Speech: Whakamiharo Lindauer Online Launch; Awataha Marae, Northcote, Auckland

The concept of whakaahua Maori – Maori portraits – is one that immediately sparks debate and incites controversy.

There are few taonga which are so closely associated with the notion of tapu as the sacred photographs of our ancestors.

In looking upon the likeness of our tupuna, we are moved by the impressions of the soul, the force of the spirit, contained within. We gaze upon the representations of our ancestors and we gaze upon ourselves. We are one and the same.

Te Rata Mahuta Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, the fourth leader of the Maori King movement, expressed this sacred association after viewing the paintings of Gottfried Lindauer when he said

“Love and grief from the heart at the sight of the faces of these ancestors of ours – our fathers and mothers in the days when they were alive.

Oh friends – salutations to you all. Remain there in your last resting place. This ends my lament of love and sorrow”.

It is an association that I connect deeply to.

I remember when I first came upon the painting of our tupuna, Te Rangi Pikinga.

The story of Te Rangi Pikinga is a story of great sadness and loss for Nga Wairiki/Ngati Apa.

In 1819, at the age of sixteen, Te Rangi Pikanga was taken by Te Rauparaha and given to his nephew, Te Rangihaeata, to live in the rohe of Ngati Toa Rangatira. She never returned.

Her story is one we relive in our tribal histories; her name had been recited, her life retold –but I had never seen the physical representation of her face.

And so when I first looked into those sorrowful eyes, I wept.

I wept for her life; I wept for our loss; I wept that here in the midst of Auckland I would finally gaze upon the sight of our tupuna.

When the invitation came to be part of the Whakamiharo Lindauer Online Launch those memories came to the fore.

The representation of Maori by European artists has a history all of its own.

Today we are gathered in an event to bring together the historic portraits of Maori by Gottfried Lindauer.

This man of Czechoslovakian descent, born in Bohemia, and who had spent his early days studying at the Academy in Vienna, was many worlds away from the lives of our rangatira, the loved ones and leaders who remain cherished amongst our people today.

From the scholarship that has evolved around Gottfried Lindauer it would appear that his determination to document a pictorial history of Maori arose out of a belief that he would be capturing the last images of a dying race.

That he was able to enlist the trust of our people at that time, to sit for his portraits, is in itself of note.

It should be remembered that at this time our people viewed the camera or the artist with some mistrust, believing that the making of a likeness took something from the living person.

They had good reason to be suspicious, when one considers the record of cultural misappropriation and the exploitation of our taonga.

I only have to think, again, of Te Rangi Pikinga to have a very personal knowledge of cultural theft.

We have seen numerous decoupage with her image embedded on it. There are tea-towels wearing the image of our tupuna.

My son tells me of the horror of seeing the image of another of our kuia, Ruruhira Ngakuira, immortalised in a calendar as Miss July; hanging on the wall in a person’s toilet.

I say again – when we look at the face of our tupuna in these paintings, no matter who the artist is, no matter how distinguished the reputation – the value for us lies completely with the ancestor to whom we are linked.

And so to see her image associated with food, or worst of all the disposal of human waste, is not just inappropriate but it is offensive and it is deeply distressing.

I wanted to share these stories with you today, to express the love and the profound respect we have as uri, for the people who are depicted by the painter, Gottfried Lindauer - and the descendants who come to this event to honour their ancestors.

They too, will have their own stories to tell, which add another layer to the portraits we gaze upon. It is a story which will continue to be told, new stories created and conversations shared with each new entry to the website.

I have one more story to tell, and that is of two more Lindauer masterpieces – the paintings of Te Ahuru o te Rangi and Te Aperehama Tipai – the brother of Te Rangi Pikinga.

These portraits of our tupuna were in my mother’s care.

When she was approached by one of the former curators of the Whanganui Art Gallery, she agreed to let the two portraits be shared with the gallery, out of respect for him.

Time passed, and that curator left.

When the new curator arrived, he sent a receipt to my mother for the paintings that he described as being on ‘permanent loan’. At that time my mother thought nothing of it – that was until our brother died, and she wanted to bring those two portraits of our tupuna out to our marae, to lie with him, to connect him to the whakapapa that unites us all.

Suddenly there was a problem. Supposedly the receipt represented a transaction in which the museum now owned our ancestors.

Eventually we received the paintings back into our care.

After the tangi, as a whanau, we decided we wanted to avoid going through that distress ever again, and that we would protect and respect those tupuna best, by keeping them in our care, in our tupuna whare.

One by one, the curator, the mayor, the Board members, and eventually the Member of Parliament at that time, Hon Russell Marshall, came out to the marae and attempted to persuade us to give them the paintings, and thereby avoid legal action.

We were not persuaded and the battle continued.

Finally, one day when I was away down South, my mother and my uncle Hop were confronted with a television crew coming on to the marae, to broadcast the story of the Lindaeur paintings.

The whanau from all around our rohe came to discuss what we should do – and eventually we agreed, that if these two paintings were not able to remain in our care, then all of our whanau would fight to return all of the paintings in our art gallery back to whanau care.

Suffice to say, if you were to go to Whangaehu Marae today, you will gaze upon the Lindaeur paintings of Te Ahuru o te Rangi and Te Aperehama Tipai.

I remember at the time when all this erupted, I asked my mother, why are these paintings so important. She said, simply, ‘These whakaahua are who we are; we are who they are”.

And so today, I want to mihi to all those descendants who have granted permission for online images of the portraits.

I cannot over emphasize that the value of these portraits are not simply about the value an art lover ascribes to the genius of Gottfried Lindauer.

The value of these paintings to the descendants is immense – they represent our history, our heritage, our culture, our identity.

The generosity of the whanau gathered here today, in entrusting the Auckland Art Gallery with the responsibility of having whakapapa online is extremely significant – and it is a very clear tribute to the leadership of Caroline McBride and Sarah Eades as project managers for the Lindauer Online project.

You have clearly engendered the respect of all those who have granted consent to this project and I acknowledge you both today.

I want to also recognise
- the work of Mere Lodge as the iwi consultant to this project,
- curators Ngahiraka Mason and Ron Brownson,
- the research librarian, Catherine Hammond,
- photographer John McIver;
- art historian Roger Blackley,
- conservator Sarah Hillary
- and the academic leadership of people such as Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku and Associate Professor Len Bell.

All of you have done so much to provide the descendants of these portraits with the confidence that they need to allow their images to be accessed by future generations.

And so – to one final story, a postscript if you like.

Our whanau have now been blessed with three further images of Te Rangi Pikinga.

The first was when my cousin found a decoupage of her at a garage sale.

The second was gifted to us by a Maori person coming across her picture in the estate of a recently deceased, finding her name on the back and tracking us down.

And the third was when a Maori man found her portrait in the basement of the Hastings District Council; contacted us, and we took a tira over to Hastings to bring her home.

Those three incidents gave me faith that the cultural and intellectual property of Maori is now being respected as of value; perhaps we are entering a new era in which our values are understood; our traditions protected.

This is an amazing point in our history – when we balance the need to respect our taonga; to preserve the mana of our tupuna; with also recognising the challenges that have come with urbanisation.

The Lindauer Online Project will enable descendants in London or in Bahrain, to go online, to get up close through the zoom viewer; to share stories and to interact with other descendants.

They have a whakapapa right to access these images and I acknowledge the opportunity this launch will provides them. It is about being innovative while at the same time respecting the essence of who they are; of who we are.

May this opening signal the emergence of a new renaissance in which the cultural and intellectual property of all of our taonga are respected; and our people’s wishes upheld.

Tena tatou katoa