Rock art is the forgotten medium of historic Maori culture.
There is much to learn about it, and many sites probably remain to be discovered.
A
carved motif at Te Kakaho, Western Taupo. Photo: Dr
Yann-Pierre Montelle
Rock art is one of the
oldest surviving artistic media. It exists within indigenous cultures around
the world, with caves, cliff faces and rocky outcrops crafted into the role
of storyteller through a collection of realistic depictions and abstract designs
of unknown intent.
To view this form of art is to experience a deeply
moving sense of history. In its presence one cannot help but envisage an early
ancestor in front of a rock surface, lovingly working pigments of charcoal and
ochre into his “canvas”, leaving a remnant of his people that would
resonate through the centuries.
Maori, like many indigenous peoples, have
their own rock art tradition and although it may not be able to boast the longevity
of some, such as that of the Aboriginals of Australia, which dates back more than
40,000 years, it’s no less significant. It provides a fascinating record
of Maori occupation, displaying a continuum that extends from moa-hunting to European
contact, including drawings of European sailing ships and horses.
The bulk
of New Zealand’s known rock art resides in Te Waipounamu (the South Island)
with the limestone valleys of North Otago and South Canterbury holding the
country’s highest concentration of sites. They are located within the
rohe (territory) of the Ngai Tahu iwi, which has taken on a guardianship responsibility
for these taonga.
However, that’s not to say the North Island is devoid
of rock art - far from it.
According to the New Zealand Archaeological
Association site-recording scheme there are at least 107 rock art sites scattered
around the North Island, and there is enough evidence to suggest there could be
many more. But at this stage the mainland remains the country’s best-known
resource, with 550 sites recorded in the areas surveyed to date.
A
carved motif at Te Kakaho, Western Taupo. Photo: Dr
Yann-Pierre Montelle
And yet, even with such
a large number of sites throughout the country, the rock art community in New
Zealand has a problem - a serious lack of profile. Ask any New Zealander –
Maori or Pakeha - to give an example of indigenous art and there’s every
chance you’ll get an informed answer – whether it be carving (whakairo),
weaving (raranga), music (rangi waiata) or even tattooing (ta moko).
What
you’re unlikely to get is an answer that includes some reference to Maori
rock art - not because it doesn’t belong in such exalted artistic company,
but because most people simply don’t know that it exists.
Even those
with an awareness of the centuries-old artistic tradition may well confidently
espouse the view, with some justification, that the only surviving examples
of rock art are located in the South Island.
To address this problem
and to discuss other rock art-related issues the New Zealand Historic Places
Trust last year organised the inaugural North Island Maori Rock Art Hui.
Site
visit to Tokopuhi, near Tokoroa. Photo: Dr Yann-Pierre
Montelle
The Trust has been actively involved
in the Maori rock art scene for more than 50 years. Soon after its inception
in 1954, the Trust learned the Government of the day was planning to create hydro-electric
schemes along the Waikato River. It immediately saw the implications of this for
rock art sites near the river and thus began to support and fund initiatives to
protect this taonga for future generations, beginning its relationship with this
unique artistic form.
Based at Waitetoko Marae on the shores of Lake Taupo,
the inaugural hui brought together some of the country’s foremost experts
on rock art, including anthropologists, archaeologists and historians. Representatives
from North Island hapu and iwi with rock art in their immediate takiwa (area)
were also invited to attend.
The hui also included a large contingent from
the Ngai Tahu Maori Rock Art Trust, who had come to share their knowledge and
experiences, and tautoko (support) their northern colleagues. The iwi Trust has
spent the past nine years researching rock art in its rohe as part of a special
project aimed at creating a permanent photographic record of sites around the
South Island.
The project has been made possible through funding from various
organisations, including the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, ECNZ (Electricity
Company of New Zealand), Lotteries Grants Board and Meridian Energy.
As
well as discussing ways to help raise the awareness of rock art nationally, the
hui also covered a plethora of other issues. Chief among them for Historic Places
Trust Kaihautu (National Maori Heritage Manager) and hui organiser Te Kenehi Teira
was the future role of Maori in the research and guardianship of North Island
rock art sites.
He pointed to the excellent work done by the Ngai Tahu Maori
Rock Art Trust as an example of what could be achieved.
