MĀORILAND: TREATMENT OF LANDSCAPE

"Māoriland" was “a literary synonym for New Zealand” ¹⁴, drawing on the conventions of romanticism which was filtered through colonial traditions to provide a sense of authenticity. It makes use of ethnology, analysing the characteristics of Māori culture and using elements of it for literary benefit. Pākehā portrayals of Māori in fiction ranged from the “noble savage” to attempts to explore and engage with the language and culture of the native peoples. There is an undeniable romance to portrayals of New Zealand in early literature; a native race which possesses its own myths, legends and way of live, a wild and unexplored setting, and a glamour placed over the land by visitors and settler alike. Whitford crafts beautiful imagery of New Zealand which places the reader directly into the setting;

Back from this opening into the land lay a dense bush of huge pine, birch, and totara, whose sombre foliage gradually became more and more darkened by the purple twilight, while farther inland, and belting the lower part of the distant ranges, shone the bright mass of red rata blossom, which imparts to the New Zealand mountain scenery so weird and lurid a glow.¹⁵

Save for the lapping of the water on the sandy beach, the occasional break of a wave against the rocky cliffs, the rhythmic murmur of the stream, and the droning buzz of the mosquitoes from the swamps, there was a profound silence, broken only by the rushing rustle of a night owl in search of his prey, or the distant querulous bark of the kuri (wild dog), a silence soon to be dispelled by the voices of the nocturnal fauna of the New Zealand forest.¹⁶

He crafts a delicate, well-detailed description of the landscape of New Zealand, developing an environment which tantalises the reader. Like much early colonial writing, His fiction creates a unique landscape which causes awe amongst readers, and depicts New Zealand as a land worth visiting. Exploitation of the New Zealand setting was common amongst nineteenth century novelists as they built on the fascination with the newly settled land. This exploitation comes from the romanticised idea of New Zealand that foreigners, and especially British colonials had. There was an intense fractionation with New Zealand during the late nineteenth century which stemmed from immigration efforts by the New Zealand Company which labelled the country as a settler’s paradise.¹⁷