taonga (e.g. TeWhanau-a-Apanui in the eighteenth century Te Kahapataka Tc Potaka, Nga Puhi waka koiwi, twentiethcen tury weaver Rangimar ie Hetet - korowai).However, these phases were always only integralportions in a cycle of events.

It would be unnatural to isolate one golden momentas an ever present model in such a continuum. It wouldequally be irresponsible to advocate these floweringsof culture as concurrently taking place across all tribalboundaries. Tohunga, great artists and the phases theyworked within were the product of many political,economic, spiritual, whanau, hapD and related factors.And these factors impacted on the comparativestrengths and weaknesses, in the artforms of any onetribe or sub tribal unit at any one given moment in ourhistory. We have to approach whaneketanga in thesame way we might our whakapapa. Equally I believewe have to accept our history with its strong and itsweak points. The prestigious and less prestigious menand women in our genealogies. The highlights and thebackground. And we must also accept the argumentof silence. Silence, the gaps in our knowledge, the restsand pauses in our stories.

Why then do we often insist on taonga from certainphases of our art history as classical models on whichto base the future direction of our key art traditions,such as carving and weaving? A classicising processwhich highlights only the most illustrious andimportant names in our genealogies. This processseems most unnatural considering the kaupapa of ourheritage is made up of such a range of aho, asvariegated as the many flecks in a blade of harakeke.Bearing in mind this predilection, on what basis dowe insist some models in our art history hold greaterimportance than others? After all sometimes our means

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of revering the material culture of the past rest onevidence as fragile as the archeologists last dig (acultural construction in itself) or the fossickers luckyfind. Are we to believe that all iwi were producingclassical work at the time of prestige carving styleslike that of Te Whanau-a-Apanui (e.g. TePotaka) wereflowering around the eighteenth century?

A more recent example of the way in which wehave become very focused on one taonga asrepresentative of a wider cultural identity can be seenin the teaching of the Rotortia School of Carving. Sinceits inception early this century this school has beenpromoted among others the work of the Ngati Kaipohotohunga whakairo, Raharuhi Rukupo. The work of theGisborne chief has been an important component inthe building of a national style promoted through theSchool. This genre has been taught rigorously at theinstitute and disseminated through generations ofstudents back to their own tribal areas around thecountry. But aside from the fact that Rukupo was afine carver and his whare whakairo, Te Hau kiTuranga, is a rare survivor from the 1840's whyconcentrate on such a small part of a very large jigsaw?Operating as something of a palimpsest, its importanceendorsed by its strategic geopolitical location, Tc Hauki Turanga represents a flowering in Maori art whichhas not found rest since its shipment to Wellingtonlast century. What have we to say of Rukupo's manyother contemporaries and their works which ourculture has not been able to keep on museological lifesupport and in permanent bloom?

Influence of the West: a Maori renaissance?I believe that Western culture has played a huge rolein how we view our past, where we stand in the presentand our artistic future. It is in Western culture that wefind grand models for highlighting a glorious past andattempting to recreate it in the present. One of the keycomponents in the Italian renaissance of the arts, ofthe sixteenth century, was its reverence for the artisticand cul tural achievements of the more ancientHellenistic civilization. Classical Greek culture wasan inspiration in both the content and aesthetic ofWestern renaissance artists. In turn, this model throughits introduction via Pakeha cul ture, has been animportant influence on Maori thinking. The widelyused term, "Maori renaissance" is one example of thisacceptance. What artists like Shona Rapira Davies inher sculptural installation Nga Morehu make usconsider, is that one of the strongest legacies we share

with our tupuna is our abil i ty to survive. And thebusiness of First Nation peoples merely surviving theeducational, health, economic, political and vocationalspheres of wider New Zealand society undermines toa large extent any notion of current cultural rebirth assuggested by the word renaissance.

