Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art
by Deidre Brown & Ngarino Ellis,
with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
WOW! What a beautiful monster of a book. Not solely through its massive weight and plenitude of pages, but more significantly – indeed far more significantly – because of its inherent kaupapa. He aha tēnā? To comprehensively present, for the first time, an encyclopaedic overview of all the many interrelated and interpolated aspects of Māori artistic endeavour from pre-European times to the present and the inchoate future.
Accordingly and inevitably, it is so mighty a tome because Māori have always had at the forefront of such endeavour, whether it be whakairo, moko, raranga, kākahu, whatu, te mea te mea te mea, these as integral living components of everyday life whereby past, present and future are not linear concepts but are a holistic always-current and interwoven panoply. As such, because there is just so much material to present – via cogent and sometimes cutting commentaries concerning Pākeha appropriation of ngā toi Māori, and via a myriad of coloured plates and photographs – the volume is gargantuan.
This vital volume is divided into three key sections, and several subsections within each of these. Te Kete Tuatea equates to pre-European customary artistan involvement. Te Kete Tuauri relates to the inevitable adjustment age and stage when European arrival and disruption and what I can only call larceny, seismically shifted Indigenous qua Māori creations and creativity. Te Kete Aronui relates to more recent times, events and exhibitions and continues to amplify what for me will happen with an increasing and necessary frequency, and that is international recognition of ngā toi Māori katoa as sui generis, and as intrinsically important. With this masterpiece and as the three kaituhi-kaitiaki articulate in their Whakamutunga/Conclusion they have already gifted the world comprehensive evidence of a ‘global domination of Māori art history’.
I amplify this last statement by pointing out that the authors forcefully stress that ngā toi Maōri in several variegated formats, is suffused by three consistent themes, namely whenua, tikanga, whakapapa. For me, as so expertly evidenced in this book, it is an expression of an entirely different Weltanschauung, albeit ongoingly modified over decades, that Māori are existentially authentic and original and must be accorded this elemental fact. As here stressed by the key progenitor of this years-long project, Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, when delineating (Māori) Indigeneity, ‘whose identity is unique and defined by the geographical compass within which they operate, and ancient and ancestral ties to place’. Ko te pono tēnā.
Obviously then, I cannot praise this magnum opus enough. It is essential reading and will remain for me he taonga into which I will continue to dip and delve and always learn from. For example, I now know about another harbinger Māori, Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury, ‘the first Maōri fine arts academic’. As a marked counterpoint I gleaned more about ‘Fakes in the collection’ when non-Māori profited grandly by producing counterfeit ‘Māori art’. Relatedly, I garnered more insight pertaining to the heinous trade in toi moko and kōiwi tangata, and trust that Toi Te Mana is causative in the return of the over 600 ancestors ‘still waiting to come home’. Here. Where they belong.
Tēnā koutou katoa mō tēnei pukapuka. He taonga waiwai. Ka maharatia tēnei e ahau taea noatia tōku matenga.
by Deidre Brown & Ngarino Ellis,
with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
WOW! What a beautiful monster of a book. Not solely through its massive weight and plenitude of pages, but more significantly – indeed far more significantly – because of its inherent kaupapa. He aha tēnā? To comprehensively present, for the first time, an encyclopaedic overview of all the many interrelated and interpolated aspects of Māori artistic endeavour from pre-European times to the present and the inchoate future.
Accordingly and inevitably, it is so mighty a tome because Māori have always had at the forefront of such endeavour, whether it be whakairo, moko, raranga, kākahu, whatu, te mea te mea te mea, these as integral living components of everyday life whereby past, present and future are not linear concepts but are a holistic always-current and interwoven panoply. As such, because there is just so much material to present – via cogent and sometimes cutting commentaries concerning Pākeha appropriation of ngā toi Māori, and via a myriad of coloured plates and photographs – the volume is gargantuan.
This vital volume is divided into three key sections, and several subsections within each of these. Te Kete Tuatea equates to pre-European customary artistan involvement. Te Kete Tuauri relates to the inevitable adjustment age and stage when European arrival and disruption and what I can only call larceny, seismically shifted Indigenous qua Māori creations and creativity. Te Kete Aronui relates to more recent times, events and exhibitions and continues to amplify what for me will happen with an increasing and necessary frequency, and that is international recognition of ngā toi Māori katoa as sui generis, and as intrinsically important. With this masterpiece and as the three kaituhi-kaitiaki articulate in their Whakamutunga/Conclusion they have already gifted the world comprehensive evidence of a ‘global domination of Māori art history’.
I amplify this last statement by pointing out that the authors forcefully stress that ngā toi Maōri in several variegated formats, is suffused by three consistent themes, namely whenua, tikanga, whakapapa. For me, as so expertly evidenced in this book, it is an expression of an entirely different Weltanschauung, albeit ongoingly modified over decades, that Māori are existentially authentic and original and must be accorded this elemental fact. As here stressed by the key progenitor of this years-long project, Jonathan Mane-Wheoki, when delineating (Māori) Indigeneity, ‘whose identity is unique and defined by the geographical compass within which they operate, and ancient and ancestral ties to place’. Ko te pono tēnā.
Obviously then, I cannot praise this magnum opus enough. It is essential reading and will remain for me he taonga into which I will continue to dip and delve and always learn from. For example, I now know about another harbinger Māori, Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury, ‘the first Maōri fine arts academic’. As a marked counterpoint I gleaned more about ‘Fakes in the collection’ when non-Māori profited grandly by producing counterfeit ‘Māori art’. Relatedly, I garnered more insight pertaining to the heinous trade in toi moko and kōiwi tangata, and trust that Toi Te Mana is causative in the return of the over 600 ancestors ‘still waiting to come home’. Here. Where they belong.
Tēnā koutou katoa mō tēnei pukapuka. He taonga waiwai. Ka maharatia tēnei e ahau taea noatia tōku matenga.
Review by Vaughan Rapatahana
(Te Ātiawa)
(Te Ātiawa)
Title: Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art
Authors: Deidre Brown, Ngarino Ellis, with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781869409197
RRP: $99.99
Available: bookshops
Authors: Deidre Brown, Ngarino Ellis, with Jonathan Mane-Wheoki
Publisher: Auckland University Press
ISBN: 9781869409197
RRP: $99.99
Available: bookshops
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