Robley: Te Ropere, 1840

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Back Cover

Title Page

Robley: Te Ropere 1840 — 1930

Black and white portrait of H. G. Robley Volume One Timothy Walker

for Aunty Nicky, Puppa, and Dr Henderson No part of this thesis may be photocopied or reproduced in any way without the permision of the author. Timothy Walker 31 Devon Road Bucklands Beach Auckland

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Art History, University of Auckland, 1985

Contents Volume One Acknowledgements v Abstract 1 Chronology 2 The Space Between 19 1. In New Zealand; 1864–1866 30 2. ‘Headhunter’ 47 3. Moko; or Maori Tattooing 65 4. In London; Making Maori Art 83 Mataora Moko 100 Moko Nomenclature 106 Nga Mokamokai 120 Whakairo tangata 181 Volume Two Catalogue Format, Abbreviations used, General notes 186 1. Historical New Zealand Scenes 190 2. New Zealand Scenes; 1864–66 Tauranga and surrounding districts 200 Canoe subjects 218 Pukehinahina (Gate Pa) and Te Rangaranga 226 Maketu and Matata 251 3. New Zealand Portraits; 1864–66 Female Portraits 262 Male Portraits 285 Group Portraits 328 4. Historical New Zealand Portraits Female Portraits 329 Male Portraits 331 5. Maori Art 349 6. Non-New Zealand subjects 366 Appendix New Zealand Memoirs; 1864–66 376 Primary Sources 391 Bibliography 395 Index to Catalogue 401

Acknowledgements

As with any project of this nature, there are many people to whom my thanks are due; for their help, advice, encouragement kindness.

I would like to thank Mrs Googie Te Weurangi Tapsell (nee Whareaitu), Mrs Huna Kiwhangara Broughton (nee Whareaitu) and Mrs Cecilia Te Heipiwhara Lewis (nee Tapsell) and their families, of Maketu — for sharing with me stories of their great grandfather and great great grandfather, Horatio Gordon Robley; and their memories of his son, Hamiora Tu Ropere, and grandchildren, Te Heipiwhara Tu and Hepata Tu. The time spent at Maketu and Matapihi with members of Robley's family was, finally, the human link which breathed life into the dry processes of research. Thank you.

For their hospitality and kindness I would also like to thank Mr Paul Gear, and Mrs Bubby Tamihana Thompson, both of Matapihi.

To my mother and father, and to Lynne and Frith; thank you for your encouragement, support and patience.

My enquiries and requests for research material have at all times been considerately answered and promptly met by the staff of many institutions throughout New Zealand; and in Britain, the United States of America, Canada, the German Democratic Republic, and Australia. For their help, advice and frequent suggestions I am most grateful.

I would especially like to thank Anna Bibby, who made work at the Hawke's bay Art Gallery and Museum, Napier, a pleasure; David R. Simmons, Ethnologist at the Auckland Institute and Museum, for his generous help; the Manuscript staff at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; Marion Minson and Moira Long of the Art Room, Alexander Turnbull Library; Betty McFadgen, Warwick Wilson and Michael Fitzgerald of the National Museum of New Zealand, Wellington; Ms K.A. Coleridge, Special Materials Librarian at the victoria University of Wellington Library; the Manuscript staff, and Tim Garrity of the Art Room, at the Hocken Library, University of Otago, Dunedin; Mrs Joan Woodwood of the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch; Ian Thwaites, Gordon Maitland and the Library staff, Auckland Institute and Museum; Ronald Brownson and Roger Blackley, at the Auckland City Art Gallery; Mr R. Standish, Director of the Tauranga District Museum and Historical Village; Mrs Jinty Rorke at the Tauranga Archives; Wendy Harcent, Ethnologist at the Otago Museum. Special thanks are due to Stephen Shannon of the Durham Light Infantry Museum in Durham, England; and to Philip Gifford at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, for his help with my attempts to clarify catalogue details for the Museum's collection of Mokamokai, purchased from Robley in 1907.

Of the many individuals who have helped me, I am especially grateful to my supervisor, Michael Dunn, who has readily answered any questions I have had; the late Theo Schoon, for so generously sharing with me his understanding of moko and his appreciation of Robley's work; Mr Paki Harrison, Master Carver at the University of Auckland marae, for his kind advice; Mr T.E.R. Hodgson of Wellington, who kindly allowed me to study articles of correspondence in his collection; Mr J.A.W. Steedman of Tauranga, who advised me on a number of genealogical matters; Malcolm Ross, for his support and many contributions to my research; Victoria Mertoni-Robson, for her love; and, not least, Judie Henderson for her wonderful typing.

Finally I would like to thank Ron for his inimitable help, Roger for keeping me on line and Jah Bunny for his Love.

August, 1985

Abbreviations ACAG

Auckland City Art Gallery

AIM

Auckland Institute & Museum

AMNH

American Museum of Natural History, New York

APL

Auckland Public Library

ATL

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

HBAGM

Hawkes Bay Art Gallery & Museum, Napier

NMNZ

National Museum of New Zealand, Wellington

VUW

Victoria University of Wellington

WMAH

Waikato Museum of Art & History, Hamilton

Abstract

This Thesis sets out to present the work of Horatio Gordon Robley; to open his remarkably prolific and determined output as an artist to further investigation and consideration.

This Thesis does not attempt to interpret his work, although — where called for — notes have been added to Robley's own; to correct, or explain, the information he gives.

In thus ordering Robley's extensive, artistic study of New Zealand and the Maori, I have worked from the premise that, as much as the representational artist exerts a powerful selective and interpretative influence upon his/her subjects, those subjects too are charged with life and, in turn, the power to influence the artist.

This Thesis repeatedly concentrates upon moko, and upon Robley's study of moko. Again, I have attempted to present the results of that study in a form which might allow other students to evaluate and learn from his work. It is not possible to address oneself to Robley's development as an artist, to his continuing presence in this country's Art History, without addressing the artistic energy at the root of that development. It was moko, more than any other artform, which constantly provoked his art.

Chronology

The chronological details given in the following pages are intended as a brief outline of Robley's whereabouts, activities and interests.

Information relating to the 1840–1890 period has been largely drawn from Mr Horace Fildes' excellent unpublished ‘biography’ of Robley (an edited version of Robley's autobiographical memoirs). [VUW Fildes 1507] Unless otherwise noted, all details are drawn from this source.

Subsequent to his retirement (in 1887) Robley remained in London for most of his life. Wherever possible, excerpts of his letters have been introduced to give an impression of the nature of his activities and concerns from the period between his retirement and his death in 1930.

Robley was an extremely energetic and active man, be it in his capacity as an artist, correspondent, collector, soldier, dilettante, friend of New Zealand etc. It has not been possible to introduce references to all of his endeavours; those with relevance to his development as an artist, and those relating to New Zealand have been given preference over the many anecdotal accounts of other activities and experiences.

“A meeting of the Anthropological Institute of Gt. Britain & Ireland” (1896) ink sketch VUW Fildes NZ Portfolio/3

The following is inscribed (by Robley) on the reverse of this sketch:

“Robley lecturing on his Maori Heads … flags, banners from W. Africa … X heads of tattooed New Zealanders & one a child … skulls from Suffolk on table.”

1840

28 June Born at Funchal in the Madeira Islands. His mother, Augusta J. Robley, was a local resident and well known painter.

Augusta Jane Penfold and her sister, Jane Wallis Penfold, were renowned for their paintings of the Madeira flora and fauna. Both women published examples of their drawings in books issued by Reeves Bros, London. [Fildes: 1921 p. 2]

His father, John Horatio Robley was a former officer of the British Indian Army.

c1845

The family removed to Southhampton, England. Horatio and his two sisters — Augusta and [Jane] — were taught by private tutor. In addition they received artistic instruction from their mother. Horatio's interests in boating and shooting were encouraged by his father.

1858

May Robley purchased an Ensignship in the 68th Durham Light Infantry (£450)

June He reported to Fermoy, County Cork, Ireland, for initial training

November The eighteen year old Ensign departed Gravesend for India, where the 68th Regiment was based.

1859

March Arriving at Madras, Robley proceeded to Rangoon, Burma, to join his Battallion. The British presence in Burma was that of a ‘pacifying’, occupying Force: their role was to protect trade access to the Bay of Bengal.

1860

29 May Robley returned to Britain on sick leave. He visited his family and attended the Hythe School of Musketry in Kent.

1861

Robley was made an Instructor of Musketry and purchased promotion to Lieutenant (£250). He returned to Rangoon.

1862

Obtaining leave, Robley accompanied an American Mission Party into the Central States of Burma; the mountainous Karen and Shan areas.

1863

Late in the year the 68th, awaiting a recall to England, received orders to proceed to New Zealand. Local Buddhist Priests, with whom Robley had become friendly, tattooed a red device on his arm to render him invulnerable to harm.

2 November Robley left Rangoon on board the S.S. Australian.

New Zealand

[NB: an abridged version of Robley's New Zealand memoirs, edited by Horace Fildes, is included as an appendix. This gives a detailed account of his experiences in the Country. (see p. 376)

1864

8 January Robley arrived in Auckland.

As part of the British refusal to allow the Bay of Plenty Maori to retain control of their own land Robley was involved in the battles at Pukehinahina — the so-called “Gate Pa” — (29th April), and at Te Rangaranga (21st June). The Maori surrendered to Imperial troops at Te Papa on the 21st & 25th July.

1865

Robley sought, and was granted, leave to join the party of Imperial and Te Arawa troops formed to pursue the “Hau hau” who had killed the Rev. C.S. Volkner at Opotiki on the 2nd March. He travelled as far south as Matata on this occasion.

The remainder of the year was passed in the Tauranga area. Robley spent much of his spare time among the local Maori at Otumoetai, Matapihi, Maungatapu and Maketu. During this time he became intimate with Harete Mauao of Matapihi. A child, born to Harete during 1865 or 1866, was named Hamiora Tu Ropere. Robley was the father.

Robley's relationship with Harete Mauao, and with his son, Hamiora Tu Ropere is further discussed in Chapter 1.

1866

12th March Robley left New Zealand, on board the S.S. Percy.

28 June The 68th arrived at Spitshead, England. This was Robley's twenty-sixth birthday.

1867–1869

The 68th remained on home service; based, a different times at Crewe, Manchester and Fleetwood.

1870

The Regiment was stationed at Youghal, in the Blackwater County of Ireland. During this time Robley's father died at Cork.

28 June (Robley's thirtieth birthday) By purchase (£100) Robley was placed in command of a small unattached company. He then exchanged, by further purchase (£800) to the 91st Argyll Highlanders; based at Stirling, Scotland.

1871

September Robley, together with a detachment of men, was detailed to Fort George, Inverness. There they remained for eighteen months.

Robley's Burmese signature Alexander Turnbull Library MS 16/2

1873

July Robley returned to Stirling, where he acted as principal Instructor in Musketry for the 91st and 72nd Regiments.

1876

April with three Companies in his command, Robley was stationed at Enniskillen in Ireland.

He visited the United States later in the same year, returning to Enniskillen by December.

1877

May The Regiment moved to Belfast on garrison duty.

1878

Robley dislocated his knee during a regatta at Clyde. On medical advice he travelled to Italy for swimming therapy (in the warm Mediterranean).

In Rome he received a private audience with Pope Leo XIII.

“At Rome … I [met] … a Scotch chamberlain at the Vatican who asked me if I had my uniform with me as His Holiness had never seen Highland dress. Upon telling him I had, a private audience was arranged …” [Robley-Fildes:n/d VUW Fildes 10/1]

1879

Robley was recalled to Stirling. The body of the 91st had removed to Capetown following the Zulu ‘uprising’ at Tugela, Natal.

1880

28 January Robley was promoted to Major.

Later in the year he was sent to command 91st Companies at St Louis, Mauritius.

1881

May The Mauritius Battallion was relieved, having been plagued with illness since the previous December. The men, including Robley, joined the 91st Headquarters Division at Capetown.

1st July Robley was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. The 91st officially merged with the 93rd Sutherland Highlanders; they were thereafter known as the 91st, Princess Louise's Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Princess Louise was the daughter of Queen Victoria, and commander-in-Chief of the 91st Highlanders.

A smallpox epidemic in Capetown saw the Regiment transferred to nearby Wynberg.

1882

Robley took leave of the Regiment and visited his sister in Dresden, Germany.

8 November He rejoined the 91st at Capetown, being placed in command by Lieutenant Colonel A.C. Bruce C.B. who proceeded to Britain on leave.

1883

27 June Robley assumed full command of the Regiment upon the retirement of Lieut. Col. Bruce.

With the help of Mr P.J. Aubin, Editor of the “Cape Times”, Robley wrote and published a History of the 91st.

Lieut. Col. G.P. Wood, M.C., of the 91st Highlanders, has informed the author that the Robley-Aubin History is not known to the Regiment. [personal correspondence: 9 May, 1984]

1 December The Headquarters Division of the Regiment, including Robley, transferred to Durban.

1884

The 91st was based at Etshowe in the Natal. They occupied several posts gained in the preceding fighting with the Zulu.

1885

March The Regiment withdrew to Pietermaritz, the danger of a Zulu ‘rebellion’ having passed.

9 September Robley travelled to England on leave, returning to Colombo, Ceylon, the following year.

1887

June After a four year command of the Regiment Robley received orders to return to England.

September Robley retired from the Army with the rank of Major General.

1888–1892

There is little information regarding Robley's activities during this period. It is likely that he resided in London with his extensive collection of items acquired during his many years of foreign service.

On the return home from Colombo Robley was required to pay a “heavy duty on a collection of crocodile skins, elephants' feet, and other trophies …” [Fildes: 1921 p. 139]

1893

Robley purchased a Mokamokai (preserved Maori Head) from a London Phrenologist, Mr O'Dell. (This appears to have been the first Mokamokai to enter his Collection.)

There is a strong possibility that Robley had acquired a number of Mokamokai while in NZ in the 1860's. This Mokamokai (see page 154) was the first he purchased subsequent to his retirement. The details of his collecting of Mokamokai are discussed in Chapter 2.

1894

Planning to publish a book on Maori tattooing (initally to reproduce his 1860's sketches of the Maori) Robley undertook an extensive tour of British and European Collections; studying — and wherever possible, purchasing — Mokamokai and other Maori items.

