A Whakapapa of Tradition: 100 Years of Ngati Porou Carving 1830-1930
From the emergence of the chapel and the wharenui in the nineteenth century to the rejuvenation of carving by Apirana Ngata in the 1920s, Maori carving went through a rapid evolution from 1830 to 1930.
Focusing on thirty meeting houses, Ngarino Ellis tells the story of Ngati Porou carving and a profound transformation in Maori art. Beginning around 1830, three previously dominant art traditions - waka taua (war canoes), pataka (decorated storehouses) and whare rangatira (chief's houses) - declined and were replaced by whare karakia (churches), whare whakairo (decorated meeting houses) and wharekai (dining halls). Ellis examines how and why that fundamental transformation took place by exploring the Iwir?kau School of carving, based in the Waiapu Valley on the East Coast of the North Island.
A Whakapapa of Tradition tells us much about the art forms themselves but also analyses the environment that made carving and building possible: the patrons who were the enablers and transmitters of culture; the carvers who engaged with modern tools and ideas; and the communities as a whole who created the new forms of art and architecture. This book is both a major study of Ngati Porou carving and an attempt to make sense of Maori art history. What makes a tradition in Maori art? Ellis asks. How do traditions begin? Who decides this? Conversely, how and why do traditions cease? And what forces are at play which make some buildings acceptable and others not?
Beautifully illustrated with new photography by Natalie Robertson, and drawing on the work of key scholars to make a new synthetic whole, this book will be a landmark volume in the history of writing about Maori art.
Winner Judith Binney Best First Book Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction - Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2017
Ngarino Ellis (Ngapuhi, Ngati Porou) is a lecturer in the Department of Art History at the University of Auckland and co-editor with Deidre Brown of Te Puna: Maori Art from Northland. Natalie Robertson (Ngati Porou, Clann Dhonnchaidh) is a photographic artist and senior lecturer at AUT University. She has exhibited extensively in public institutions throughout New Zealand and internationally.