rangihīroa, Tī ‘cabbage tree’ with kāroro circling, Te Atatū, 10 June 2018
I was told
kākaho was the proud one
spurning the love of pingao
as she wistfully sought his plumes
waving in the wind
exalted above the sandy ridge
and with her rich toothy, green grin
dragging her vines ‘cross hot sand
not an introduction she’d planned
but that wānanga is wrong
isn’t it Mr Tī?
the light that reaches over Ōwairaka, Maungawhau and me
casts long shadows where we stand
and you demanded I shoot you, not kākaho, early afternoon
‘the light is more flattering’
a rustle in your messy top
broad, bright fluttering green leaves
as you casually explained
heroic
I want frontal, central, imposing
and if the shoot doesn’t give it
use Photoshop
you know, more than the Nor-Western motorway
I am Te Atatū
Don’t worry Mr Tī, I replied nervously,
there will be no rivals – not even kākaho
rangihīroa, kākaho, Te Atatū waterfront, 2018
I have followed your client brief to the t…
harakeke sits at your feet submissively
and proud kākaho (toetoe stem) has been banished
to the edge of Waitematā’s cloak
outside the shot
oh and one more thing: a small detail I must confide
I squinted up his textured trunk towards the sun radiating
behind his crown
him looking down murmuring a deep single syllable ‘ae’
and then softly, so softly one could barely hear it
above the chirp of matata and the squeeky toy twittering of the tōrea
rangihīroa, Mātātā ‘fernbird’, Te Atatū waterfront
a shake began
leaves clattering nor-wester
and around his trunk
a ghost hand massaging wīwī and coercing marshland grasses
I cleared my throat, perhaps a little self-consciously now
if you look closely at the photo
there are kāroro moving around your crown
they were squawking and laughing at me trying to get the shot
He said, no
they are admirers singling me out.
S O M E N O T E S
rangihīroa, Te Atatū shore line looking north-east towards Northcote
This is a revised post from 10 June 2018 and concerns two things – conservation and conceit against a backdrop of images taken on one of a couple of waterfront walks at Te Atatū ‘sunrise’. The dialogue is based on quite a different indigenous story concerning the native plants kākaho and pingao which similarly occupy the threshold domain between Tangaroa (the sea) and of Tāne (the forest). There are no sand dunes in the tidal mudflats of Te Atatū so I have singled out the most prominent native on location – tī, the native cabbage tree – for a more narcissistic version of the role kākaho demonstrates in the traditional story of unrequited love.
The setting is suitable for love but perhaps not self-love. The Waitematā tide was in and there was a view across to Chelsea Sugarworks, Northcote and further to the East – the Viaduct and the three Tāmaki maunga (ko Maungawhau, Maungakiekie and Ōwairaka) rising in the distance behind the rumbling northwestern motorway as it heads towards the Rosebank, Avondale turnoff and further on the Te Atatū turnoffs.
My short dialogue involving Mr Tī had been brewing for quite a while since I first encountered the delightful story of pingao and kākaho in a publication produced by weavers who harvest the native fibre for their mahi ringa (tukutuku, kete and whāriki) and who also belonged to Ngā Puna Waihanga during the 1980s. I once accompanied a ranger in the Kaipara to gather the material for a meetinghouse, involving tukutuku utilising pingao, called Ihenga in Rotorua that celebrated ancestral traveller’s connection to the large northern harbour and to sites around Te Tai Tokerau. Weavers who use the material, as with those utilising harakeke, are intimately involved with the maintenance and care of the sedge and its surrounding ecosystem. Utilising the ‘eyebrows’ of Tāne means they must care for their resource if they are to access the beautiful sedge for their work. It is important to note here that perched in such a vulnerable position this plant continues to exist in an increasingly fragile state on New Zealand coastal sand dunes. As I understood it these weavers were exemplary kaitiaki, truly practitioners of the whakataukī:
Manaakitia ngā tukemata o Tāne ‘caring for the eyebrows of Tāne’
rangihīroa, pingao, Whāngārei Heads, 2020
The following account of kākaho and pingao is one of a number that tell the compelling love story:
‘From her home she [i.e. ko Pingao] looked up to the land and saw the young and handsome kakaho dancing on the sand dunes. Each time the kakaho made his appearance Pingao became more and more enamoured. Finally she asked permission from Tangaroa to leave the sea to meet her lover. Tangaroa granted her permission with words of warning that she would never make it.