1896

13 February Robley was made an honorary member of the 5th New York Regiment (Duryee Zouaves)

Robley-Adams: n/d ATL MS16/9

June “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” was published — at Robley's own expense — by Chapman & Hall Ltd, London.

November Robley delivered a speech, and exhibited six Mokamokai, at the Royal Anthropological Institute. His Collection of Heads numbered fourteen at this time.

“Journal of the Anthropological Institute”; November, 1896

1897

November The Collection of Mokamokai was placed on public exhibition at London's Guildhall. The Exhibition ran for twelve months.

1898

November The Mokamokai were transferred to the Liverpool Museum where they were again exhibited to the public.

1899

June The Exhibition was closed, the Mokamokai returned to Robley's London residence.

16 August “I must try and come out on a trip, I am freer nowadays.” Robley-Mair

ATL qMS/1898–1922

At some time during 1899 Robley placed his collection of Mokamokai — then numbering twenty-one — on offer to the New Zealand Government.

Robley-Hocken:1900 Hocken Library MSI 488

1900

July “Time marches on, at the latest sale in London most of the Maori things went to Germany … [The collecting of Maori items] has been much neglected by our National Museum [The Dominion Museum, Wellington].” Robley

Robley AIM MS256 R66

Robley had acquired thirty Mokamokai by this time, a fact recorded in the letter quoted above.

ibid

26 August “The NZ Govt. have never answered my offer of my tattooed heads.” Robley-Hocken

see note 11

Liverpool Daily Post 17 January, 1899

Lieutenant-Colonel Horatio Gordon Robley, Officer-in-Command of the 91st Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, reviewing the troops; Colombo, Ceylon, 1886.Victoria University of Wellington Library Fildes 1507/2

1901

On hearing that Robley was still alive, Hori Ngatai, a Ngaiterangi kaumatua who had fought the Imperial soldiers at Pukehinahina and Te Rangaranga in 1864, sent greetings and a pounamu ear ornament (whakakai) to Robley; “in remembrance of the old days.”

NMNZ FA1599 (verso)

13 JulyJames Carroll received a letter from the New Zealand High Commission in London; “further in respect to General Robley's Collection of Maori Curios offered by him for sale.” The letter was referred to Augustus Hamilton, Director of the Dominion Museum on the 25th January, 1905; then to the Cabinet in August of the same year for consideration. On the 24th August it was referred back to Hamilton, and finally to Carroll on the 2nd May, 1906. The offer was refused, largely at Carroll's behest.

National Archives, Wellington. File 2130/Colonial Secretary's office. T.E. Donne informed Robley that Carroll was responsible for the decision. ATL MS1387/19.

8 November “I am so occupied with Natives in town that I have no time for any pleasure for myself

This refers to the Maori soldiers in London for the Coronation of King Edward VII.

… I did get some treasures lately, a large bowl in the shape of a huge lizard, a box, a prow, a bailer.” Robley-Helen Tate-Stoate.

ATL MS1387/22 Miss Helen Tate-Stoate was a well-known Collector of Maori items.

During 1901 and 1902 Robley hosted a number of parties of Maori soldiers, in London for the Coronation of King Edward VII (1902).

1902

28 August “At Alexandra Palace yesterday the Maori troopers said goodbye to their numerous English friends … The preliminaries included a soldiers' “at home” at which Major-General Robley … presided as host …” Daily Express

Hocken Library, MI 488

1904

7 April “… it is too late when a curio is in a catalogue. I wish you [would] send me a [postcard] when something comes under you that is A.1. & then I [would] train down at once or wire …” Robley-Oldman

ATL MS1387/22 W.O. Oldman was a dealer in, and later Collector of Maori items.

In 1904–1905 Dr T.M. Hocken of Dunedin acquired Robley's own copy of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing”, together with many additional notes and illustrations. The material was intended to be used to publish a second edition of Robley's book, but the project was incomplete when Hocken died in 1910.

This material is in the Hocken Library, MI 488.

1905

7 OctoberAugustus Hamilton, Director of the Dominion Museum, purchased seventy watercolours, from Robley for the Museum. The purchase price was £50.

NMNZ Ethonology Dept. MS. These works from the body of the NMNZ Robley Collection.

Captain T.E. Donne, C.M.G., visited Robley at his residence-cum-Museum in St Albans Lane, Regent St, London. Robley possessed, at the time, thirty-eight Mokamokai. The Major-General voiced his concern that the James Barry oil painting of the Rev. Thomas Kendall with the Maori Chiefs Hongi and Waikato — then in the Collection of the Church Missionary Society, London — should be acquired by a New Zealand Museum. Donne managed to have the painting presented to the New Zealand Government in 1906.

ATL T.E. Donne Scrapbook 83–93/2 vol. 6 & ATL Jubilee Exhibition Catalogue: 1970 p. 10.

1906

5 January “I reported to Mr Hamilton re the double worked tiki, at £50 asking it is [very] rare to find & such good work” Robley-Donne

AIM MS256 R66. The hei tiki Robley refers to was available at a London sale.

2 April “I see my collection will be missed by Govt. — However the Heads have been a rare hobby for me — … I am considering over that Exhibition in Christchurch — .I may send something or wish I [could] go rounds [of New Zealand] again.” Robley-Mair

ATL qMS/1898–1922 A drawing by Robley (see page 363) may have been the source of a design painted on the upright hull of a canoe at the 1911 Christchurch Exhibition. The gateway carved for the Exhibition's model village (now in the National Museum, Wellington) by Neke Kapua and his sons was based on Robley's watercolours of the carved waharoa from Maketu. (see pages 252–256). [see Dominion Museum Bulletin/3, 1911 and Neich's essay in Arts and Artists of Oceania: 1983, edited by Mead and Kernot.]

British Australian 20 August, 1902

27 November” … I begin to fear that the Govt is too wholly indifferent [re purchase of Mokamokai] …” Hocken-Robley

Hocken Library, MI 488

1907

Robley sold thirty five Mokamokai to Mr Morris K. Jessup of the American Museum of Natural History for £1,500. Included in the purchase price were a number of other Maori items; two pieces of tattooed thigh skin, a carved wooded feeding funnel and a carved wooden pakuru (a musical instrument used to accompany chanting during the tattooing operation).

personal correspondence; Mr P. Gifford, American Museum of Natural History, 11 June, 1984

May “… how well [Goldie] renders his portraits but he doesn't seem to get hold of fully tatued men … Is the circle on the upper cheek [kowhiri] derived from the “manaia”? or only to ornament the round surface there — I believe this is very uncommon in greenstone, but met in paraoa …” Robley-Best

Elsdon Best Scrapbook ATL qMS Vol. 3 p. 211

1908

Robley continued to offer New Zealand those (five) Mokamokai that he had withheld from the AMNH sale.

6 August “… What an interest France takes in NZ things — my heads are wanted there but I keep them for possible return to their own Country where some marks &&& might be known by old men existing.” Robley-Alexander Turnbull

ATL MS 57/77

3 September “I have written Mr Hamilton — offering 2 or 4 heads or all with long time for any payments suitable — I can't do more …” Robley-Hocken

Hocken Library MSI 488

The above letter also finalises arrangements for Hocken's publication of the second edition of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing”.: “I went to the publishers [Chapman & Hall Ltd] & can secure rights to publish Moko and the illustration blocks & give over my 12 years additional information — some very rare, and some more correct drawing if you like to secure for £25 …”

1910

Easter “re my existing heads — I fancy I can get rid of them this season here. I begin to know N. Zealand Govt authorities after all the [deliberations] [Seddon] & [Ward] were and are only paragraph hunters and nominees of small majorities.” Robley-Hocken

Hocken Library MI 488

Robley again hosted contingents of Maori soldiers in London. On this occasion the men were representing New Zealand at the Coronation of King George V.

1912

27 January “It is to be noticed that at the different sales, London, there is little or no Maori [work] to be seen … I hope the new Government regime will be more patriotic to the [Dominion Museum] and not starve it — For years the best NZ things have gone & scattered … I regret the NZ Govt did not let me get 1 medal for each … [Regiment] & Maoris [Regiments] that served — from 99th & 58th in [1846] to Hauhau campaign — such a collection (is just possible) to be historic & [should] have a place at the Capital …” Robley-Best

ATL MS16/2

1913

13 December “It is curious to me to meet Maori in London. When their people were fighting us well [before] the 70's.” Robley-Craig-Brown

ATL MS16/4

Immediately before the First World War Robley lost a great deal of money when the Italian marble mine owned by Mr Miller, his brother-in-law, was “overthrown” by German financiers: “all I lent, went.”

Robley-Fildes: 1929 VUW Fildes 10/1

1914

Robley was asked to decorate a number of “cavaliers” with moko. The men were to accompany Miss H. Mackenzie — daughter of Mr Thomas MacKenzie, NZ High Commissioner — to the 1914 ‘Peace Ball’ (celebrating a century's peace between Britain and the USA): “[I] turned them out quite correct.” Robley

ibid n/d

12 June Mr J. MacDonald, Acting Director of the Dominion Museum, purchased a further six watercolours from Robley for the Museum Collection.

NMNZ Ethnology MS. The Director, Mr J.A. Thomson, was in Fiji at the time.

21 July An exhibition of Robley watercolours opened at the Dominion Museum.

1915

“Pounamu; Notes on New Zealand Greenstone” was published by T.J.S. Guilford and Sons, London. Robley was aided in the book's preparation by Douglas McLean, Canon J.W. Stack and Elsdon Best.

Robley-Best: 1929 ATL MS16/2

7 JulyMr J.A. Thomson, Director of the Dominion Museum, agreed to purchase thirty drawings of Moko/Mokamokai from Robley.

NMNZ Ethnology MS

1916

Robley designed and painted life-scale reproduction facades of whare commissioned for a Reception for the New Zealand Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. Joseph Ward, held at the Hotel Cecil, London, and for a NZ Military Hospital building in France

Robley-Turnbull: 1916 ATL MS57/77. The Army Hospital in France is most likely to have been the NZ Stationary Hospital at Amiens. [personal correspondence; Capt. G.J. Clayton, QEII Army Memorial Hospital: 17 July, 1984.]

21 July “I often meet Maori troopers … in Town … I [would] like to see looted the Berlin and Dresden [Museums], so rich in old NZ Specimens.” Robley-Alexander Turnbull

ATL MS57/77

1917

Upset that Captain C. Maling, N.Z.C., a veteran of the New Zealand Wars, died in London without any notice from New Zealand Authorities, Robley approached the NZ Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. William Massey — then in London — to organise the funeral. After some discussion Robley managed to arrange a full military funeral service for Maling.

Robley-Best: 1929 ATL MS16/2 [see also Melvin: 1957 p. 14 & p. 19]

Robley designed and painted a large whare facade to stand on the New Zealand Stall at the Empire Exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall.

ATL MS16/6 (see page 87)

1919

18 January “I have a wonderful [collection] of sketches and photos of rare old things … [which] I fancy are not known as types — some from Revd. Chapman & Volkner collections … There is a Head offered me now but I will not address Govt — yet it is in Al designs.” Robley-Best

ibid For examples of these Albums see ‘Maori Sketches’, HBAGM Collection; and the T.E. Donne Scrapbook, ATL qMS

Robley was visited in London by Horace Fildes, a Historian and Collector from Wellington. The two became friends and corresponded regularly in subsequent years.

Robley's letters to Fildes, which included many miscellaneous items, are in the Victoria University of Wellington Collection.

1920

26 May “Gilbert Mair is hale and hearty, is a great friend of Jimmy Cowan's — they often tour the King Country together on horse back — visiting old pa sites & battlefields … When [I] mentioned to Elsdon Best a second edition of “Moko” he pricked up his ears — he was quite unaware that Dr Hocken had it in view …” Fildes-Robley

ATL MS16/1

1921

14 July “I could get for a NZ museum one of the most perfect tattooed & preserved heads with paua in eyes & nose — it [would] be given me for £ 75 … [it is a] pity no one tries for it as a national asset … but I or the owner may go Reinga before any interest …” Robley-Taine

T.E.R. Hodgson Collection, Wellington

3 August “I have got much better lately, but when I am piano I do most drawing I think … I was calculating that very old Maori I saw [in 1860's] — may as infants [have] been [alive] in 1769 …” Robley-Fildes

VUW Fildes/10a

The Dominion Museum purchased a carved putorino (flute) from Robley in 1921

NMNZ Specimen Schedule

1922

25 August “It is too late to get a Maori school of carving — myths are not in knowledge — but replicas of old work could be faithfully copied.” Robley-Fildes

VUW Fildes/10

22 September Robley was elected a life member of the Tauranga Savage Club, a group of enthusiasts of Maori History led by Captain Gilbert Mair and Mr W. Corrgian. “We hope you will do us the honour of allowing your name to be enrolled as a Brother Savage of our Club.” Robley accepted the nomination, regarding it as “a honourable & pleasing affair of [his] life.”

ibid The Tauranga Savage Club's badge featured a reduced engraving of a Robley portrait of a tattooed Maori male.

1923

On receiving a copy of James Cowan's “New Zealand Wars; Volume 1” Robley lent it to Mr Pemberton of the “Times” in order that a review notice should appear on the book. On receiving it back from Pemberton Robley made copies of the Stuart portrait of Riwhitete Pokai, included as a plate on page 45. [Cowan: 1922]

During 1923 and 1924 he was involved in carving and painting moko designs upon plaster casts taken from a life-mask in the British Museum. (Sir George Grey had presented the life-mask — of Taupue te Whanoa, Ngatiwhakauae, Te Arawa; collected by Grey in 1854 — to the Museum.)

“I … paid for 3 copies … after seeing “The Chieftain” in bronze [for the] Wembley [Exhibition, 1924] with wrong moko and taiaha — more natural casts should be sent to NZ … [would] be useful to a Dominion sculptor to see into … to paint oneself [in moko] like I did … is to discover that left side is more difficult to put pigment upon oneself …” Robley-Fildes

1929 VUW Fildes 10/1. Two of these casts are in the National Museum Wellington — ME 3764 (ex: Mair Collection) and acc. 64/31 (ex: K.A. Webster Collection)

September Robley was visited by Mr J.C. Adams of Tauranga, a longtime correspondent, in London for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium.