What I believe we, as Maori have a responsiblilyto query, is the legitimacy of this linear reading of ourculture. Or, on the other hand, do we support thekaupapa set down by our ancestors? A view of thepast like that of our natural environment, a cyclicalsystem. By cyclical, I mean, there is no possibility ofa classical moment, rather there are floriferous periodsand there are phases of dormancy. There are seasonsof spring and winter, day and night, life and death andrenewal. After all death, as Ihenga indicated, bore amuch promise for him as life. In the circumstanceswhich prompted his much quoted saying, he knew thathis line flowed as vigorously as the roots of therengarcnga. Through his sons and their connections,many of whom could be found in pa throughout thenorth Kaipara and the wider Tai Tokerau area, therewas a second line of defense. It was the rito - the younggrowth in the rengarcnga plant - which ensured thatthe wider system would survive.

Dormancy and seasons in Maori artThere is something precarious about using classicismas a model for future development in the arts. Culturelike the rengarenga lily has its own life cycle. A crucialpart of a life system are the periods of dormancyrequired for storing up reserves for the next stage. Inwinter the growth of the rengarenga slows down, untilthe f lush of spring. Equally, the seed dropped insummer and autumn lies dormant, within its hard outerprotective shell until climatic conditions warm.

I am reminded here of ethnologist James McDonaldof the Royal Ontario Museum and his work with theTsimshian speaking peoples of north western BritishColombia. McDonald has conducted ethnohistoricalresearch with Band and Tribal councils whose centralcultural motifs (i.e. the potlatch) had been banned andinterfered with for 125 years by the Canadiangovernment. There had been a break of some 60-70years (in the 1930's) since one of the most importantpractices, the potlatch had been used. Once thisrestriction was lifted and its associated ceremonieswere revived McDonald observed an interestingresponse from Tsimshian peoples. Speaking amongstthemselves they found that, although they had not

HC PUKCnga KOrerO Koanga (Spring). Volume 2, Number 1, 1996

practiced the visible form of the potlatch, they had forgenerations been implementing the values connectedwith the ceremony, such as g i f t exchange andhospitality. McDonald's account illustrates a culturalequivalent of seed dormancy seen in the plant system.In a cultural sense, all First Nations have and are stillpa s s ing th rough a w in te r of co lonisa t ion . Thetemptation is to attempt to relive important artisticmoments in our past while in the position of thiscultural winter. There arc many examples in Maorihistory where we have claimed renaissance by simplycopying the aesthetic vessel that epitomized what isperceived as a classical moment. The waka that lie indisrepair or suffer from lack of use on marae aroundthe country after the 1990 celebrations at Waitangimight be seen as one such example. Clearly it is theheritage of values which arc important and carrylongevity rather than simply the form.

Judging ethnicity with binary oppositesAt the centre of the debate regarding ethnicity in FirstNation arts, however, is the insistence by cul turalexperts that the cultural vessel and its surrounding timecocoon, deserve highlighting at the expense of otherconsiderations. At issue is whether or not the culturalobject, s tyle and or technique conforms to apredetermined set of values and a heritage believed tobe traditional.

The recent work of cul tural theorists such asEdward Said2 and a wave of First Nation artists andcurators such as Jimmy Durham has persuasivelyargued a linkage between economic imperialism andits other manifestations in the social, political, artisticand religious spheres of a culture. They have connecteda fascination with classicism, correct traditions andthe notion of authenticity w i t h the philosophicalposi t ion of Western European powers and theircolonising activity throughout the new world primarilyfrom the sixteenth century onwards. The West's desireto discover new territory and new resources alsoinvolved the need to locate a people essentiallydifferent in customs, appearance, cuisine, and attire.This can be seen in the celebrated eighteenth centuryRoyal Academy painter Joshua Reynolds and hisportrait of Omai, Captain James Cook's Tahitiantranslator. The first Polynesian to be represented athome in British painting and observed by their society,this Pacific Islander resembles more Laurence ofArabia with his flowing drapery and his turban than aTahitian suitably attired in tapacloth. Omai's historical

biographer Eric McCormack rightly points out this isan unusual cultural conjunction driven by the noveltyof the occasion and the historic moment of discovery.Omai, the middle class Tahitian, in a format usuallyreserved for British nobility.