However driven by blind love, she left the seaweed and crawled across the hot sand. As she struggled up she began to call to the kakaho – but he was interested only in himself. He was in love with his own shape and did not answer pingao’s calls. In desperation she called back to Tangaroa, who could do nothing but shower her with spray. And there on the sand dunes, the pingao remains to this day.‘ Rangitane wānanga
For those sceptical regarding nature speaking. It’s not so much that nature talks perhaps more that we should listen. In my version singling out the tī is appropriate as it is a special tree whose name is contained within that of my Te Uriroroi affiliation with Porotī. It was there (outside Whāngārei on the way to Kaikohe) that a special ceremony was held to marry our ancestors with Waikato women and the cutting of the tī was the sign of the tomo ‘marriage negotiations’. This may relate to the raids of southern tribes on Whāngārei (Ōparakau, Parihaka, 1828) in retaliation for the raupatu conducted by Hika and our ancestral leaders who accompanied him in Tāmaki, Waikato and in Hauraki. So my choice of images is, as with any tribally based Māori, biased. Murua mai āku hara nei ne!
ranghīroa, ‘Melanie Picked big Leaf‘, [student graffiti on native leafs] Manoa Campus, University of Hawai’i, January 1999‘Stupid x3 Marco’, Dendroglyph, Ngā Mara Hainamana o Kirikiriroa, 2021
He Kōrero Tairitenga
Te Uru, Waitākere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi, 13 February 2021
rangihīroa, Ātarangi, Hato Mikaere, Ōhaeawai, tata atu ki te Pū o te Wheke
I
W I L L
N E E D
W O R D S
rangihīroa, Northern Wars, 2020, coloured inks on paper, matai me Japanese cherry
rangihīroa, ngā parekura o Ngā Pakanga Whenua o Mua, Ruapekapeka, 1845/1846rangihīroa, The Road to Ruapekapeka, 2020He rua tūpāpaku mō ngā hōia Ingarihi i hinga ki te parekura kei kōnei St Michaels, urupā, Ōhaeawai, 2021
written for the opening of Bruce Connew, ‘A Vocabulary’, Te Uru, Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi 12 December 2020
E ngā mate. Ka mahara tātou ki ngā mumu Māori e takoto ana kei raro i ngā parekura o ngā pakanga whenua o mua. Haere, haere, haere. Haere ki te poho o te Atua, haere ki Hawaikinui, Hawaiki roa, Hawaiki pāmamao.
rangihīroa, Hato Mikaere, Ōhaeawai
The parekura sits silent no noise at all just the chatter of a tui wrecking putiputi down by the hall just the wind murmuring across the fertile plains he swore he heard their voices around Ngāi Kuku’s last remains
down by the river where the fighting pā once stood or was it just the twittering of pīwakawaka in the woods
the scale of the loss disgusted him it explained why he refused the spirit path to Rēinga instead he would choose to guard over bones and taonga and mourn unmentioned loss hidden from a nearby cenotaph that counted not the cost
raised to his last battle near fields where he had toiled he read the text again and again as if it would reveal some other truth or meaning that might possibly transcend a vocabulary of forgetting bronze letters that won’t bend colourful adjectives murdering rebels, barbarous savages
he struggled with the message they were a people worth forgetting
Indeed not a word of his hapū’s bravery not a mention of their name or that settler greed for land was largely to blame for a war no native asked for how else could one explain an eternity of loss within and this deep gnawing pain
and when archaeologists visit he wishes they’d hear him yell Haere mai E hoa, haul your trig over here, man Yeah map us brother, draft us on that plan
but the grid only measures trenches so we’ll always be missed except by manuhiri that want to take a piss
and summer comes and summer goes and the pōhutukawa bleeds scarlet in the morning 10 shades of crimson when the sun retreats
He pōhutukawa ko tahiHe pōhutukawa, e ruaHe pōhutukawa, e toru..
Some notes regarding ’10 Shades…‘
My wife’s people, Te Aupōuri, live near Cape Rēinga in the ‘far North’ of Aotearoa. They along with other Muri Whenua iwi, like Ngāti Kuri, consider themselves gatekeepers to Te Rerenga o Wairua ‘the leaping off point of the Spirits’ at the northern extremity of Aotearoa. Many Polynesian Islands in the South Pacific have these points of departure. This role of kaitiakitanga ‘guardianship’ at the exit of ēnei wairua ‘these spirits’ journeying to Hawaiki has created family histories where ghost stories are common. At times the Spirits stop along the way and there are visitations. The narratives told at night of encounters with the spirits are the most frightening. These wānanga ‘narratives’ are cherished and remembered and passed on with great relish and drama by the skilled storytellers of Muri Whenua.
10 Shades…then , in essence, is a ghost story taken from the point of view of a toa ‘Māori warrior’, he mumu Māori, who decides not to take the well worn path to Rēinga and determines to remain instead with his whānau and the warriors he fought with on a Ngā Pakanga Whenua o Mua battefield. In the poem one of the greatest struggles the central character has is accepting a memorial inscription raised near the battlefield. History, so the saying goes, is written by the victors. While this may be partly true these are also the days where indigenous voices outside the majority culture may also contest such histories.