Many of Robley's letters to J.C. Adams remain; in the ATL Manuscript Collection (MS16/9) and in the Tauranga Archives Collection

October Robley's often-damaged knee, the source of constant rheumatism, was again hurt in a collision with a motor vehicle.

Robley-Adams: 1924 ATL MS16/9

1924

16 January “the venerable soldier [Robley] is now … [83] years old and is “very tottery”. “It is astonishing … how he still produces his watercolours drawings so well.” These drawings of the veteran are now pretty well distributed over the world.” Free Lance

The letter quoted in this newsclipping was likely to have been sent by J.C. Adams (then in London) to Horace Fildes in Wellington.

February Robley arranged for veterans of the NZ Wars — then patients at the Royal Military Hospital, Chelsea — to attend a luncheon in their honour at the NZ High Commission. In the event only one man (of the five living) was able to attend; Lieut. J. Donovan, Royal Artillery.

VUW Fildes 10/1. The other four men, too infirm to attend, were: M. McMahon, 70th Regt; J. Hallard, 12th Regt; M. Lehair, 50th Regt and J. Pryke, 12th Regt.

25 August In reply to a letter from Robley outlining continuing rheumatism in his knee, the Maori Priest J.W. Ratana wrote to the Major-General, exhorting him to “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ … Believe in him and his power to heal …” Noting that he did not attend or interview Europeans personally, Ratana added that he would “also pray to the Lord” to grant Robley's requests. Robley later presented the letter to the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in London.

A transcription of Ratana's letter is included in Robley's material held by the Victoria University of Wellington — VUW Fildes 10/1.

In his letter to Ratana, Robley had noted his friendship with Hori Ngatai and Hamiora Tu Ropere, as well as his offers of rum to the Maori wounded at Pukehinahina in 1864.

The British Empire Exhibition held at Wembley Stadium in 1924 featured the Mata-atua House (now in Otago Museum). Robley had become close friends with the two Maori in London overseeing its restoration, Major Dansey and H.R. Te Kiri (of Rotorua)

VUW Fildes 10 & 10/1. The House, now in the Otago Museum, had been exhibited ‘inside out’ at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in London and, before that, at the Sydney Exhibition. The ‘inside out’ plan, conceived by Sir (then Mr) James Hector, was to enable a steady flow of people to view the carvings. [Mair-Robley: 1923 ATL MS1387/19]

“Of course Dansey has had no experience whatever in such matters and I don't know who this native is whom the papers call Kiri. I only hope he is competent. You could keep any of them right in all matters of carving …” Mair-Robley

ATL MS1387/19

Robley also met members of Rudall Haywood's Cinema Company at Wembley, where they were filming the re-enactment of the Orakau battle before travelling to New Zealand to film “Rewi's Last Stand” in early 1925. Robley supplied the film crew with drawings of correct moko designs to be used, and decorated a number of the participants in the “Orakau Pageant” at the Exhibition.

Robley-Best: 1926 ATL MS16/9 (see also VUW Fildes 10/1) Robley also supplied a number of ‘imaginary scenes’ to the producers of Gustav Pauli's The Romance of Hinemoa which started filming 1925–26. [personal correspondence; NZ Film Archive, 4 March, 1985]

Mr W.O. Oldman's Collection of Maori items was exhibited in the New Zealand display at Wembley: “many treasures should go back with all [the] visitors over this year.” Robley-Best

1924 ATL MS16/2

1925

Robley was asked by Sir Godfrey Layden, K.C.M.G., to help in the selection of a collection of pictures of the indigenous races ‘of’ the British Empire, to be presented to the Royal Colonial Institute.

1925 ATL MS72/5a. The Royal Colonial Institute later became known as the Royal Imperial Society.

Nominated by J.C. Adams, and seconded by Elsdon Best, Robley was made a member of the Polynesian Society.

Journal of the Polynesian Society Vol XXXIV; 1925 p. 388

25 November The first part of Robley's article, “A History of the Maori Tiki” was published by the Kaitaia “Northlander”. In the article Robley discussed the possible sources of the hei tiki form, suggesting a similarity with Buddha figures.

2 December The second part of the article was published in the “Northlander”.

3 December “I [have] been very sad at [the] loss of a sister & was told to keep my mind occupied …” Robley-Adams

ATL MS16/9. This was probably Augusta Robley.

1926

Mr H.W. Smythe, owner of a number of watercolours by Augustus Earle, arranged for their sale through Sothebys of London, on the 4th May, 1926. (Smythe had inherited the works from his father, Admiral W.H. Smythe, Earle's half brother.)

16 April “I went to Sothebys today [private] view [of Earle paintings] — came there [with] Sir James Allen and friend — all pictures are in a book … question is — will owner separate — and if so …, this is [private], is Govt offer sufficient — given in [private] office, I present … something may turn up to aid NZd …” Robley-Fildes

VUW Fildes 10/1. Sir James Allen was the NZ High Commissioner. (The 161 Earle watercolours were purchased by Mr W.J. Spencer who sold them to Mr Rex Nan Kivell shortly afterwards. The National Library of Australia purchased them in 1959. [Hackworth-Jones: 1980])

21 April “I see Earle, as Angas even, does not notice rewha & pukaru and other details in tattooing — carvings not quite understood — but good “patakas”, “whares”, &c.” Robley-Best

ATL MS16/2

11 October Robley's advice was sought by the New Zealand Government regarding the proposed purchase of a sketchbook containing thirty-two watercolours of early New Zealand by General Charles Gold. Robley inspected the works at the High Commission Offices and recommended that they be purchased.

VUW Fildes 10/1. Robley's advice was not heeded. The thirty-four works by Gold in the Alexander Turnbull Library were purchased from Christies in 1971.

1928

8 November “I am working to give some pictures to a charity bazaar, but this winter seems to give me short hours for colours — Black & White, one can draw by evenings … How I drew in those [New Zealand] days … now everthing is photography … “Robley-Adams.

ATL MS16/9

1929

5 July “Now in London a Tiki fetches … £ 90 …, a Head … £75 … I put in age 89 on 28 June — so am quite a veteran …” Robley-Best

ATL MS16/2

1930

12 June “I had nice days at Tauranga [in 1860's] … Mair wrote me just before he went; the Maori thought a deal of my recording their ancestral art … as my knowledge was “priest-like and divine”. — I wish I [could] do a visit to Tauranga yet — I would like … Best Wishes with “karakia”.” Robley-Adams

ATL MS16/9. This letter is included in Chapter 3 (see page 78)

29 October Robley died in a nursing home in Peckham Road, London. He was 90 years old. “He left no property, but a lot of debts.”

Fildes-Adams: 1931 ATL MS16/9

3 November The funeral was held at the Streatham Park Cemetery, London. Among the mourners at the ceremony were H.R.H. the Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll), Colonel-in-Chief of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, represented by Major-General Sir Alexander Wilson, K.C.B.; Sir Thomas Wilford, K.C.M.G., K.C. (High Commissioner for New Zealand), represented by Mr J. Manhire; Miss Gwendol in Borghesi, niece; and Mrs Ettie A. Hornibrook who represented the Royal Empire Society.

newsclipping; no source/date ATL Art Collection; E24A

“[Robley] dressed as a Maori, kneeling in ambuscade” (Hocken Library Collection) MI 488, opp. page x This photograph was taken at Ryde, England in 1866 — immediately subsequent to his return from New Zealand.

The Space Between

E Kore E Piri Te Uku Te Rino

Clay will not cling to iron

Steedman: 1985 p. 134

Culture is the Radical, the root of any Society. It is the means by which people are connected, in a commonly identified way, to the life of those around them, to the life of those who have preceded them. By extension, Culture is the means by which they remain in the lives of those who will follow.

Culture Reflects, as It is Reflected by, the physical location; the social, natural and supernatural events in which — and through which — a Society lives. It gives manifest and spiritual voice to the accumulated knowledge, experience and achievements of people. From that base it sustains — and is sustained by — each new person, each new generation. By divining, and formulating connections between, the elements and forces upon which human life is dependent, Culture humanizes them — relates them to human life. In thus transcending any other focus of Nature, the human dimension of time, place — that is to say, history — is made predominant.

Culture is the Organically Changing Image of a Society. As it is active in defining the constraints within which people live their lives, it is dependent upon those lives for its own definition. Under effect of extraordinary events and individuals, Culture adapts itself to change. No single event or person can, however, change a culture without its historical context. The acts, achievements of an individual are continuous with previous people's actions and endeavours: they are, in the same way, generative of, continued in, acts perpetrated by members of subsequent generations. It is in this way that each individual is essentially of history. Culture is the radical — which is to say — the root — of that connection; the means by which the life of history might be entered into by, and equated with, the livity of the individual.

No Society Has Greater or Lesser Claim to Cultural Integrity. Each is made in the image of its own Culture which is, equally, the image of the Society it has grown from. In all cases the specific conditions and circumstances which have given rise to cultural truths are self-referential, their integrity being absolute only within their own terms.

The Ability of a Culture to Adapt to Change is most seriously challenged when that change comes from without; that is to say, from another Culture. The framework by which human life — and thus all life — is ordered is confronted by another of an equal but incomprehensible integrity. From the fear — of each, by the other — which is essentially engendered in this meeting, there are a number of possible resolutions. All things being equal, the two parties will mutually claim the space between: cultural elements of each will be interpreted by the other, to be reconstituted in their own cultural terms. New cultural ‘dialects’ are thus created, through which each Culture might be enriched rather than diminished; through which the integrity of each, the terms of each, might be maintained.

All Things Are, However, Seldom Equal. More usually the mutual fear of the other will develop into aggression, generally provoked by — and in terms of — the party most likely to profit from it. The imposition of these terms creates the impression of cultural Power. The space between the two Cultures, however distorted by the aggressive expansion of one at the cost of the other, is disguised rather than diminished by this movement.

In the cultural contact which has characterised the establishment of ‘New Zealand’ the model of an equal, mutual interchange of cultural truths and attitudes has seldom been apparent. Over the century preceding the Europeans' ‘discovery’ of New Zealand, their understanding of the World — and thus of their own humanity — had been informed by an increasing awareness of the multiplicity of human cultures. Their response, the development of a ‘scientific’ system of categorization — the synthesis of many elements within one ‘whole’ —, was essentially focussed around their own existence. The strange equation of geographical spread, skin tone and physiognomical form with stages of human ‘civilisation’ effectively enthroned the European Cultures within their own model. It was thus that their world could be colonized from the people of the Earth; within a single set of cultural terms. In that the ‘scientific’ model presupposed a relationship between all things — a relationship to the European — the colonizing races could be largely blind to the specifics of indigenous cultures. The very differences and peculiarities of individual race's cultural practices and beliefs made them fit within the model; which, after all, relied upon diversity for its development.

While the Maori voyages of discovery across the Pacific had been undertaken centuries before, when the European was barely capable of localised navigation, their more recent history had been free of the truly ‘alien’ cultural encounters of the European. The effect of contact between the Maori and the European was, therefore, differently active on their respective cultural and historical development.

It is a persistent irony that although the European gained their greatest cultural impetus and enrichment from these encounters with other Societies, they were incapable of existing equitably — which is to say peacefully — within the terms of any one ‘alien’ group.

With Cultural Imposition Comes the Imposition of History. When the Cultural system of one Society dominates the development of others, its concept of ‘History’ will come to be seen as the most appropriate to the greatest number of people. History is, however, culturally defined: it is an expression of Culture. Fundamental to the understanding of any Bicultural Development — literally; the development of two, individual, Cultures — is the acknowledgement that ‘history’, and the manner in which it is perceived, is not absolute. The ‘story’ of human civilization is, and can only be, coined in the terms of the Society it is of.

If there are two Cultures living in the same place, during the same period, it follows that there are two ‘Histories’ of that place, of that time; each informed by their respective ‘Pasts’. In each case it is the cultural dimension through which that ‘history’ — and thus the present is understood.

It has followed that the Power of the European Culture — that is to say the Pakeha Culture — has engendered in its own ‘history’ the impression of absolute truth. It is a concept of ‘history’ which relies on a belief in the imbalance between races — that is to say between Cultures —; the superior to the inferior, the civilised to the primitive, the light to the dark. It is a concept of ‘history’ which, in its fundamental belief in the continual linear, progression of human civilisation, puts the Past behind it. It never looks back because it believes it is impossible to go back. Thus the simple injustices, compromises and misunderstandings implicit in the colonial Past are perpetuated as complex, indefinable, and certainly as non-renegotiable.

A largely one-sided Biculturalism has developed within this climate. Led in many instances by the need to survive within their changed, culturally undermined country, the Maori has adapted to many of the cultural manners and modes of the Pakeha. It has been — and perhaps remains — generally accepted within analysis of ‘New Zealand history’ that this movement has been an inevitable outcome of European settlement. The consequential ‘falling off’ of Maori cultural practices and modes is, apparently, equally accepted as implicit in our ongoing ‘history’. Indeed Maori actions intended as checks to this diminishment, as attempts to retain self-determination and cultural integrity, have commonly been dealt with as acts of provocation.

It is an ongoing irony — and one which must be addressed here — that while the movement of the Maori towards the ‘alien’ (to them) Pakeha Culture has been accepted — that is to say, expected — any profound movement in the opposite direction has been regarded as ‘eccentric’. Because there is no ‘need’ for such movement, because it goes against the ‘balance’ of ‘history’; there is, perhaps a perceived threat in its pursuit.

The many-faceted work of Horatio Gordon Robley is defined by, and informative of, the space between Maori and European Cultures; the time between the establishment of ‘New Zealand’ and this country today. In both respects, perhaps, his work is unfamiliar to us.

The artistic sensibility evident in Robley's work is defined by an emerging bicultural development. A Pakeha artist, Robley was increasingly involved in attempts to imitate — and thus to come to terms with the art of the Maori; an art which was essentially and profoundly alien to his own. As much as he — by the very fact of his point-of-view, his graphic means of representation — altered that art in interpreting it; he was altered by its gradual revelation.

Because the mechanisms employed in our perception of history are divided into specific disciplines, and because Robley's work is addressed as a cohesive whole by none of these, attempts to analyse his wide-ranging endeavours and achievements have typically produced a number of rather fractured images. While some aspects of his work fall within the criteria of one discipline, and are thus analysed, further elements are studied under separate ‘microscopes’. Such a process of observation inevitably dislocates the works' overall integrity, removing each action and achievement from the interests and intentions which informed their pursuit.