Site
visit to Tokopuhi, near Tokoroa. Photo: Dr Yann-Pierre
Montelle
“We want to make people aware
of the fact that rock art exists here in the North Island, as well as nationally,”
says Teira. “To do that we need to set up an organisation that’s representative
of all North Island iwi to work as kaitiaki (guardians) to maintain a connection
and help conserve our rock art places. If iwi mana is to be recognised over our
Maori rock art heritage, then it’s important that iwi are at the forefront
of any discussions and take ownership of these taonga.”
Teira agreed
there were some challenging issues to work through, such as getting as many
iwi on board as possible and achieving good representation throughout the North
Island, but he’s determined that rock art receive the recognition it deserves.
“This art is extremely important. It’s a whole area of Maori culture
that hasn’t been brought to the fore, and it needs to be acknowledged.”
Other
topics of discussion at the hui took on a more esoteric quality, as experts
posed the kinds of questions that have sparked debate within the international
rock art community for decades. What motivated our tipuna (ancestors) to create
such works? What was their purpose? What’s more important, the sites or the
art? How do we interpret the art in the modern era? Should we?
The issue
of interpretation, perhaps more than any other throughout the three-day hui,
polarised views, with the debate one evening stretching into the early hours of
the morning.
Waka
motif Photo: Dr Yann-Pierre Montelle
“There were some who believed we can and should interpret the
rock art, and others that felt it’s not important,” says Teira. “The
only written information about Maori rock art comes from archaeologists, who can’t
help but interpret what they see. Personally, I don’t have a problem with
interpretation. I just think there are a number of ways to interpret rock art.”
NZHPT
Maori Heritage Manager Dean Whiting agrees and goes even further, advocating
a culturally holistic approach to any attempted translation of Maori rock art.
“I
think that the interpretation issue has obvious difficulties because the gap
between first-hand knowledge of this art tradition and today is so great. However,
we should not forget that this art was created within a cultural landscape, language
and understanding not dissimilar to contemporary Maori culture.
The rock
faces would have likely heard the words tupuna, waka and kokowai and resonated
to verse of karakia and waiata when the first lines were drawn and carved. Whilst
scientific methodologies can provide important information in understanding the
art and its context, it is vital that these elements of the picture are debated
under cultural framework, within the descendants of the people who created them.”
Whiting
says the “Western view” of research, and particularly its application
to translating indigenous art/expression lends itself to interpretation divorced
from a Maori or indigenous viewpoint.
“Western ways of viewing art
tend to concentrate on the material knowledge of the work in terms of its age
through carbon dating, substances used to ‘paint’ figures, rock compositions
and the like. For us the cultural landscape takes precedence and the interpretation
focuses on the symbolism of each figure and the reasoning for undertaking the
rock art. In other words, the people are important.”
Ngai Tahu Maori
Rock Art Trust’s researcher and fieldworker Dr Yann-Pierre Montelle, who
has a doctorate in anthropology from Brown University in the USA, is actively
involved in the discovery, photography and recording of sites in the South Island.
Throughout his career he’s done a lot of field work at other rock
art sites around the world, including the USA, Australia, Spain and his native
France. He’s also made lengthy visits to rock art sites in Morocco, Namibia
and Libya, so he’s well placed to give a global perspective on rock art.
“Rock
art is the closest we’ve ever gotten to having a shared language around
the world,” says Montelle. “It provides a fascinating window where we
can glimpse some of the ways we constructed our realities in various stages of
our evolution.” He says the North Island is entering a very exciting period
of rediscovery, as Maori begin the process of finding and recording rock art sites.
“There’s
a fantastic amount of work ahead, and, who knows, they may potentially uncover
a huge number of new sites. There’s a complexity in the rock art here that
tells me there’s a great deal of intricacy to these sites. Once a database
is established in the North Island, we’ll be able to learn a lot of things
about early Maori, like the population levels of given areas, tribal movements
and stylistic diffusion.”
And here’s where the path of science
diverges somewhat from the Maori view of interpretation. But that doesn’t
make the science wrong, according to Teira – it’s just a different approach.