It was not so much a case of what was discoveredas what identity was constructed, at the moment ofdiscovery. There already exists a body of work byPakeha scholars examining the notion of geographicaland cultural distance between colony and the empire'sheartland. There is an awareness that in the work ofartists like those on Cook's explorative voyages,commonalt ies were often put aside. Instead anemphasis on difference under the various guises ofnoble savage, savage, exotic and primitive came totypify Western responses. An important issue toconsider here is, does this search for virginity, locatingan ancient version of mankind untainted by the spoilsof Western civilization (best epitomized in the life andwork of the French artist Paul Gauguin) continue?

More research into the role binary opposites playin the work of current Pakeha curators, historians,n o v e l i s t s , archaeologists, anthropologists andethnologists is requi red . A belief in and theconstruction of an imaginary and idealistic past forMaori is unfortunately a backdrop to much researchin the arts. Insistence on authenticity in Maori arts andculture is I believe essentially a Western construction.This viewpoint I believe has had a major influence onthe way Maori have come to perceive themselves andthe culture we have inherited. What we now mustcontend with is merely other more subverted versionsof eighteenth and nineteenth century precedents (i.enoble savage, dusky maiden). There is a convictionthat the purest form of the 'other' is that which is nottainted by contact with outside Western cultures. It isironic then to find some Maori strongly involved inpromoting this standpoint as well. Referring to thework of contemporary Maori artists in the exhibitioncatalogue Te Maori, anthropologist Sidney Meadrather gloomily asserts that ... 'New forms of art,borrowed from the traditions of the West, have beenintroduced into the Maori world. Maori artists trainedin the artschools of the Pakeha are spearheading amovement to change the face of Maori art moreradically than ever before. One does not know whetherthey innovate with love and understanding, or whetherthey are about to ignite new fires of destruction.' (Mead1984:75)

Te Maori as an exhibition whose objects were

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selected by an American (Douglas Newton), a Pakehaethnologist (Dave Simmons) and a Maori anthro-pologist (Sidney Mead), is a good example of thesilencing not only of a female presence but also thecontemporary dimension of our culture. A fear of newmore assimilative artforms, which predicates Mead'spassage above, meant not only exclusion, through thetypes of objects that were selected, but also by virtueof those left out (i.e taonga associated with nineteenthcentury Maori prophets, the twentieth century Taiapaschool). The business of locating or being seen tolocate Maori culture untainted by contact with the Westwould have to mean a search for models from (orstrongly influenced by) an era prior to Western arrivalsin Aotearoa. The influence of this point on peoplewithin First Nation cultures will be seen later on.

I have two examples to illustrate my point regardingthe ongoing search on the part of Pakeha culture forvirginity. Recently my family has become involved inthe organisation CIOFF, a cultural branch of the UnitedNations organisation UNESCO. The organisation iscommitted to funding cultural performance groupsfrom around the world, to display their culture as partof a smorgasbord of international talent at huge folkfestivals around mainland Europe. One of the keycriteria for funding is that the group demonstrateauthenticity in their costume, songs, their adornmentand even their weaponry. The question is, whichhistorical phase does one look for as a point ofreference for authenticity in Maori culture? Who isable to judge what is authentically Maori? As welooked through! the photographs of previous trips theabsurdity of this UNESCO task became clear. Paintedmoko, machine sewn taniko and a recurring guitar usedas an accompaniment instrument and performerscoming from a variety of tribal backgrounds andexperiences all seemed obvious indicators of culturalsyncretism rather than authenticity.

This insistence on correctness and cultural purityin First Nation cultures was also recently experiencedby the Koori curator Djon Mundine. He recounted tome a degree of disappointment with the attitudes ofEuropean museums to a Koori art exhibition he trav-elled with throughout European centres. He attributedthe recurring museological rejection of the show's con-tent with the fact that the artists represented demon-strated as much connection with the Western fine artsaesthetic as an inherited Aboriginal visual language.What Mundine discovered was that what many Euro-pean museum people do not want to see is a reflection

of their own culture in First Nation art. Sameness is aproblem, difference is essential.