The Art Historian has typically addressed her/himself to the many watercolours and drawings by Robley; images of Maori people, places, and of an emerging European settlement within those places. Any consideration of the extraordinary body of work effected during his forty year study of Maori art is, however, left — be it by declaration or implication — to the Anthropologist or Ethnologist. It is difficult not to conclude from this that not only is Maori art regarded apart from New Zealand's Art History, but that the investigation of that art by any artist is similarly circumspect. Art History.

Recent Ethnological research has raised doubts as to the authenticity of some of Robley's drawings of moko and other designs; questioning both the nature of the items he studied and his representations thereof.

D.R. Simmons maintains that many of the Mokamokai — and thus moko designs — Robley studied are likely to have been produced without the traditional constraints which defined moko; as trade items. Simmons has also pointed out discrepancies between Robley's representations of moko and the models from which they were copies [personal communication; 1984–19-5]

Whatever qualities Robley brought to the publication of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” [Robley: 1896] he was not an ethnologist but an Artist. His interest in, and understanding of, the Maori and their arts was primarily pursued and described within those terms. It was this perception of Maori art which provoked his attempts to discover — that is to say, uncover — the artistic base of its designs and forms. He was only capable of divining this from his comprehension of the object images of that art; his position without a Maori cultural context making any focus other than a formal one impossible.

The investigation of an art without its social and cultural context — those conditions which specify its generation and production — must inevitably give rise to an understanding of that art fundamentally separate from the original intention of its manufacture. The ‘authenticity’ of Robley's attempts to document the work of Maori artists must be addressed within the criteria implied by his (culturally and physically) removed observation of ‘pieces’ of Maori art. The European concept of the Art Object — to which Robley, as a Collector, firmly adhered — specifies the way in which European artists and observers perceive the cultural manufactures of all people. Robley's appraisal of the work of Maori artists, undertaken primarily in reference to the ‘objects’ in his possession, was untempered by any communication with the artists themselves. It was the aesthetic of those artists' work which Robley attempted, through imitative representation and reproduction, to penetrate.

It is fortunate for subsequent students that Robley's positive, artistically-based method of investigation has furnished them with a documentary resource of increasing worth. Because the drawings are the means of enquiry, they continue to give voice to the evolving revelation which distinguishes his work. Although his pursuit of an understanding of Maori art — and most specifically, of moko — seeks to place it within a European framework of Art, the open manner of his recording allows a range of interpretations. It is because of the relative ‘objectivity’ of his drawings that these works continue to have a life beyond, and without, the strict boundaries of his own life. Through Robley, much of this material is referential to the items, to the energy at its source.

There is a case to be made, and it is true of all Art, of all artists, that an essential thread of definition runs through the Art made by one person, through the Art produced within one Society. This is, in the way in which Art is parallel to life, manifest expression of a life force. Each ‘piece’ of Art is enlivened in its relationship to others; between them they are generative of an implied continuum of growth. It is in the same way that a human life is seen as the sum of an individual's actions, statements, thoughts and endeavours.

Although Robley's life was most remarkably defined by an ongoing, developing investigation of Maori art, he is more usually regarded as the perpetrator of a number of sensationally perceived activities. In most instances his name is linked with Mokamokai (Preserved Heads), an association which is emanative of a certain ‘macabre’ fascination. It is therefore pertinent to preface a discussion of his artistic development with a brief consideration of this general attitude.

There were, perhaps, two distinct types of Britons during the nineteenth century; those who went abroad to form the Empire and those who stayed at home to administrate its expansion. From the time the eighteen year old Robley purchased a commission in a foreign-based Regiment of the British Army — and thus followed in his father's footsteps to India and Burma — he belonged whole-heartedly to the former group. The fearless enthusiasm which was the prerogative of the British officer in occupying a foreign country inevitably led to actions which were, in the terms of the indigenous cultural and spiritual values, offensive and profane.

It was common for soldiers and administrators from the ‘colonies’ to retire back to Britain where they surrounded themselves with the vase collections of ‘trophies’ acquired during their foreign service. These men — and in a few cases, women — would typically write books on the specialties of their collections, would become ‘experts’ on those subjects. While Robley fits comfortably within this group, his artistic investigation of moko and Mokamokai (Preserved Heads) distinguishes the ongoing, historical presence of his research, his ‘expertise’.

The European reaction to the Maori practice of preserving Heads by drying has always been one of an interested horror. This was amplified by the use of Mokamokai as trade items during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, during which time the Heads subsequently acquired by Robley found their way to Europe. While often apprized of as evidencing the ‘savage barbarity’ of the Maori, the Trade was established and promoted — that is to say created — by the European demand for Mokamokai. Influenced by the new scale of economic ‘value’ the Maori adapted the traditional practice of preservation to the apparently insatiable market. Joseph Banks, recording one of the earliest transactions of this nature, reported in 1770:

“[A Maori] bringing with him in his canoe 6 or 7 heads of men preserved … he was very jealous of shewing them, One though I bought tho' much against the Inclinations of its owner, for tho' he liked the price I offered he hesistated much to send it up, yet having taken the price I insisted either to have that returned or the head given but could not prevail until I enforced my threats by shewing him a Musquet on which he chose to part with the head rather than the price he had got which was a pair of old drawers of very white linen …”

Joseph Banks

Morrell: 1958 p. 146

Robley's remarkably determined acquisition of Mokamokai was thus not entirely without precedent. No other individual, however, has ever become so obsessively engaged in the collection and study of items as culturally sensitive, as humanly charged as Mokamokai. There can be little doubt, whatever the exact nature of Robley's ‘collecting’, that he perpetrated acts of immeasurable cultural offence. His fearless — and open — fascination with those ‘exotic’ aspects of foreign people's customs an beliefs which his fellow Britons regarded as ‘grisly’ or ‘grotesque’ is evident throughout his life. It is not surprising that from his preoccupation with these highly sensitive phenomena Robley acquired a reputation as a man obsessed with the ‘macabre’. That perception of his endeavours continues to monopolize the modern appreciation of his work.

To an extent the actions and attitudes of individuals such as Robley speak of a curiosity which is deeply rooted in the society they are of. In actually perpetrating such activity, in actually confronting such interests, these individuals draw out a hostile reaction from that society. Robley was, however, unperturbed by the horrified response his collecting habits elicited. As well as seeing in Briton's outrage an ignorance of the Maori and New Zealand, he appears to have had some doubts as to the morality which provoked their somewhat fascinated indignation.

“Whilst at the time Maori were trafficking in heads, as works of art, the study of anatomy in England required a number of bodies and the villanous (sic.) body snatching or resurrecting arose — One of these dealers 1908–10 had supplied 305 adult bodies at abt 4 [guineas] each £ 44 under 3 ft … In April 1828, one of the [House] of Commons questions (in the Enquiry) … is significant - “Knowing the high price given for dead bodies do you think that price is too high for the safety of the living?” … Widow buying was put down Dec. 1929 in India — Maori Head Traffic stopped April 1831

“In the year [1831] before NZ was a crown colony the legislative of New South Wales passed an act to stop the trade in heads, a fine of 100 was instituted for possession … This act is still unrepealed; & on the complaint of several native people of standing the Curator of the Otago Museum was warned by the Attorney-General … to have them put away out of sight, on strength of this Act. Sir J von Haast had to comply …” Robley-Craig-Brown: 1896 ATL MS16/3

Sydney & NZ, but this villanous collecting still goes on in the Continent.”

Robley

ATL MS1387/26

The incidence of tattooing among many of the world's people became a popular subject among European historians and scientists interested in tracing ancient migrations and cultural relationships. This map, reproduced from “The History of Tattooing and its significance” [Hambly:1925] illustrates what the author refers to as “a reasonable, dateable sequence of the migration of tattooing.”

1. In New Zealand; 1864–1866

When the twenty-three year old Ensign Horatio Gordon Robley (68th Durham Light Infantry) arrived in Auckland on the 8th January, 1864, he was extensively tattooed on the torso and arms.

Fildes: 1921 p. 10 VUW Fildes 1507

While it is likely that a number of his comrades had also submitted themselves to tattoo artists during their lengthy sojourn in India and Burma, Robley had acquired a remarkably comprehensive catalogue of the intricately rendered devices;

ibid

“… their figures turned out with [a] wealth of … flowers, signs of the zodiac, elephants, demon, monkey demon, nats or angels.”

Robley

Robley-Fildes: c. 1924 VUW Fildes 10/1

Robley's activities as an artist had strongly influenced the nature of his relationship with the Burmese. Although stationed at Rangoon he had made numerous journeys into the central states, on which occasions he always carried with him a sketchbook and a pencil. The initially suspicious response of the Burmese to his constant sketching — and especially to his interest in portraiture was gradually moderated as they became familiar with the nature, and results, of such activity. To an extent this accord was mutual; the Briton's interested attempts to learn of local customs, to acquire a knowledge of Burmese dialects, and to study the manufactures of their artists were somewhat at odds with the general attitude of his fellow soldiers.

Robley-Best:1917 ATL MS16/2

The strange intimacy of observation implicit in the European manner of portraiture requires a degree of submission, be it willing or not, on the part of the subject. Robley's

A Vampire, or Ghoul, Drawn from life in India Pictorial world, c.1870 VUW Fields 10 parallel acquiescence to the artists of tattoo was, perhaps, no more or less strange. When, in late 1863, the 68th Regiment received orders to proceed on active duty to New Zealand — where ‘native rebellion’ was threatening — Robley received a visit from a Burmese priest:

“In the course of my peregrinations abroad in search of subjects for my pencil, one monastery, or kioung, in particular interested me, the head of which [was] an old, yellow robed Buddhist priest … when he learned afterwards of our impending evacuation to New Zealand, it was interpreted to me, that he had prayed much that I should be saved from all harm, and that to complete his implorations I was to allow a sacred red emblem to be pricked on my right arm which he declared would render me invulnerable … After a great deal of urging I yielded to the request made, and found that by doing so he derived a great deal of gratification, and the result was that the letters were indelibly marked in an artistic circle. After a lapse of sixty years the mystic symbol is still showing, and who will be so bigoted as to say that to it is not due that the self same arm can now write of it …”

Robley

Fildes: 1921 p. 10 VUW Fildes 1507

Robley had also acquired a number of examples of the local artists' productions — engraved silverware, silk garments and the small Buddha figures so characteristic of the area.

ibid p. 11

It was in a similar sense of ‘collecting’ that he had filled a large number of sketchbooks with drawings and watercolours of the Burmese and their country. While the majority of these were lost — when the ship upon which they were despatched to England sank — those which remain record a concentration on the social, cultural and geographical peculiarities of Burma.

one of Robley's sketchbooks from this period is in the Alexander Turnbull Library Art Collection; E28

Among these were the local attitudes towards, and practices surrounding, death and the supernatural. Robley's fascination with these — nor more or less apparent than his general interest — was typical of the European response to an unfamiliar, palpable presence of death in life, evident in a number of ‘alien’ cultures. Unlike a great many European observers, however, Robley appears to have regarded such phenomena without fear or favour; his response being free of the sense of spiritual threat apparent in many others’.

Already involved in supplying British Periodicals with annotated illustrations of foreign life and events, Robley's style of drawing was clearly documentary.

Robley was a friend of Charles Keene, the foreign Art Editor for Punch, and through him had a number of drawings published in that periodical. His work was also used by the Pictorial World, the Illustrated London News and, in later years, the Graphic

Each element within the image was carefully observed, delineated, and verbally described in note form of the reverse side of the sheet. This precise manner of representation made his work ideally suited to visual reportage and his position within the British Army meant that Britons saw, in work such as his, their own presence within the newly ‘discovered’ World. It is less likely that the demands of newspaper work had any great effect on his natural artistic temperament; as is evidenced by the exact similarity between images thus-intended and the body of his work. Robley's sketches are the ‘snapshots’ of a tourist-cum-collector who, from the security of his position within a British Force was able to openly approach and record — and thus ‘collect’ — those aspects of the country which most interested him.

Although it was as a soldier that Robley departed for New Zealand in 1863, it was the nature of his artistic enquiry and his encounter with the extraordinary art of the Maori that was to most profoundly characterize his contact with the country and its people.

Arriving in Auckland on board the British India Steam Navigation Company's Screw Steamer ‘Australian’ Robley, designated as Carrier of the Queen's Colours, led his Regiment in the march up Queen Street to the Albert Barracks in the centre of the town. The 68th were accompanied by their Band and a fully grown, black Burmese Bear; the latter, intended as a Regimental mascot, died later in the same year.

Fildes: 1921 p. 14 VUW Fildes 1507

“It was thus I landed in the land of the Maori, a country I was quickly to find a grand place to get to, where there was unlimited opportunity to sketch most interesting scenes and subjects, and to make friends with both English and Maori companions in arms.”

Robley

ibid p. 15

Having settled into his canvas quarters, Robley visited a Shortland Street bookshop in search of texts which might enlighten his complete ignorance of New Zealand and the Maori. (When the Regiment received orders to proceed to New Zealand they had been anticipating a recall to England.) As well as purchasing a Maori vocabulary he invested in Frederick Maning's recently published companion volumes, “Old New Zealand” and “A History of the war in the North.”

Published by Robert J. Creighton, Auckland

As an introduction to the Maori these vividly — and in the case of the former, somewhat sensationally — written accounts significantly influenced Robley's attitude to the Race. From these books he learned of the Maori customs and beliefs which, in violating western taboos were of immediate interest to him. Maning's peculiar, ‘Pakeha Maori’ sympathy — descriptive of a similar fascination — provided Robley with a specific point-of-entry into the Maori World.

“I am always glad that on arrival … I bought “Old NZ” & “War in North” & vocabulary or I would not have drawn with interest perhaps directly.”

Robley

Robley-Adams: n/d ATL MS16/9

It is difficult to divine the exact order in which Robley's New Zealand paintings were executed; his later habit of making repeated copies of scenes (all dated as originals) and his invention of new scenes (painted as if he had been there) considerably distorts any such classification. More important than the chronological sequence, however, is the manner in which the artist approached, on different levels, the real subject of these paintings — that is to say, the Maori and their art.