Photograph featured: Mark Adams, Ko Kawanui te puna, Whatitiri Springs, 26 October 1998, illustrated in MAORI ART, chapter 6 ‘Raruraru ki te Puna’, Batemans, 2015/2018: 139
I DRANK THE WATER
10 pm, Sunday 6 January 2018
Do you remember?
the stream we camped beside
when our families were huddled together
around the patriarch
and the dirty white canvas tent
that spouted waterfalls when it rained too hard
when your proudest boast was
how you hung off the Duke’s nose
we would put our heads under
and watch:
koeke ‘fresh water shrimps’ scuttle and dart
around smooth orange pebbles and
kōkopu flit to soft overhangs
nervous
as wind
ruffled the bracken dusted surface
even down under
we could still hear muffled
the branches of the mānuka
creak and laugh at our headless bodies
clattering they were
fondly against one another
as the clouds covered the holes in their canopy
rangihīroa, he uru manuka, Lake Rototoa, Kaipara ki Tonga, 2008
and like Narcissus
touching the mirror
we drank from that wellspring
and drew in its purity
as if it had been struck from a rock
as if it was the air
that caressed the sheer rock cliffs
where the gannets dive
as if it was the birthright of
every New Zealander
And in case
you scoff as you wade our rivers
and dare not
practice baptism
or bring to your lips what you cannot boil
and in case you don’t recall
I drank that water
rangihīroa, Threatened Waikoropupū Springs, Golden Bay, Te Wai Pounamu, 2018
Ka mate he tete kura ka tupu he tete kura
'When one red fern frond falls, another takes its place.'
he whakataukī
It’s New Year’s eve 2019 tonight. Aucklanders have fled the City for the beaches. They have escaped to Northland’s remote stretches of sand and to Coromandel’s ringed coastlines. This place is a ghost town. Driving around feels a little like going back to the empty suburban roads of the 1980s during other periods of vacation. Many indigenous cultures have different concepts regarding the arrival of the New Year. For our tūpuna it was the months of winter (late May/early June) and the appearance of the star cluster Matariki ‘Pleiades constellation’ that signalled the change. While June 10 was celebrated this year there was traditionally a longer, natural cyclic rhythm that brought cosmos and people together in celebration throughout tribal Aotearoa. Matariki was a time for the harvesting of natural resources, a time of reflection and a time of planning for the future.
While the heavens are a natural place to turn to this time of year (i.e. Bethlehem – the morning star and the Christian narrative) I am a Māori art historian and Māori art is full of natural cyclic symbols that may prove useful to this discussion. My book MAORI ART looks at the metaphor of rivers in our ancestral thinking as a way of considering the flow of history in our artforms. It may have been a short essay I wrote recently on kōwhaiwhai based artist Sandy Adsett that made me more aware of a rauponga fern sending out pitau shoots over the last couple of weeks. Photographing the fern immediately brings to mind one of the key design modules in Māori art – the koru and it is this motif, its history and its natural origins, that is the focus for the remainder of this short essay. The koru, I suggest, is actually a good metaphor for acknowledging the New Year.
There are many natural sources for the koru. While the spiral is commonly used by many cultures throughout the world the koru and its particular usage by New Zealand Māori is unique for a range of reasons. Firstly, it represents an aesthetic shift in Polynesian design history. The koru, and its many different manifestations in te toi whakairo ‘Māori woodcarving’ and kōwhaiwhai ‘Māori rafter painting’, constitutes a deliberate movement away from the angular forms and patterns that were part of the proto Polynesian aesthetic (particularly present in pottery, tapa and tātau) to a uniquely curvilinear form. The koru developed and flourished here in Aotearoa as our ancestors became increasingly isolated from their Hawaiki (i.e. their various Pacific homelands).
Sandy Adsett, Ngāti Pahaurewa and New Zealand Historic Places Trust restoration, HINERINGA meetinghouse, Raupunga mārae. Photography: Haruhiko Sameshima (commissioned by author) 19 January 1994, destroyed by fire 2007.
Secondly, the koru is a response to the equally unique natural environment found here in Aotearoa. The shape of the previously described unfurling fern frond is one commonly referred to as a source of inspiration for the koru. The pitau is embryonic and full of potential and that is what probably attracted our ancestors to the architecture of its growth. It suggests in its coil that life involves all sorts of possibilities. Life is potential. Tomorrow is another day that will unfold in a way that may be completely different from today. The unfolding fern frond also suggests a point of return in its circularity. It speaks of natural cycles, continuum and a returning…
Just the right motif, I say, to introduce the new year that so many around the world celebrate.
Nā reira, e ngā whāea, e ngā mātua, e ngā tamariki, e ngā kaipānui o ēnei rangataki. Hari tau hou, Happy New Year!
