MĀORILAND: TREATMENT OF MĀORI

Whitford’s writing appears to have the intention of wanting to create ‘The Great New Zealand Novel’, relying greatly on elements of “Māoriland” to construct a quintessentially New Zealand novel. His construction of Hine-ra as both a novel and a complimentary poem provides insight into Whitford’s desire to immerse himself and his readers in the fictional novel whilst exploring the elements of New Zealand which make it unique. Whitford seeks to examine the ‘exotic’ in his novel, with rich descriptions of Māori peoples, culture and the landscape in which he places his story. Early New Zealand writing seeks to establish some form on national identity and figure of what New Zealand ‘is’. Whitford himself seeks to incorporate a colonial identity into his writing, establishing strong ideas of New Zealand and especially Māori as a distinct identity. Hine-ra does a comprehensive and effective job of building descriptions of Māori peoples. His characters are described in immense detail, from their physical appearance to their clothing, actions of way of speaking. His characters are described with such detail that they come to life, comprehensively detailed down to the minute feature:

The Rangatira, who sat or rather squatted on a rug in the centre of the apartment in dignified state, was a man of about fifty years of age, and of stern, almost forbidding, aspect, having his face seamed all over with the moko of his tribe and rank, his emblazonment of savage heraldry in fact. He was clad in a flax petticoat or kilt, and a kakapo mat, and wore on his head a fillet of kea feathers, and in his ears a long greenstone drop, and a shark's tooth. In his hand he held the meré, the dreaded greenstone weapon that had crushed the brain of so many of his enemies, and cloven the skulls of so many slaves led out for sacrifice.¹⁸

These descriptions of Māori in intense detail painted a vivid image for the intended foreign readership which created a fascination with the native peoples and the interesting and mysterious culture of New Zealand.

He was clad in a flax petticoat or kilt, and a kakapo mat, and wore on his head a fillet of kea feathers, and in his ears a long greenstone drop, and a shark's tooth. In his hand he held the meré, the dreaded greenstone weapon that had crushed the brain of so many of his enemies, and cloven the skulls of so many slaves led out for sacrifice.¹⁹

Men are described as warriors, fearsome and ready for battle. The idea of the ‘noble savage’ was already one which was rife in the colonial culture, with encounters of the word savage to refer to Māori encountered frequently in the writing of the nineteenth century. Female figures in the novel are portrayed as “maidens” and “nymphs”; beautiful, graceful and fragile; or as native witches, drawing on a colonial fascination with superstition and native anecdotes. His chief whom he named Rangitira, is based off a factual chief of the time:

The chief, or Rangatira, of Te Nama tribe was a brave but ferocious warrior named Marutuahua, a descendant of the great chief of the same name, who was the progenitor of the powerful Kawhia tribes, of which, in fact, Te Namas were a branch.²⁰