Robley's ‘scenes’ of the Bay of Plenty (the 68th and 43rd Regiments were sent to Te Papa — the centre of the present City of Tauranga — in late January, 1864) record, in his usual documentary manner, the people, places and events he encountered during his two years in the area. It is precisely because of their ‘objectivity’ that these images — of people and objects within a landscape — have an effect beyond the act, and time, of their making. They show rather than explain, although depending on the point-of-view from which they are perceived, the showing is the explaining.

We can, in looking at these images, recognise their constituent elements from our own experience. The carved pataka, wakataua, whare and Pou rahui we know from Museum Exhibition Halls, from Ethnological texts. The landscape — so resonantly conveyed by Robley — we know from travelling in the Bay of Plenty; we recognise it as the same place. Our experience of each of these is, however, defined by the context in which we see them — the items of carving are the relics or artefacts of a lost, or confused, past; the landscape is the setting of kilometres of kiwifruit plants, shelter belts and pine treed white beaches.

In replacing this landscape and these objects in the context of one another, these paintings not only offer an image of ‘history’, they also reveal an essential complicity between now removed ‘realities’. Each element is at once more relevant, and more resonant, when seen in combination with the other. The implication of these images' revelation — which brings into question the permanence of subsequent, modern realities within the same landscape — cannot be seen as the direct intent of their execution. Robley's position as a member of the Imperial Forces — committed to the subjugation of the Maori — meant that his own presence in New Zealand was to be at the cost of the reality he experienced and, in these paintings, recorded.

Art, however, requires a peculiar loyalty from those enlived by it. Robley's later, conscious attempts to perpetuate a knowledge of moko — the ‘past’ art of race then perceived to be dying — grew directly from his 1860's experiences. Whatever qualities had originally attracted him to Maori art, it was the artistic essence he discovered within it which, perhaps unconsciously, provoked his continued fascination.

It is those paintings which record the Maori and their cultural productions from a more intimate point-of-view which best suggest the nature of Robley's response to New Zealand. While is to say, more interested — studies focus wholly on Maori subjects.

Robley's facility for ‘objectively’ representing items of Maori art should be regarded as separate from his general ability as a precise draughtsman. While that ability — together with his enthusiasm for ‘collecting’ images of otherwise unprocurable items — gave rise to his initial representations of carvings and other examples of Maori art, the process triggered in such drawing set it at a remove from his other sketching. His earlier experience of Burmese art had disappointed his attempts at a graphic emulation of pattern and form. The art was, as far as he could see, marked by an utter lack of invention; the same forms were endlessly decorated in beautiful but unchanging motifs. These were then taught to, and perpetuated by, younger apprentices. Such art denied Robley the chance to study it — the acquisition of several key items effected a complete understanding of its aesthetic ‘life’.

Fildes: 1921 p. 12 VUW Fildes 1507

His encounter with, and experience of, the Maori exposed him to an entirely different concept of art. Certainly he approached the race with the same openess he had shown towards the Burmese.

“Burmese artists had blued much of me … but spaces were, however, ready for the delineation of maori art, and only for certain reasons the chisel of the Maori was never applied to me.”

Robley

ibid p. 10

The imbalance between Robley's response to the Art of the Maori and that of the Burmese — and those of all other races he encountered on subsequent service — must be seen as the result of the different effects of their activity on his artistic sensibility. While the Burmese artists' work had effectively denied that sensibility (and was inactive upon it), the art of the Maori tohunga engaged it profoundly and in so doing pushed it beyond itself. Robley was to spend the remainder of his life — over sixty years — attempting to divine the exact nature of this extraordinary ‘living’ Art.

It is impossible to retrospectively define the point at which Robley's drawing of Maori art becomes less a representation and more an involved, emulative investigation. In carefully and precisely delineating the chisel-marks of the Maori tohunga Robley,in his drawing, became apprized of an art which was endlessly generative of new forms, patterns and designs. Not only was the object presence of items of Maori manufacture powerfully ‘charged’, that visual potency remained in their represented image — if their elemental structure was faithfully reproduced. The act of their representation developed in Robley an embryonic understanding of the relationship between the making of Maori art and its made object presence. That understanding, specified in his case by the graphic re-making of items and patterns originally formed by very different processes, remained the prime catalyst in his ongoing investigation of the art.

The sketching which most profoundly deepened Robley's understanding of Maori art was that generated through intimate intercourse with the people themselves. The Maori apprehension of his practice of making/taking portraits was more specific and vigorously expressed than that shown by the Burmese. His constant sketching among them was frequently countered by a challenge, a dare for the artist to continue. In response to this Robley would

“Belle of the Maori Village” (illustrated postcard) ink & wash sketch Auckland Public Library NZ Prints 594(3) commonly desist, respectful of his subjects' belief that the representation of their likeness opened them to the influence of makutu.

“The Maori dreaded withcraft or loss of years if drawn; — & so here see the bow of a war canoe, you see the fighting chief threatening the artist on shore which was I … I retired but [later] finished sketch.”

Robley

Robley — Craig-Brown: 1914 ATL MS16/5

It is typical of Robley that, in completing his sketch from memory, he included the ‘challenge’ itself. Similar acts of defiance are recorded in a number of other watercolours and drawings. Robley appears to have drawn, or completed, many of his sketches from memory; the nature of their subjects and the intimacy of their observation makes it difficult to understand how the artist could have rendered them without eliciting an outraged protest.

This remains a matter of conjecture, although extraordinary images such as Cat No 22 Carving Totara Slabs inside a Big Whare are difficult to otherwise explain (see page 209)

Maori rebukes were, however, insufficient to dissuade Robley from his sketching. In attempting to closely observe and represent individual Maori — face to face — he focussed on the inevitable key to his interest in their art: moko. The designs of tattooing, imprinted upon the human face, were (and are) the most personal core of semblance. As Robley was aware (from a knowledge of carved and painted effigies bearing the specific moko of deceased people) the representation of those designs effected (and effects) a reconstitution of their bearers' presence. As such they were sacred.

see Cat. No. 17 p. 205

Of the portraits Robley painted during the two years he spent in the Bay of Plenty, all but a few were of tattooed Maori.

“Taratoa was [papatea-untattooed] so I did not draw” Robley-Fildes: 1921 VUW Fildes 10

Already in an advanced state of decline, moko was perhaps the most extraordinary artform still evident in the 1860's. Although immediately prefigured by his Burmese experiences, it would be wrong to assume that the practice of tattooing itself was, at the time Robley encountered moko, paramount among his concerns — that any tradition of tattooing evident within Maori art would have engaged his enthusiasm. More clearly his fascination with moko was the focus of an interest, not in tattooing, but in the Maori, in the art of the Maori.

In order to study moko Robley had to make portraits. In order to do that he had to have subjects. It is difficult to imagine a human relationship more tensely intimate than that between the artist and subject: the specifics of this artist and this subject greatly amplified that tension. Characteristically resourceful, Robley found means of persuading the Maori to ‘sit’ for him. Gradually, as had been the case in Burma, the tension was resolved as the process became understood.

“my rum ration was always being exchanged for curios or to take portraits — it wanted something to get a quiet sitter — yet the exclamation of bystanders where moko was correctly copied was another phase — that broke down [the] idea of witchcraft “makutu”- besides I did not look a “tohunga”, only a harmless pakeha artist in moko.”

Robley

VUW Fildes:n/d VUW Fildes 10/1

Robley's interest in portraiture — which, in lieu of any other concerns, would have led him to a consideration of moko — defined the manner in which he initially approached the representation of facial tattoo designs. The pursuit of these portraits constituted an effective apprenticeship in moko; that is to say, in the representation of its designs. The naturalistic style of his drawing — which would favour the description of his subjects' formal, object presence — was fundamentally at odds with the more schematic nature of moko. In attempting to ‘portray’ the likeness of a Maori, Robley was inevitably forced to sacrifice a complete representation of the patterns tattooed upon that person's face. The portrait of nature favoured by European artists tied the artist to a single point-of-view. That moko was conceived, and existed in nature — that is to say, in the round — essentially compromised the alien artist's ability to fully understand, and certainly to represent, its image.

The constant ‘advice’ Robley received from Maori onlookers — mocking admonishment for an incorrect delineation of moko, and praise for correctly drawn patterns -, together with his increasing familiarity with the patterns he thus articulated, gave rise to a degree of sympathy with the art of the Tohunga ta moko. More importantly, the painting of portraits brought Robley into close contact with Maori individuals. In that situation his enthusiasm for recording details of Maori art — and his ability to do so with a degree of accuracy unusual for a non-Maori observer provided the basis for a more specific interrelationship than might otherwise have been the case. Certainly it appears that Robley's skill as an artist gave rise to a certain respect among the Tauranga Maori.

“[Te Kuka te Mea] sat to me for presents of tobacco and my field ration of rum, at the village of Matapihi, and my rendering of his decorations on face was criticised or acclaimed by the natives; we got friendly and Te Kuha [sic.], a famous carver did me a stick with mythological figures for which I presented “utu” …”

Robley20

Because Robley's portraits record (and recall) people, they provide the ‘pivot’ about which the exact nature of his interest in the Maori and their art might be understood. The important fact of these portraits is that they represent living people, that their moko is a living art. Moko is implicitly of life: without his experience of, his observation of, his drawing of moko in life, it is highly unlikely that Robley would subsequently have devoted the greater part of his forty year retirement to an investigation of the art. During that study he was to discover that moko had an image life of its own; that its designs were borne of an organically self-generative aesthetic code. Such is the nature of moko however and it is so fundamentally true of no other art — that its life is instrinsically of human life.

Robley's subsequent interest in moko, and Maori art generally, is inconceivable without this initial experience of the art in life; without his encounters with Maori people. It is from those meetings that his interest in the Race and their art is emanative. As much as increasing his familiarity with the people had opened his understanding of their art, it is true to say that his later in-depth study of the art significantly opened — which is to say, changed — his understanding of the people. The portraits of Maori people bearing moko painted en situ in the Bay of Plenty may be seen as the catalyst for the subsequent study, as the object state Robley continued to attempt to ‘recapture’, to perpetuate.

Lieutenant Horatio Gordon Robley (68th Durham Light Infantry) with Raniera te Hia hia, Field Guide to the Imperial Forces at Tauranga, 1864. Ramsden Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library

“Our Auxiliaries” (from a sketch by Robley) Punch 6 December 1873

Robley's personal relationships with Maori individuals during his time in New Zealand were considerably more complex and wide-ranging than is commonly allowed in the modern perception of the period. In her recent thesis on moko, E.C. Brown cites Robley's dedication of his book, “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” to “those who have served against the warriors of New Zealand” as demonstrating that he “perceived Maoris and their culture in a negative framework.” [Brown: 1980 p.4]

To say that Robley viewed the Maori and their culture in a “negative framework” is only to accord to him the general attitude of the Pakeha, that attitude which made colonization possible. It is insufficient to state the superficially obvious when the specifics of Robley's personal attitude apparently go well beyong this simple conclusion. There are a number of examples of Robley's ingrained racial prejudices towards non-European (non-British) Races. He would have been an extraordinary — and perhaps, useless — member of the British Military had he been enlightened beyond such attitudes. It is his response to the Maori, however, which is of interest.

The dedication Brown quotes is open to interpretations well beyond that she implies. A number of the Maori Robley fought at Pukehinahina and Te Rangaranga in early 1864 were comrades-in-arms with the British during the subsequent actions against the ‘Hau hau’. Even in the former engagements Robley had befriended those Maori acting as field guides to the British troops; namely Raniera te Hia hia and Hamiora Tu. It would appear that, to the well indoctrinated British soldier, the concept of an Enemy of the Crown overrode all other distinctions between people. In dedicating his book as he did Robley was paying tribute to the British soldiers he fought with, to the Maori soldiers he fought with and to the Maori toa he fought against. It is important to accept that as much as war set the two parties against one another, the perceived qualities of the warrior in each engendered a mutual respect.

“[I] felt a glow at spirit of chivalry of the Maori … the Maori I knew at Tauranga were deserving of all honours…”

Robley

ibid

“[speaking about the battle at Pukehinahina (Gate Pa)] … Ah! Those were glorious days. Every fighter was a rangitira, and one was proud to meet each other in battle. Whatever the reverses were to either side no bitter feelings were engendered to form any permanent hatred. We were all friends immediately there was no fighting.”

Hori Ngatai, Ngaiterangi

Ngatai: 1926 p. 26

While there is a large measure of truth in the claim that Robley saw the Maori within a negative framework it is more significant that he came to divine a positive, creative energy within their culture. His paradoxical — and the paradox is resonant well beyond individuals such as he — apprehension of the Maori is better described in his later statement that moko was “the old art of the most interesting savage people.”

Robley-Fildes:n/d VUW Fildes 10/1

It was an imperialistic, patronizing attitude shared by many of his New Zealand correspondents of later years, notably Captain Gilbert Mair and Augustus Hamilton.

Subsequent to the surrender of the Ngaiterangi to the British at Te Papa in July, 1864 (this, following their defeat at Te Rangaranga) Robley and his Regiment reverted to a life-style similar to that they had experienced in Burma. Although manning out-lying redoubts and being in a constant state of readiness, the British troops were largely at their leisure around the Te Papa Headquarters Camp. Interesting themselves in duck-shooting, fishing and other pursuits, the soldiers were free to travel around the surrounding districts.

Robley spent much of his spare time in late 1864 and throughout 1865 in the Maori villages around the Tauranga Harbour and, to the south, at Maketu. From his paintings it appears that he was a regular visitor to Matapihi, a small settlement on the south-west shores of the Tauranga Harbour, immediately opposite the Monmouth Redoubt at Te Papa. Over a number of visits the young Lieutenant met, and became increasingly intimate with, a Maori woman, Harete Mauao; daughter of Tamati Mauao.

See cat. No. 94

The exact nature of the couple's relationship is not known, although it is evident (from his paintings) that Robley was on familiar terms with the woman, her father and the other inhabitants of Matapihi. At some time during 1865 or 1866 Harete gave birth to a son, Hamiora Tu Ropere; named after Robley, the child's father.

