item details
Overview
This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).
‘Ka whawhai tonu ahau ki a koe, ake, ake!’ (‘I shall fight you forever, and ever, and ever!’) These are the famous words attributed to Rewi Maniapoto, when called to surrender at the siege of Ōrākau in 1863 — a key episode in the New Zealand Wars in which a decisive British victory was denied. In the course of hostilities, Māori and British alike developed immense respect for Rewi’s strategic prowess. He did not seek conflict; indeed, Rewi believed in honouring the Treaty of Waitangi, upholding a relationship of equality and resisting successive colonial governments’ attempts to undermine Māori authority. History has endorsed Rewi, and even contemporary newspaper accounts of this photograph — taken when he was probably in his seventies — are deeply respectful: ‘Every line of the features is brought out with admirable distinctness … The keen, fiery, deep-set eyes, gleam out from under a brow denoting a strong, determined and thoughtful mind.’1
The photograph was made in 1879 in the Auckland studio of Elizabeth Pulman, who herself showed resourcefulness, even courage, in taking over its running after the premature death of her husband, George, that same year. Although Rewi wears the European attire typical of the period, he is draped in a kaitaka cloak and holds an elaborately carved wooden wahaika, a hand weapon. While these are almost certainly studio props, Rewi looks every inch the veteran warrior. Some retouching has been applied to his ageing face: ‘He remarked … that he was now an old man, the same age as Sir George Grey, and possibly might never see Auckland again’.2 The moko (tattooing), while only partial, is of high quality and befits one raised to lead. Rewi wears huia feathers in his hair, and also notable is his diamond ring, a present from a previous native minister (probably Donald McLean). Evidently Rewi was delighted with the photograph, and took away fifty cabinet portraits, saying ‘he could not return to his country without taking a number for his friends’. He was not the only one: the New Zealand Herald correctly predicted that ‘many will no doubt desire to possess the likeness, or to send it to friends in England’.3
Lissa Mitchell, Matiu Baker, Mark Stocker
1 Auckland Star, 16 June 1879, p. 7.
2 Auckland Star, 21 June 1879, p. 10.
3 New Zealand Herald, 16 June 1879, p. 14.