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The Maori Canoe

The Painting of a Waka Taua

The Painting of a Waka Taua

Nothing now remains to do to finish our craft but to paint it. The favoured colour was red, which was used for most parts, though the battens covering the join of hull and top-strakes were painted black, as a contrast to the red sides. On these the bunches of white
Fig. 76 Tauihu in Auckland Museum, showing somewhat crudely painted Design under Prow. (See also fig. 13, p. 61.)

W. R. Reynolds, photo

page 162feathers placed under the lashings were most effective. The puhoro design under the bow was often executed in black and white. The prow and stern pieces were usually painted red, but in the north were sometimes blackened.

In the following passage Mr. John White appears to show that the top-strakes were sometimes embellished with painted patterns in place of carved designs: "When the side-boards of a canoe were about to be marked with patterns in kokowai, the ground is first washed or wetted with the expressed sap of the poporo. That is said to have caused the paint to adhere well to the surface of the timber, and also enhanced its colour."

Mr. Barstow writes as follows on canoe-painting: "The next process is to paint our vessel; and for the prevailing red colour in fashion, karamea, a species of clay, which needs to be burnt before being applied, is most valued. The parts to be coloured are first cleaned, then sized with juice of sowthistles and the poporo shrub, after which the kararnea, mixed with water, is rubbed on; this yields the most brilliant colour, and is very lasting. Kokowai is a kind of pigment burnt, dried, and mixed with shark-liver oil. This is a good deal darker than the former. The batten, carved stern, and head of a waka taua are usually blackened with powdered charcoal or lampblack and oil. The waka tete has usually a red head. On gala occasions the taka, or outer batten, would be adorned with albatross-feathers, and wreaths of pigeon or wild-duck feathers flutter upon the stem and stern."

The poporo shrub mentioned is Solarium aviculare. It was the custom to mix the ochre with oil, not with water, as above stated. Karamea and takou are names of ochreous earths that were burned before use; kokowai and horu are names of an ochreous sediment deposited by certain streams. This sediment was collected, formed into balls, and dried at a fire, then put away for future use.

In his account of the preparation and use of kokowai, or red ochre, Archdeacon Walsh remarks: "When used for the painting of a war-canoe it was relieved with black, and occasionally with white. Thus, the hull and topsides were invariably red and the figure-head arid stern-post, as well as the long batten which covered the joint between the hull and topsides, were usually a lustrous black, while for several feet under the bows a running pattern was painted in black and white, suggestive of the rippling of waves. The effect of this combination was most striking and beautiful, especially when the head and stern pieces were further decorated with their ornament of parrot and pigeon feathers, and the covering batten spaced at intervals with the white plumes of the gannet."

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The Archdeacon gained his knowledge of Maori life in the north, hence his remark that the prow and stern pieces were usually black; in other districts they were usually red. Hare Hongi, a native of the north, however, tells us in the following communication that red paint was more commonly employed in that district:—

Note on Blackened Canoe Prow and Stern Posts.—If it was so desired to have the new tauihu and taurapa blackened instead of being coloured with the kokowai, as was more usual, a hinau dye was prepared by pounding the bark and steeping it in a wooden vessel containing water, which was brought to a boil by means of red-hot stones. The carved tauihu and rapa were steeped in the dye thus prepared—for two nights usually. They were then removed to a swamp containing an abundance of sediment, or parapara, and flung into it, where they were left for one night usually. Removed from the swamp as they dried, they were smeared with hinu (oil or grease), and they then remained a permanent and approved black colour. Designs in black were frequently made in the body of the canoe itself. When, owing to various circumstances, it was not convenient to use the hinau dye, the articles were simply plunged into a swamp containing an abundance of sediment (parapara), and left to steep for three nights, then taken out and smeared with oil. Thus darkened, the colour, though permanent, was not so much approved. Of one process we say "He mea tuku ki teparapara"; of the other we say "He mea pani ki te kokowai"

Hare Hongi. 30th March, 1906.

Here it is seen that paint was not employed in the north for blackening these carvings, but that they were stained by means of sinking them in swamp-mud. The steeped bark of the hinau (Eleocarpus dentatus) produces a dye that does not blacken an object immersed in it, but turns it a brown colour. It is said to act as a mordant, and also to intensify the black stain produced by the swamp-mud in which it is afterwards placed. The Maori weaver of garments dyed fibres black by the same process, which is described by Te Rangi-hiroa in Dominion Museum Bulletin No. 3 (at p. 75).

The following note, contributed by Tuta Nihoniho, serves to explain why charring and staining were resorted to as blackening-agents: Black paint, made by mixing oil and powdered charcoal, was sometimes used wherewith to paint the battens of a canoe; but the appearance thereof was soon sadly marred by the salt water, hence the charring of such slats while yet green, whereby they retained a desirable degree of blackness.

In painting the body of a canoe or any such surface a brush was used consisting of some tow of Phormium fibre tied to a stick; but in finer work, such as painting sketched patterns and fine carvings, a feather was used as a brush—a stiff tail-feather from which the web was stripped save at the extremity.

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The following notes on painting-materials were also contributed by Tuta: The substances formerly used as painting-materials in the adorning of houses, canoes, &c., were horu, takou, ngarehu (charcoal), poroporo, and taioma (pipeclay). The sap of the poroporo (Solarium) was expressed and used apparently as a sizing on woodwork prior to painting. The horu (red ochre obtained from water) and takou (ochre obtained by burning earth) and charcoal were pulverised and mixed with hinu mango, or shark-oil. Soot obtained by burning mapara, the resinous wood of Podocarpus dacrydioides (kahikatea), was mixed with the same oil and used as a black paint. The white taioma, or pipeclay, was burned, then pulverised and mixed with oil, and used as a white paint.

The manuscript notes of the late Mr. John White furnish the following corroboratory notes: Powdered charcoal was generally used in the manufacture of black paint. It was mixed with shark-oil and sap expressed from leaves of the poporo, a Solanum. The latter ingredient is said to have caused the paint to adhere well to wood-work, to prevent it fading, &c. The sap of the poporo, if used alone, makes a green stain. The best quality of black paint was made from soot obtained from burning the resinous wood termed mapara and kapara. To obtain this soot (awe kapard) a small erection was formed of sticks stuck in the ground in the form of a bell tent. This was covered in with a woven flax mat, leaving a small opening at the top, and inside was kindled a small fire of kapara. Bundles of narrow strips of flax-leaf were suspended at the upper part of the cone in order to arrest the soot.

Nicholas, who sojourned in New Zealand in 1815, wrote as follows: "Widoua [? Wairua] set about painting the gunwales [of the canoe] with red ochre mixed up in oil. The instrument he used for a brush was a tuft of feathers; and he laid on the composition very dexterously."

One native authority states that, when painted, the surfaces of the canoe received a final dressing of shark-oil, which helped to preserve the paint, and also is said to have had some effect in causing the vessel to travel better through the water.

Polack, a trader of the "thirties" of last century, remarked that in some case canoes were adorned with painted designs only.