Mrs Googie Te Weurangi Tapsell; personal correspondence 24/4/1984

It is possible that the child was born subsequent to Robley's departure from New Zealand in March, 1866; that the soldier was unaware of his son's existence until much later in life. While there is no reference to Harete after that time, a number of letters exchanged between Hamiora Tu Ropere and Robley at the turn of the century are in existence. During the course of their correspondence, in which neither father nor son refer to one another in such terms, Robley sent Hamiora Tu Ropere a number of watercolours,

Robley-McDonald: 1905 NMNZ Ethnology MS

a copy of his book, “Moko; or Maori Tattooing”,

Bay of Plenty Times 25/12/1901

a number of illustrated postcards

Mrs Googie Te Weurangi Tapsell, personal communication, 1985

and numerous other items. Although Robley, in these letters and those written to other people, gives the impression that he was unaware of his relationship to the Maori, there can be little doubt that he understood, and acknowledged, the bloodline. Certainly the Maori family was well aware of the link.

Robley planned to return to New Zealand in the early years of the twentieth century, a visit keenly anticipated by Hamiora Tu Ropere in a letter written to his father at the time.

AIM MS256 R66

As is discussed in the following chapter, circumstances were to prevent Robley from making the trip. In later years he invited his grand-daughter, Te Heipiwhara Tu to join him in London so that she might attend a British school and receive a ‘proper’ education. The young woman declined the offer, apparently out of a concern that the differences between Maori and British life were, for her, unbridgeable.

Mrs Googie Te Weurangi Tapsell, personal communication; 1985

She remained, however, kindly disposed towards her British grandfather, an affection which has remained in succeeding generations.

The Maori attitude towards Robley was not always so moderate, especially in the Bay of Plenty. Te Heipiwhara Tu's brother, Hepeta, did not share his sister's (or father's) regard for the Major-General — news of whom continued to reach Tauranga residents until his death in 1930. Family sources recall Hepeta physically spurning the copy of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” Robley sent them, demonstrating the common perception that Robley was something of a ‘profanity’ to the Maori.

ibid

Although Robley's reputation in the Bay of Plenty was (and is) most significantly determined by reports of his activities while in the area in the 1860's, his association with moko and Mokamokai cast(s) him in a peculiar, singular light. It is not possible to address Robley without addressing moko. To a significant extent, the opposite is also true.

Having been recalled to England, the 68th Durham Light Infantry departed from Auckland on the 15th March, 1866 — Robley aboard the S.S. Percy.

Fildes: 1921 p. 106 VUW Fildes 1507

“My personal connection with New Zealand was now ended and I left that fine country, the land of the Maori with feelings of the utmost regret; nor was I ever so fortunate as to again visit its shores; and yet how often I have wished I could go its rounds again. What I took away with me of its native arts was a gracefully carved jewel of finest greenstone shaped like a shark's tooth, and some old weapons of whalebone and stone, and I was happy in the possession of them.”

Robley

33 ibid

The Percy arrived at Portsmouth on the 28th June, 1866; Robley's twenty-sixth birthday. Although a number of his fellow officers had purchased transfers to New Zealand Regiments so that they could stay in that country (in some cases with Maori wives) the young Lieutenant Robley chose to pursue his already promising military career closer to home.

Hamiora Tu Ropere Newsclipping; no source/1968 Alexander Turnbull Library; NZ Biographies v. 4:9

Description: Robley with two Mokamokai (c. 1905) National Museum of New Zealand.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

2. ‘Headhunter’

“Moko” was put into chapters … by a Mr B. Jones … [who subsequently] got married. At the reception, people not advancing to the tables I was [the] one asked to break the ice as it were. This I did by guessing the married ladies; asked all I could if their children liked sweets, wheedled their pocket kerchiefs in turn & filled with the most expensive sugar plums for them, and so was considered a nice sort of man for a headhunter — … this in 1896.”

Robley

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

Robley's name is inextricably associated with Mokamokai, the preserved Maori Heads he so assiduously and publicly collected. Although his interest in these was most fully realised in his ensuant study of moko, commentators have more usually concentrated their attention on the sensational aspects seen as implicit in the Heads and Robley's association with them. This approach has given rise to a confusion of the general apprehension of Mokamokai with Robley's motives for collecting them. In working from this assumed parallel fascination a number of writers have fabricated accounts of Robley's endeavours which go well beyond the support of fact.

It has been, and remains, a constantly perpetuated rumour that Robley removed a number of mokamokai from New Zealand when he departed in 1866. The truth of this is difficult to determine as such activities are surrounded, on the one hand by a desire to diminish their effect, and on the other by a tendency to sensationalise their ‘romantic’ fascination. There is suggestive, if inconclusive, evidence to both verify and dismiss reports of Robley's involvement in such activities.

David R. Simmons, Ethnologist at the Auckland Institute and Museum, reports that a number of the mokamokai in the American Museum of Natural History, New York (purchased from Robley in 1907) show signs of having been removed from the body and preserved in a manner at odds with the traditional Maori practice. This, together with Simmons' observation that the moko designs on a number of the Heads appear to originate from the Bay of Plenty area during the mid-nineteenth century, is the strongest evidence that Robley was, in the most literal sense, a ‘Headhunter’.

personal communication; 1984–85

The authors of a number of recent articles in New Zealand newspapers have managed to invest this suggestion with considerably greater, and more vivid, detail. The most ‘comprehensive’ of these, published in a Weekend Magazine Supplement, claims that “Robley returned home to England with more than 30” mokamokai. The author continues:

“How had Robley acquired them? — Some “specimens” were probably loot … held in Maori settlements Robley and his fellow soldiers over-ran during the conflict in New Zealand. Troopers looting these villages, knowing of Robley's liking for these items, could have taken them to him and received payment for their efforts. Some he may have picked out in battle, when the opposing forces closed for decapitated. The other obvious way … was to search the battlefield after an engagement, inspecting the dead for fine examples of native art. It would be a simple matter for Robley to sever the desired heads with his sabre and pay some Maori expert in the work, friendly to Europeans, to preserve them …”

Brian Mackrell

The Dominion, Saturday 22 September, 1984

It is, without doubt, incorrect to claim Robley removed “more than 30” mokamokai from New Zealand: if he, in fact, took any the number would be closer to one or two.

Being a newspaper article no references are given as to the sources of the ‘information’ used in this remarkable, that is to say incredible, report. Which, for example, are the Maori settlements (as opposed to purpose-built, fortified pa) “Robley and his fellow soldiers over-ran”; at what battle did Robley become involved in “hand-to-hand” combat with the Maori enemy? While such activities seem bound to engage New Zealanders' fascination with their ‘history’, it is difficult to resolve the tone of this account with others documenting the same events.

It would be naive to imagine, however, that Robley was (any more than his comrades) incapable of perpetrating acts of this nature. Certainly he subsequently appeared to be at his ease with mokamokai, and there is little evidence to suggest that he would have passed up any opportunity of acquiring readily available examples. In a letter to Gilbert Mair, written near the turn of the century, Robley sought his friend's help in adding to his collection of Maori artefacts. Admitting that his list was what the “Americans would call a tall order,” Robley asked for a huge range of items including the prow or stern of a waka taua, “any whalebone implements, any greenstone, Maori complete skulls, any findings in tombs, any bit of human skin tattooed.”

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

If Robley did already possess a number of mokamokai at the time of his retirement in 1887 he managed to remain remarkably discreet about the fact — a characteristic not overly apparent in his subsequent pursuit of Heads in Britain and Europe. (It is unlikely, however, that Robley would have been keen to broadcast the fact that he had obtained, by whatever means, a number of preserved Maori Heads while on active duty in New Zealand. Because of this his own retrospective account of the manner in which he compiled his collection of mokamokai cannot be accepted without reservation.) Certainly in referring to his ‘headhunting’ he always maintained that the mokamokai he purchased from a London Phrenologist in 1893–94 was the first to enter his possession.

“It was more than 20 years after leaving NZ … that an accidental chance led to the supreme art of collecting and writing about [Moko and Mokamokai]. Passing one day along the Brompton Road SW, I espied from the top of an omnibus on which I was travelling a phrenologist re-arranging his window, & in the window was a Maori Head placed there to such base use as an advertisement to the cranium part of the human frame for the purpose of attracting attention to his doctrine. Its owner was a Mr O'Dell and following subsequent visits it became mine at a price …”

Robley

Robley VUW 1507/2 p.1 (see Mokamokai 27; page 154)

There are a number of factors which would appear to support Robley's claim that this purchase marked the beginning of his collection of mokamokai. If he had already possessed Heads in 1887 why had he waited a full five years before adding to his collection? It is equally difficult to understand why he would have refrained from drawing and discussing mokamokai until this purchase, whereafter he was constantly engaged in such activity. Whatever his anxiety as to the origin of items in his collection it is difficult to believe — in light of precedent and subsequent behaviour — that he would have gone to the trouble of mounting an elaborate and carefully carried through ‘cover up’.

On New Year's Eve, 1893, Robley had planned to deliver a lecture on Maori tattooing to the citizens of Selkirk, a small town near Edinburgh. In the event he was detained in London nursing a knee damaged in an automobile knockdown.

newsclipping no source/date ATL MS16/4

Instead he forwarded his prepared notes — together with a carefully packaged mokamokai — to his friend, the Provost Craig-Brown, who delivered the lecture on his behalf. An account of the evening's programme, printed in a local newspaper, makes mention of a drawing which accompanied the presentation:

“There was also exhibited a clever sketch of the head in black and white on a scale large enough to permit of the tattooed lines being seen clearly from the furthest end of the hall. This was the work of General Robley …”

ibid

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai from “Provincial Medical Journal”, February, 1894.

This drawing represented the Mokamokai purchased from Mr O'Dell. The notes of the lecture delivered by the Provost were published as an article in the February, 1894, “Provincial Medical Journal,”

ATL MS16/4

together with an illustration of a preserved Head. While differently rendered to the sketch exhibited at Selkirk, this drawing again represented the O'Dell Mokamokai.

Although all of Robley's subsequent references to his activities as a collector reiterate that this Mokamokai was the first he obtained, there is an essential ambiguity in many of these statements. The possibility that the rate at which he was to assemble his collection allowed him to disguise the correct ‘histories’ of a number of the Heads remains a very real one.

“… the row of heads that I have hunted, served for, waited for, begged, taken & refused to restore … & when coin was not to be offered, [I] have [paid] for in exchanges away [of] such things as I cannot replace, I knew that I was getting a unique collection … this is the only show in the world, I know from my hunts.”

Robley

Robley-Buller: 1896 ATL MS48/27

“I only know the extraordinary hunting up of my specimens …”

Robley

Robley-Mairin/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

In continuing to purchase mokamokai Robley advertised extensively, attended all New Zealand-related Auctions and Sales and visited the many Public and private Collections likely to contain Maori items. Having thus established the location of many of the mokamokai in British and European Collections he began attempting to persuade their erstwhile guardians to part with them. While he was successful in acquiring an increasing number, the reluctance of some owners togive up the mokamokai developed in Robley's enthusiasm to own them a degree of cunning.

“A famous specialist in leprosy [Dr Hutchinson of Halsemere] gave me a day at his place … lo and behold [there] was a “Tukipu”, that is fully chiselled man['s head]. It was impossible to tempt the owner and some plan had to be pondered over — thoughts of burglary might be forgiven a collector — … A large Burmese silver bowl … was bought — now I could offer the wife of my rich friend another beauty in exchange in art … [it] was accepted …”

Robley

Robley VUW Fildes 1507/2 p. 4

Robley's widespread advertising for Mokamokai elicited a predictably fascinated reaction from Britons. Victoria University of Wellington Library Fildes 1507/2

In attempting to understand Robley's determination to compile a large collection of mokamokai it is necessary to regard it as the result of a changing, rather than regular, interest. The concentration on the ‘macabre’ aspects suggested by rumours surrounding his ‘headhunting’ fails to allow for the reciprocal effect the mokamokai had on Robley, on his collecting and art. Had his interest in the preserved Heads gone no further than a superficial fascination it is unlikely he would have become so totally consumed in their collection and study.

Robley was certainly bound to the time-honoured, if unstated, dictum of the Collectors' ‘code’ that it was important to out-collect or out-specialise others. Given his earlier encounter with, and interest in, the tattooing arts of the Maori it was perhaps not surprising that he chose to ‘specialise’ in collecting such decidedly singular items. Such is the nature of mokamokai however — and it is essentially due to the moko designs they bear — that the purchase of one, rather than satisfy the artistically interested Collector, will suggest further purchases.

The graphic imitation of moko, which Robley had renewed in his study of mokamokai for “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” quickly emerged as the most important catalyst for expanding the Collection. So variable were the designs Robley discovered carved on individual Heads, that in his desire to divine the ‘system’ which generated their seemingly infinite patterns he was encouraged to collect as great a number as his financial resources would allow.

Robley survived on a military pension of £4.00 per week, [Fildes-Adams:1931 ATL MS16/9]

By 1896 Robley had acquired fourteen Mokamokai, three years later the Collection stood at twenty-one, and in 1905 he added the thirty-eighth Head to the extraordinary assembly.

1896 [ATL MS16/9] 1899 [Liverpool Daily Post: 14/12 1898] 1905 [ATL qMS/ca. 1903–1941]

The ‘Museum’ in which he kept the collection was a small room adjacent to his residence in St Alban's Lane, London.

Robley rented No 6 & 7 St Albans Lane

As the number of Mokamokai had grown he had been forced to devise a suitable mode of storage: a specially designed tin box was ordered for each Head. These were only used during Robley's absence from London; at all other times the Mokamokai were displayed around his rooms.

“On my first visit to London in 1905 I called on Major General Robley and found him taking his ease at full length on a couch; around the somewhat small room were displayed 38 … preserved head with tattooed faces — they were on tables, sideboards, mantlepiece — everywhere. The possessor of them was smiling proudly at the gruesome display.”

T. E. Donne

T. E. Donne ATL qMS/ca. 1903–1941 83–93/2 v. 6

While Robley often claimed to have understood and respected the tapu nature of mokamokai his interpretation of that law appears to have been somewhat elastic. The peculiarities of his situation — a retired Major-General, living alone with up to forty preserved Maori Heads with which he was publicly identified — were generative of singular attitudes. From without those circumstances, that Society, that time, it is difficult to approach an understanding of, much less a sympathy with, those attitudes and the actions to which they gave rise.

