The Maori Canoe
The Tauihu or Figurehead
The Tauihu or Figurehead
The tauihu are painted with red ochre mixed with oil, as also the stern-piece. The two different forms of tauihu are shown in the illustrations.
The figurehead of the waka tana class of canoe is a highly ornate object, and one of the finest examples of Maori wood-carving, as will be seen by referring to the illustrations given. Brown, in his work on New Zealand, writes as follows: "Figureheads may sometimes be seen with a great deal of carving on them, but, after all, it is rudely executed, and is remarkable chiefly for its regularity, and the vast amount of time and patience which must have been expended on it. These specimens of art seem to be copies of each other, which shows the poverty of their inventive genius. They take great care of these figureheads, so that they are frequently fitted to new canoes after the original ones have been destroyed—another evidence of the difficulty of producing them."
These remarks are scarcely just. A well-finished figurehead was by no means rudely executed. The similarity noticed was not the result of "the poverty of their inventive genius," but of the conventional aspect to which all decorative art had attained prior to the advent of Europeans.
page 145In speaking of the ideality of the Maori of olden times Mr. Colenso remarks: "That faculty was exhibited in many ways—e.g., in the building of their war-canoes, with all their carving and many adornments—and that without plan, pattern, or tools. The exquisite regularity and symmetry of both sides of the vessel, including even that difficult one of carved concentric circles worked in filagree, were astonishing; and, as such, borne ample testimony to by all their first visitors… For the carved figureheads of their canoes the pukatea was generally used, while the ornamented carved work of the sterns was made of matai or totara."
Of the carving of the stem and stern pieces Mr. Barstow says: "Only a small portion of the tracery must be cut out at a time, lest exposure to the sun should cause a crack. A fully ornamented stern-post was months, or years even, before it received its finishing-touch, though the pattern had been sketched from the first." This writer also remarks as follows on the custom of preserving carefully these valued carvings and transferring them to new canoes: "Sometimes, though the hull might be new, the carved portions of worn-out canoes would be reused, being renovated for the occasion; formerly the stem and stern pieces were detached and stored in sheds when a war-canoe was laid up in ordinary."
There are two different types of figureheads as used for the decoration of the superior type of Maori canoes. The most common is that shown in figs. 54, 55, 58, 59, 61, and 63; the other type is shown in figs. 60 and 62.
In the other type of figurehead we have a different design. The projecting grotesque figure disappears, and the two large scrolls are replaced by a number of small ones or altogether disappear. In some cases curious compound scroll designs appear; also the reverse scroll, approximating the letter S in form; also a more page 147involved form resembling two such sets of reverse curves conjoined so as to coalesce. Professor Haddon, in his Evolution in Art, shows this reverse scroll on Pueblo pottery, and in Aegean art; also a design from the Necropolis of Thebes resembling the involved scroll design mentioned above. Another interesting feature in some figureheads of this type is the form imported to the strengthening-ribs that give stability to the design and counteract the weakening effect of the filagree or pierced work. In some cases these ribs are of snake-like form and terminate in grotesque heads. The various illustrations and remarks thereon will draw attention to other peculiarities and details of these carved forms.
The plain type of figurehead affixed to second-class canoes is termed a tete (both vowels being long); the elaborately carved type we are now describing being known as a tauihu; while pitau describes the form in which scrolls appear.
It will be observed that the rear end of the figurehead is much reduced in height, and thus accommodates itself to the height or depth of the fore end of the top-strake, to which it is attached by lashings when in position. In the series of illustrations published with the account of the voyage of the "Astrolabe" we note a different form, in which the projection piece at the rear end is lacking, the high rear end of the figurehead butting against the forward end of the top-strake, above which it projects considerably. Not only so, but it also projects above a fore wash-strake, placed on the top page 150of the full-length top-strake, or rauawa, and which extends nearly a quarter of the length of the canoe. To both of these strakes the figurehead is lashed, the join between the two strakes being covered with battens secured by lashings in the manner already described. It may be observed that all battens were rounded as to their outer sides in order to facilitate the tightening of the lashings. This fore wash-strake was not, apparently, universally used on waka taua: it seems to have been termed the pairi. Williams's Dictionary also gives huhunu as a name for temporary wash-boards at the bow of a canoe.
In the Auckland Museum is part of a canoe-prow showing in its interior hollow parts a fine example of chipping with stone adzes.
A study of the carved canoe-prows of the New Guinea and Indo-nesian areas would probably show a resemblance between some western forms and those of New Zealand. A striking form of the former area is depicted at page 50 of Hornell's Outrigger Canoes of Indonesia.