“The Wanganui people have a term that comes to mind – ‘Ko
au te awa, ko te awa ko au,’ which means, ‘I am the river, the river
is me, like I am the kohatu (rock) the rock is me.’ Western science takes
a different course. “Rene Descartes’ famous words ‘I think,
therefore I am’ denote a type of logic and a level of experience that expresses
itself through archaeology, anthropology and other such sciences. The outcome
of such thinking is a concentration on the object and a fixation to preserve the
rock with its figures relatively intact.”
Teira says his focus is more
on the role of kaitiakitanga (guardianship), which offers a stark contrast
to Western understanding.
“Kaitiakitanga is not about the Pakeha
notion of ownership. That is, they do not have to ‘know’ who did
the art, but there is an understanding that our tupuna recorded in this way. But
iwi and hapu with mana whenua (trusteeship of land) understand it is their role
to undertake a guardian responsibility even if they may not directly whakapapa
to it. Rock art is a way to understand how our tupuna educated themselves, viewed
themselves then, right through to today.
“Traditional knowledge enables
us to see our place and our responsibility within the movement of history as
it is experienced by the community.”
Despite the obvious differences
in approach between the scientific community and Maori to rock art issues,
Montelle says he has been hugely impressed with the way the people are taking
ownership of their rock art and believes they are well placed to deal with it
internally.
“We were able to have some incredible korero at this hui
– even when we weren’t always in agreement. I have no doubt the coming
generation of Maori scholars and researchers will be able to take full responsibility
for the preservation and analysis of Maori rock art.”
The hui coupled
theoretical discussions with several visits to rock art sites around the central
North Island, including Tokopuhi near Tokoroa, and various sites around Lake Taupo,
such as Acacia Bay.
Geography and the availability of certain materials
mean there are distinct differences between the rock art in the North Island
and that found further south.
Because of the large amount of limestone
in the Otago/ Canterbury region, most of the rock art is painted on, using
red or black pigments made from charcoal and ochre. In the North Island, particularly
in the central plateau region, the rock art is often incised or carved into volcanic
rock formations, and then overlaid with pigments.
The guide for the rock
art site visits was Perry Fletcher, who describes himself as an historical
and site research consultant. Fletcher, a Pakeha, grew up listening to the
stories told by kaumatua, including discussions on the location of various
rock art sites and burial areas.
“I was lucky enough to be exposed
to Maori oral traditions at a very early age. When I moved to Taupo as a young
man I learned the kaumatua had a lot of knowledge to give.”
Fletcher
took it upon himself to begin what has become a lifetime labour of love, creating
a comprehensive record of rock art sites around the Taupo region and even further
afield. Like others at the hui, he suspects a more comprehensive study into North
Island rock art may reveal a wealth of sites.
“The problem with a
lot of the sites in the North Island is remoteness. I suspect many farmers
have rock art on their properties and are going past them every day without giving
them a second glance. Although it’s too early to say, it wouldn’t surprise
me to find we have as many sites up here as they have down south.”
Not
surprisingly, everyone was moved by the visits to various sites. Ngai Tahu
Maori Rock Art Trust chairperson Mandy Home has seen more rock art than most,
including sites in Australia and India, but she always takes away something new
from every experience.
“Every time I look at Maori rock art I feel
really proud and humble,” says Home, “because the more you think
you know the less you do actually know. We lost all that korero about the art
from our tipuna, so to me it’s all about protection and just spending time
with the taonga. You can look over a site and try and picture the landscape as
it was at the time the drawing was done. You may not know why the art’s there,
but that doesn’t make it any less important or significant to us.”
Teira
hailed the hui as a “great success” and said it was a matter now of
continuing the momentum that had been created during the three days and spreading
awareness of Maori rock art out to iwi, hapu and the rest of the country through
further hui and other profile-raising activities.
“We’d like
to raise awareness through various ways,” says Teira, “Including the
media, as well as talking directly to people through huii. It really was an excellent
three days and I’d like to replicate this at other areas around the North
Island. We had all the right people there – particularly the Ngai Tahu Rock
Art Trust, which has carried the torch for the whole of New Zealand over the past
decade.”
And now the hope is that North Island iwi will rise to
the challenge and pick up that torch, so that future generations of New
Zealanders, when asked to give an example of Maori art, will be able to say with
pride “Rock Art!”