There is, in a number of the actions Robley perpetrated in relation to Mokamokai, a sense of an imagined complicity of purpose between Robley and the Heads. Certainly the public identification of the Collector with his ‘trophies’ and his own identification with Mokamokai were mutually reflective. The popular apprehension of the ‘headhunter’ was (and is) self-fulfilling. In reacting to what he saw as the public ‘ignorance’ of the Maori and New Zealand Robley appears to have elicited some pleasure from provoking, and playing up to their ‘fear’ of mokamokai and of his association therewith. Whatever his intentions, such behaviour merely exasperated public opinion — a fact which did not, apparently cause him any undue upset.

“[I purchased] a head from the private collection of the late Dr Paterson, Bridge of Allan — as soon as it became mine, to the astonishment of the sale room bidders, I hongied it, explaining the rubbing of noses was the correct greeting.”

Robley

Robley VUW Fildes 1507/2 (see Mokamokai 1: page 127)

“I remember when Seddon gave a cold meat banquet at the Holborn [restaurant] and I took a [tattooed] head with me — many of the young men were astonished at my lecture on it.”

Robley

Robley-Taine: 1921 T.E.R. Hodgson Collection, Wellington

“it appeared with explanation, “was 1st export of [preserved] meat”.

Robley

Robley VUM Fildes 10/1

During the 1890's and the early years of the twentieth century Robley received frequent visits from the Maori who passed through London. His regular attendance at the Reading Room of the New Zealand Embassy meant that he was in constant contact with New Zealand tourists, many of whom were already familiar with his name and ‘hobby’. Since the inception of his Maori Collection (which included a wide range of artefacts besides mokamokai) he had made a point of interesting himself in the historical affairs of New Zealand. Whenever rare and valuable taonga turned up at Sales he would quickly notify the New Zealand Authorities, imagining they would be as keen as he to reinvest their country with lost relics of its past. In a similar way he supplied the New Zealand Press Office with a constant barrage of illustrated ‘Press Releases’, announcing each new addition to his Collection and reporting the results of major Sales of Maori items.

Robley was, at least in his own eyes, a member of the New Zealand community in London. Certainly the nature of his activities had created a general remove between him and fellow Britons. To a large degree he was accorded a similar reserve by the Pakeha, to whom his endeavours and enthusiasms meant no more than the doings of an eccentric old man. His fascination with New Zealand and the Maori, the root of this social alienation, was more with the past — that period of which he had experienced the latter stages — than with the Dominion's contemporary development. In the new New Zealand, Maori history was afforded a minor place, perhaps because of the commonly held belief that the Race had no future. Robley's offers to help restore valuable taonga to New Zealand Museums, for whatever reasons, often fell upon ‘deaf ears’: there was, he concluded, a “bias” against him in Wellington.

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

The Mokamokai — which ‘enlivened’ his relationship with an almost mythical past — were his most direct link with New Zealand. His nostalgic longing for the country (and his youth) was for a ‘history’ which had apparently passed.

In 1902 and 1910, at the Coronations of Edward VII and George V respectively, and again during the First World War, Robley formally hosted a number of contingents of Maori troops — ‘sons’ of the warriors he had fought less than forty years earlier. For both the Maori and Robley these encounters must have thrown their other experiences in London into remarkable relief. We have only Robley's accounts of these meetings, at which he exhibited the

Robley (seated) in the foyer of New Zealand House, 415 The Strand, London (c. 1925–30) The woman behind the desk is Miss Margaret Heath; the man she is serving, Mr. R.D. Steel. Alexander Turnbull Library mokamokai (on the first of these dates) and his watercolours of New Zealand.

“[the Collection] was respectfully visited by the Maori who came to London for the last 2 coronations—These young men, some with historic names like Hone Heke and others, were awed, & admired — the decorations were even a study to them.”

Robley

Robley-Fildes:n/d VUM Fildes 10/1

“They were sorry that [the mokamokai] were in a land not of home & hoped women did not handle them.”

Robley

ibid

“I can remember a ‘tangi’ in my room by a Ngaiterangi over a portrait in wartime.”

Robley

Robley-Fildes:1928 VUW Fildes 10a

“I sometimes talk with Maoris. I have to render up some portraits of ancestor, Tupuna.”

Robley

Robley-Best:1919 ATL MS16/2

“I have met many Maori troopers, who are all dignified but there always seems a sad look in eyes of the race — I wish some day, … I [could] go rounds again of … NZ.”

Robley

Robley-Turnbull:1917 ATL MS57/77

“I do gaze on so many [Military] forces — even to Burmese I speak a little as some years there, but it is to the Maori here I am so often attracted & have shown pictures & portraits.”

Robley

Robley-Best:1917 ATL MS16/2

It was precisely because the Collection ‘tied him down’ financially that Robley began to consider its sale as early as 1899.

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

In the previous year the mokamokai had been placed on public display in London's Guildhall. Anticipating the exhibition, a reporter from the ‘Daily Mail’ advised Londoners that they would “see something probably more novel & impressive” than they had ever seen before.

Daily Mail; no date ATL MS1387/5B

The event was, as it turned out, a popular success.

“800 to 1000 people a day come to see the Heads … & my visit there daily is a lecture almost — it is not advertised but people tell one another it seems.”

Robley

Robley-Hocken:c1899 Hocken Library MSI 488

The Guildhall exhibition ran throughout 1898 and in December of that year the Collection was transported to the Liverpool Museum where it again went on public display.

“There are twenty-one heads, each tattooed in the most artistic manner possible … The Liverpool public owe Major-General Robley a debt of gratitude for his kindness in thus enabling them to become acquainted with these relics of barbaric art.”

Liverpool Daily Post

Liverpool Daily Post 14/122/1898

Hon. R. Seddonink sketch (on envelope)Alexander Turnbull Library Art Room; E280/1 Seddon was said to have been in favour of purchasing Robley's Collection of Mokamokai for New Zealand, but “other influences in New Zealand prevailed.” T.E. Donne ATL MS1387/17

Lord Jellicoe with moko retouched photograph Alexander Turnbull Library MS1387/5B “I sent … Lord Jellicoe a copy of this photograph … Lady Jellicoe told me that she was not certain whether she preferred the tattooed or the plain face.” T.E. Donne ATLMS1387/5B

Well before the Liverpool exhibition was over (it ran for six months) — surprised that he had not already received an offer for the Collection from New Zealand — Robley wrote to the Government informing them of his willingness to part with the mokamokai. The letter, if received, was never replied to.

“The N.Z. Govt have never answered my offer of my tattooed heads. I will withdraw it after a time as the collection is such a beauty, it is a compliment to offer it.”

Robley

Robley-Hocken: c. 1899 Hocken Library MSI 488

A year later, in 1901, he renewed the offer. It was received and referred to James Carroll on the 13th August of that year. Over the course of the following five years Robley's offer was referred to the Dominion Museum, to the Cabinet, back to the Museum and, on May 13th, 1906, back to Carroll.

National Archives, Wellington IA 3/3 30 No. 2130

Robley received a letter later in the same year notifying him that his offer had been declined. Upset at the Government's decision and at its lack of consideration in answering so tardily, he began a more determined campaign to have the mokamokai returned to New Zealand. Enlisting the help of his many New Zealand friends — notably Elsdon Best, Dr Hocken and Gilbert Mair — Robley persistently lobbied the Government and its British agents. In spite of constant, and increasingly lucrative, offers from foreign Museums he ‘held out’, hoping for some reversal in the New Zealand attitude.

Recurring worries about his health plagued Robley from the turn of the century until his death thirty years later. In offering the Collection to New Zealand — a proposal which he thought would have been immediately and gratefully taken up — it is possible that he was anticipating a return visit to this country. The threat of his failing health, together with his lack of financial resources, meant that the immediate sale of the Mokamokai was the only means by which he could make the journey. The presence in New Zealand of Robley's son and his family, and the growing number of New Zealandes with whom he corresponded lent a keenness to what might otherwise have been a simply nostalgic desire to return to the site of past exploits. As well, Robley was adamant that no country other than New Zealand could afford the Mokamokai (and his endeavours in collecting them) the place of honour they deserved.

Robley was also worried that, should his death precede their sale, the Mokamokai would be dispersed by executors of his Estate. As well as effectively destroying his achievement in compiling the Collection, such fragmentation would compromise its historical ‘value’. In spite of this, and in the face of the ever attractive foreign offers, he continued to work towards the Heads' repatriation.

“This writer, when ill, could easily have let the collection go abroad — lots of offers now on, but I wait a bit as I know where it ought to be for my own conscience.”

Robley

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

“I am not so well as I was & it may pass to executors and be scattered to dealers who [would] gladly pay. I know the present Maori outlook to getting on & no historical lore but I am sure if it was placed to them [that the options were] to guard the tapus in NZ or let scatter …”

Robley

ibid

Robley's final offer, made a number of times between 1904 and 1907, was again left unanswered. The terms he offered, £500 immediately and the remainder over a number of years (£ 1000 total) made any claims of ‘profiteering’ completely ill-based. The sum was, in fact, well below those offered by foreign Museums.

ibid

“The collection … was placed under offer to the NZ Govt for one thousand pounds. Sir James Carroll opposed purchase” [Donne:1907 ATL MS1387/19]

“I have offered so often — I could not be blamed if it goes abroad for it the very place where a little time will make history will not take its particular & solely peculiar relics — what is to be done? I would take installments rather than read afterwards its being made much of foreign capital. Surely I deserve a wire — Agent General knows my address — or some reply. I have arranged the Collection so that is value is priceless someday — it is a study to see it — and it can be seen that is displays the essence of olden times.”

Robley

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

The Government's determination to ignore the offer was, however firm — a fact many became resigned to before Robley.

“I can hear no more about purchasing your collection though I let no opportunity slip of referring to it … but I begin to fear that the [Government] is too wholly indifferent … I don't know whether [Augustus] Hamilton could not push them more. He has their ear as Director of the Museum ….

Dr Hocken

Hocken-Robley: 1906 Hocken Library MI 488

This ‘indifference’, while regrettable, cannot be seen as surprising. While Robley appeared to be sincerely incapable of understanding the Government's continued refusal of his offer, there can be little doubt that the New Zealanders never once seriously considered making the purchase. Despite the fact that the country was in affluent circumstances, the expenditure of £1000 to £1500 on such sensitive items was likely to cause debate among Maori and Pakeha New Zealanders. The indignation with which Robley's persistence was viewed is suggested in the 1907 edition of “Murihiku”, a book written by the South Island Government M.P., Mr Robert McNab:

“In the midst of all the condemnation of the infamy of such a traffic however, it must be kept in mind, that the finest collection of Maori heads in the world is the private property of a major-general in the British Army and that every acquisition thereto is photographed and published in the leading papers of this colony…. Great pressure, too, has been brought to bear upon the Ministry of the day to purchase this collection, which at present is understood to consist of some 32 heads and to be under offer at £1500.

This relates to the earlier, 1905, offer.

We should not blame the poor sealer, who in those far-away days traded with the Maori for the same article, but at a much lower figure. Some of the same heads which were then hawked about the streets of Sydney for two guineas apiece and the transaction considered a shocking crime, may now be in the collection mentioned and offered for sale to the museums of the world for £50 apiece, and their acquisition believed to be little short of obligatory on the part of the colony. O tempora o mores!”

McNab

McNab:1907 p. 161

Finally acknowledging the intransigence of the Government's position Robley desisted. “It isn't time,” he concluded.

Robley-Donne:n/d ATL MS1387/22

When the ever-keen Americans again made an offer, he accepted: thirty-five mokamokai were purchased by Mr Morris K. Jessup on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in 1907.

Philip C. Gifford; AMNH personal correspondence; 20/11/1984

The purchase price of £1500, which included a number of other items from Robley's Maori Collection, was a full £500 above Robley's final offer (of thirty-eight Heads) to the New Zealand Government.

“The [American Museum] wasn't haggling — all prices £ 60 or so for fine specimens was gladly given to secure & now it can show oldest Maori picturing where Wellington cannot. You [should] see letter of thanks from [American Museum] to me & place of honour promised [Collection].”

Robley

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

“I find American, German & other foreign Museum directors don't think only of keeping their places — when specimens are absent they agitate … & secure them as a kind of duty to next generation.”

Robley

Robley-Hocken: 1909 Hocken Library MS1488

Robley's insistence that the integrity of his collection be maintained — secondary only to his determination to see the mokamokai returned to New Zealand — was thus realised. He did not, however, sell all the mokamokai to the American Museum.

“[I] kept my best for myself when New York purchased, so many I had.”

Robley

ibid

In turning down, or refusing to acknowledge Robley's offer the New Zealand Government had ensured that the largest collection of mokamokai existing was to remain outside the country. They had not, however, heard the last of Robley or his Collection. Having perhaps concluded that the Government's lack of interest had been due to the intimidating size, and therefore cost, of the full Collection, Robley immediately placed the five remaining Heads on offer to the Dominion Museum. His earlier friendship with the Museum's Director, Augustus Hamilton, was apparently of no advantage in attempting to break through the resistance of the Cabinet. Indeed since the publication of “Maori Art” in 1896

In Maori Art Hamilton refers his readers to Moko; or Maori Tattooing for an indepth discussion of moko and Mokamokai

— to which Robley had contributed a number of illustrations and notes — Hamilton's interest in, and correspondence with, Robley had quickly declined.

“I have written to Mr. Hamilton offering 2 or 4 heads all with long time for any payments suitable — I can't do more as I have offers in several places. £ 50 for perfect heads is not other than an opportunity for NZ as none are in [private] hands now.”

Robley

Robley-Hocken: 1908 Hocken Library MSI 488

Hamilton, as seems to have been the norm, failed to reply to Robley's offer, as did Alexander Turnbull to whom the Heads were also made available.

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

Finally aware that the Government's lack of interest was unassailable, Robley resigned himself to the fact that his attempts to provide future students of moko with what he knew to be the ‘fullest’ manifestations of the practice were to be unsuccessful. There is little evidence to suggest any motive of self-gain in Robley's negotiations with New Zealand.

It was Robley's enthusiasm for the designs of moko, and his wish that they might be available to subsequent artists which was at the root of his desire to see the mokamokai returned to New Zealand.

“It is odd that no relics of the fierce art are in the Dominion [Museum] … surely such patterns as I have said mine would have [command the] study of … art among future engravers.”

Robley

ibid

While Robley continued to notify New Zealand Government Officials of upcoming sales in which mokamokai would be available he proffered such information out of habit and with little hope that it would be acted upon.