Museum and cultural heritage studies lecturer DrAmareswar Galla of the University of Canberra says'it is a common adage that those who control yourcultural heritage control the way others think aboutyou' (Post Colonial Formations conference, GriffithUniversity, 7 - 9 July, 1993). Wanting a culture toexhibit some formal attributes is really both a rejectionof the current dimension of that cu l tu re and anendorsement of only a limited proportion of it.Returning to the rengarenga metaphor, it is likeex to l l ing the p lan t s bloom whi l e f a i l i n g toacknowledge changes in season. It is now winter andthe flower has fruited, dropped its seed head and itsabove ground beauty long since died away. PictureGauguin's disappointment on arrival in late nineteenthcentury Papeete. The mourning of a classical form ofTahitian life and cul ture imagined yet irreparablydeconstructed by the arrival and messy cu l tu ra lintermixture with the French colonial machine and theCatholic church. Clearly, Maori must develop astrategy that better copes with the demand from Pakehathat we supply boundaries and exhibit behaviour inkeeping with their expectations regarding our ethnicity.The process of cultural redefinition by Maori artistsin the urban context is a major concern to thewatchdogs of tradition (both Maori and Pakeha).Decentralising funding and museum structures wouldprobably be factors essential in any move beyond oursimply being a culture which responds to this desirefor definition (or to the legal and strategic requirementsof local or central government as in the case of theMuseum of New Zealand and the Te Waka Toidimension of Creative New Zealand).

Today even the word 'Maori' might be looked onas a simplistic way of packaging the complex varietyof tribal cul tures found wi th in these islands andcontrolling them. Extending Galla's observationregarding c u l t u r a l control and destiny. If theconstruction of the Maori identity involves strongPakeha input. If a preoccupation with our classical pastis merely a reflection of Pakeha romanticism. If therenever was a classical period, just as there never was aconcept of Maori, before the European arrived. If theislands of this country were simply occupied by SouthPacific peoples, bound together by links of commonancestry, contemporary kinship, geographic locationand more pertinently, a desperate need for groupsurvival. Then perhaps we need to rethink the way in

HC PUKCnga KOrerO Koanga (Spring), Volume 2, Number I, 1996

which we might view history in order to regain controlover our future.

If we now have to deal concurrently with not onlythe shining models of our past, the Kaitaia lintel, theTainui monument Uenukutuwhatu, the carved workof Rukupo as well as the twentieth century pioneeringwork of film animator Lisa Reihana or the architectureof John Scott, we must think very carefully about howwe construct a cu l tu re of inclusiveness. The wayfoward I believe involves a return again to the thinkingof leaders from our past, to the words of people suchas Ihenga, regarding survival. The major work byRalph Hotere entitled, Black Phoenix encapsulatesmuch of Ihenga's notion of regeneration. Rather thanstruggling with the obvious differences in visuallanguage (compared with more traditional forms), wemight think of ideas simply taking on different forms.What the burn t out hull of this fishing boat fromCarey's Bay does illustrate, is that the essence of whowe are as Maori, has as much to do with the death ofvessels from the past, as the maintenance and revivalof these forms in the present. Painter Darcy Nicholas,writing on Maori artist John Ford said that like thetransformation of harakeke into muka and then into abeautiful korowai, 'nothing in the Maori world dies itmerely takes on a new dimension'. This saying, likeHotere's work, demonstrates the cyclical dimensionof our existence as Maori. We are living in a worldwhere all things may find redefinition and where evendeath involves life.

1 The Arawa tupuna (we use this form in the North) Ihengavisited family in the Tai Tokerau region. His travels are wellknown to Northern people. My interest in Ihenga is personaland localised. Among the many important tribal symbols whichhe named is my grandfather's maunga Whatitiri at Porotiti.More recently, I encountered Maori lecturers from WaiarikiPolytechnic involved in researching Ihenga's travels, while outon a major pa site at the entrance of Kaipara's South Head. Theinformation and experience of our northern area which theywere gathering was being used in conjunction with the wharewhakairo Ihenga, whose decoration Lionel Grant has beensupervising at Waiariki. The whakatauki quoted is said to havebeen used by Ihenga in response to an attack made on himwhile visiting a North Kaipara pa.

1 See for example, Edward Said's two influential textsOrientalism. (1978). Random House: London and Cul tu re andImperialism. (1993). Vintage: London.

ReferencesMead, H. M. (1984). Te Maori, Auckland: Heinemann Publishers.