“I begin to know N. Zealand Govt. authorities … [Seddon and Ward] were & are only paragraph hunters & nominees of small majorities.”

Robley

Robley-Hocken: 19110 Hocken Library MI 488

“I don't see why such difficult historial [relics] should not be got for Wellington, but there [is] a bias against me — I could show where [a mokamokai] is to be got for £ 50 in London — show it, and then be purchaser — as it [would] be to me persona grata, I think only.”

Robley

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

“Maori curios are rare now [1923] but I know some Hospitals where I could for [£] fifties get some beautiful heads — but no-one cares to back me up for NZ [Museum].”

Robley

Robley-Fildes: 1923 VUW Fildes 10

Only one Mokamokai reached New Zealand via Robley; that he purchased on Dr Hocken's behalf in 1907.

This Mokamokai is now in the Otago Museum; D53. 413

It is likely, because of the extremely sensitive nature of Mokamokai, that their continued estrangement from their country of origin, from their cultural context, will be regarded in many different ways by members of current and subsequent generations. To an extent the ongoing perception of, and attitude towards, Robley will remain inseparable from that issue.

Two examples of Robley's anecdotal illustrated postcards. He executed a great number of these — making multiple copies of many — during the last fifteen years of his life, including a large collection of illustrated incidents of the First World War. (see Alexander Turnbull Library Art Collection E24A) Auckland Public Library NZ Prints 594(22) and 594(35)

3. Moko; or Maori Tattooing

* The standard patterns of moko, together with a brief account of their historical development, are discussed separately. (see page 100)

“Perhaps even [the] Maoris themselves will remember I tried to perpetuate their ancestral art.”

Robley

Robley-Adams:n/d ATL MS16/9

Moko is an extraordinarily potent art; potent because it is so inextricably associated with, and transcendent of, human life. Although its present out-of-practice state denies it of life in the most literal and profound sense, moko is a living art still.

Members of present — and recent — generations cannot fully comprehend moko, simply because it is not possible to see it as it was meant to be seen. Unlike most forms of tattooing, in which pigment is applied to human skin punctured by a tapping process, the lines described by the Maori tohunga ta moko were carved into the face. Deep grooves were left as an indelibly pigmented impression after the swelling and scars affected by the operation of tattooing had healed. Moko was thus contained within the face of the person; it modified, and became, the image of their likeness. That image — which had as an essential element the pain involved in its making — projected a human presence charged with an implicit sense of awe. In confronting the person, the observer apprehended not moko, but the person tattooed.

It is the image of moko which continues to powerfully invigorate the contemporary cultural imagination. While the image is — depending on the point-of-view of the observer — implicitly emanative of life, it is not the same life which once made the designs of moko physically quiver, breathe and give rise to changing expression. Among the Maori Robley encountered in the 1860's, moko was in an advanced state of decline. Although men and women of the older generations were often fully tattooed, the younger people generally bore only partial, unfinished designs or were papatea (untattooed). To the missionaries — and to the Pakeha in general — moko was regarded as if it were the ‘devil's thumbprint’; it was seen as imprisoning the Maori within their Past. The Christians' influence further diminished an already threatened practice; one for which the cultural, social and ritual support had been undermined by the imposition of European methods of warfare and cultural values. Apart from a brief revival during the 1860's wars — which Robley noticed in the full tattooing of younger warriors such as Te Kani (see page 290) — the practice of male moko became increasingly scarce. Female moko, on the contrary, emerged from the period somewhat strenthened, and continued to be practised well into the present century. [Simmons: 1980 p.94] Robley was well aware of the imminent decadence of male moko, a fate which he had no reason to imaging female moko might avoid. As much as his portraits of tattooed Maori may be seen as the result of an artistic fascination, there is in their remarkable number and range the sense of a desire to scientifically document the art.

It is evident that the encounter with, and portrayal of, Maori people bearing moko, was influential on Robley's work well beyond the fact of that meeting and those portraits. His later collection of Mokamokai may be seen, in part, as an attempt to renegotiate the object image of that encounter. He was, certainly, convinced that no representational image of moko could so correctly convey the exact nature and presence of the art to subsequent generations. Because of the circumstances already discussed, his Collection of Mokamokai has never been returned to this country. We are, instead, left with the extensive graphic representations he made of the Heads and their moko. Significantly, these images — more than any comparative works — describe moko from the point-of-view of someone who had known the art in life. In their gradual development, therefore, they define an image of moko which is relative to that experience.

Because the practice of moko was impossible to Robley — and is removed from present observers — it was in his graphic investigation of its designs that he developed a ‘practical’ knowledge of the art. It is precisely because of that evolution that his work is of singular value in informing the present image of moko.

In his foreword to “The White Men” [Blackman: 1979] — a book examining “the first response of aboriginal peples to the White Man” — Dr Edmund Carpenter seizes upon moko to discuss the different conceptual powers of European and “aboriginal” artists.

“Most tribal people lack the king of conceptual tools for experiencing the unknown. In contrast to them Western man (sic.) … had money and numbers which helped immeasurably in trade and translation, and they had three-dimensional perspective in Art by which even the strangest bird or flower could be optically rendered. Tribal artists had no such means. Compare these two portraits of a Maori Chief, [Te Pehi Kupe]

Te Pehi Kupe visited England in 1826; “Whilst [there] his head was sketched by Mr. John Sylvester of Liverpool in such a way as to show distinctly every mark and line of the artistic design tattooed on his face. Te Pehi Kupe also made a delineation, without the aid of a mirror, of the stains on his own face, besides manufacturing other pictures of the tattooing with which his face and body were impressed … Major General Robley … will be glad to hear from any one who has any of the original sketches referred to done by Te Pehi Kupe.” Newsclipping (no source): c. 1898 Hocken Library MI488

: the first … by an Englishman, the second … by himself. Each employs a learned art form, but the Maori's drawing is more symbol than likeness, whereas the Englishman's drawing matches nature: the viewer see what the (sic.) would have seen had he (sic.) been there, and thus, the not-knower becomes the knower.” (my emphasis)

Carpenter

Blackman:1979 p.7

The point Carpenter is making is perhaps relevant in other situations, with other examples of ‘tribal’ art. In choosing moko, however, he effectively invalidates his own argument.

It is an assumption commonly made that because non-European artists did not use a three dimensional perspective that they were incapable of so ‘advanced’ a method of representation. This leads to the conclusion that European Art, long conversant with this ‘naturalistic’ manner of making images was endowed with conceptual powers superior to those evident in Non-European Art. If it was the intention of the non-European artist to represent nature, this assumption would have some relevance.

If the two illustrations cited by Carpenter (here reproduced from “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” [Robley: 1896]) are carefully observed it will be seen that the moko of Te Pehi Kupe is differently detailed near the right and left ears. This asymmetricality is fundamental to moko: there is, in life, no viewpoint from which the patterns of facial tattooing can be perceived as one image.

Te Pehi Kupe: self portrait (left) and portrait by Mr J. Sylvester of Liverpool (right). Te Pehi Kupe visited England in 1826. Reproduced from “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figs 10 and 114.

“No writer ever noticed my discovery … viz … variety in the designs tattooed near R & L ears. This can be seen in old signatures on land grants (of moko) — Te Pehi Kupe shows in portrait of his incisions he drew, Liverpool, 1826.” [Robley NK58/15 (verso) National Library of Australia]

Carpenter is wrong to suggest that the drawing of his own moko was, for Te Pehi Kupe, “a learned art form”: the ‘self-portrait’ was a response to the European desire for representational images. An utterly flat piece of paper, and the use of a pen, required an interpretation of the image of his likeness to be conceived and reconstituted in graphic terms.

Carpenter suggests that there is an absolute revelation implicit in the Briton's portrait, that it apprises the viewer of what they would have seen had they been there. In fact — and even this is, of course, debatable — it informs the European viewer of what they missed. It certainly does not show what there was to be seen. It is the ‘self-portrait’ by Te Pehi Kupe that would have made the Maori ‘not-knower’ the knower, which would have announced to that viewer who there was to be seen.

These two illustrations — and Carpenter's comparative analysis — are interesting in that they describe the full range of Robley's graphic investigation of moko. Sylvester's portrait is — especially in its notable fidelity to the lines of tattooing — similar in conception to the many sketches Robley made of the Maori he met in the 1860's.

see Note 2

The ‘moko map’ drawn by Te Pehi Kupe — together with others like it — served as the model for a number of Robley's late studies of the tattooing of Mokamokai (see page 170). It is in his development from one (graphic) point-of-view to the other that the true nature of Robley's investigation of Maori tattooing is apparent. This development is that suggested, required by the specific properties of moko.

Although commentators of both Robley and moko have commonly referred to his extensive study of the artform, the full extent of that enquiry has seldom been addressed. The general perception that his 1896 publication, “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” describes his mature understanding of the subject is far from the truth. It is more correct to regard the book as marking the beginning of his determined attempts to penetrate the image and sense of moko.

In 1894, less than a year after he had purchased what was, from most accounts, the first Mokamokai to enter his Collection, Robley initiated plans to write a book on Maori tattooing. His desire to publish the drawings of the Maori — that is to say of tattooed Maori — which he had collected during the 1860's was

Carved figure (no details) ink sketch Alexander Turnbull Library Robley-Mairi; qMS/1898–1922 provoked by a German text on tattooing which he came across in the Library of the British Museum in that year. In dealing with the global occurrence of tattooing, “Tatowiren” [Joest:1887] mentioned moko and the Maori only briefly. Although the tone of Josest's account and the nature of his images were, as far as they went, accurate, Robley decided that the subject required more specialized discussion.

Robley-Best:1926 ATL MS16/2

With his characteristic enthusiasm and thoroughness Robley undertook an extensive study tour of Britain and Europe, observing and drawing the many records of moko contained within Public and private Museums. While this research focussed around the tattooing designs of carved figures and Mokamokai, published and manuscript documents relating to early European experience of the Maori were also studied. Wherever possible Robley purchased artefacts, his activity as an author being promoted by, and inseparable from, his determination to compile a comprehensive collection of Maori items. His Collection — especially of Mokamokai — expanded very quickly between 1894 and 1896, when “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” was published by Chapman & Hall Ltd.

Robley's book has remained the standard text on moko until the present time. Apart from its somewhat sensational account of the preservation of, and trade in, Mokamokai, “Moko” provides the student with a rare insight into the working of a now abeyant art. During the course of his research Robley had become familiar with Mokamokai and had compiled a large collection of drawings detailing their engraved designs of moko. Although the object nature of the Heads had allowed him to observe the work of the tohunga ta moko in greater detail than had been possible in his face-to-face contract with Maori people, his artistic approach to their study remained essentially based in the tradition of portraiture. Retaining a single point-of-view Robley developed a greater appreciation of, and ability to represent, the schematic nature of moko patterns. Although a number of drawings of Mokamokai which he included in “Moko” concentrated on a description of these patterns — as opposed to a description of the object form of the Head — the fundamentally ‘naturalistic’ manner of their observation precluded a full description of their tattooing. Obviously aware of the remarkable range of patterns between different examples of moko, Robley included a large number of illustrations of small sections of the designs — the patterns on the chin, the nose etc — to highlight this expansive quality. In removing these patterns from the overall context of an entire, individual Moko design, however, Robley failed to comprehend the essential structural relationship within moko. “Moko” thus identifies the fact that the tohunga ta moko produced designs of endless variety and boundless beauty. It does not, however, discover the means, nor the exact nature, of that infinitely changing replication. Robley's ensuant study of the art was focussed around attempts towards this latter revelation.

Free from the scientific and historical researches which had gone into the writing of “Moko”, Robley turned his attentions to a more wholly artistic consideration of Maori tattooing. Continuing to acquire Mokamokai at every opportunity, his habit of carefully studying and drawing the engraved designs of moko became more intensive. He was always sketching, he noted later, “to get perfect”.

Robley-Mrs McLean:n/d ATL MS16/6

By 1898, two years after the book's publication, Robley began to plan for a second, improved edition. He regarded “Moko” as being inadequate in describing the topic, and although he did not detail the reasons for his disillusionment, it is probable that they related to his growing understanding of the art of moko.

“… as regards tattooing … a portrait is towards front (where ear patterns not seen) or of side face — the other is not of course recorded — after all my portrait taking it was only when I got my 35 heads & saw 50 others in Museums that I saw [right & left] patterns near ears, always different.”

Robley

Robley-Best:n/d ATL MS72/5a

Robley continued to collect material for the projected second edition of “Moko”. His drawings of moko designs after 1900 typically included a small inset of the paepae design (near ear) not recorded in the main sketch. The discovery of the invariable asymmetricality of these designs came to dominate his further study of the design basis of moko, as it was within them that the most expansive range of patterns was evident. For the first time Robley began to concentrate on the relationship of single patterns to others in the same, rather than separate, moko. His interest in studying Mokamokai renewed, he returned to the Museums and private Collections he had included in his earlier study tour: in all cases he found the paepae designs — where tattooed — to differ between right and left sides.

In 1905 Elsdon Best, replying to one of Robley's many requests for information on moko nomenclature and methods, suggested that the Major-General consider preparing a second edition of “Moko”.

Best-Robley:1905 Hocken Library MSI 488

The remarkable expansive nature — and invariable asymmtricality — of the right and left paepae designs (immediately before the ears) was the key to Robley's mature artistic understanding of moko. The twelve sets of paepae above indicate the apparently endless range of their motifs. Auckland Institute and Museum PD48 (36 & 39) A year earlier, however, Robley had despatched to Dr. T. M. Hocken in Dunedin all the material he had compiled on the subject of Maori tattooing and Mokamokai. Partly in deference to Robley's repeated suggestions, and partly from choice, Hocken had undertaken the publication of the new book; adding some new information but chiefly re-editing the original. The project remained unfinished on Hocken's death in 1910. [The material sent by Robley, annotated by Hocken, is in the Manuscript Collection of the Hocken Library, University fo Otago, Dundein. (MI 488)]

Robley had, in the meantime, continued with his researches and drawings. His regular letters to New Zealanders — especially Best whom he referred to as “the Tohunga”

Robley shared this term of address for Best with many others; Fildes, Mair, Cowan.

— frequently requested information from Maori kaumatua and tohunga. In his attempts to extend his understanding of moko beyond a visual appreciation of the patterns, he sought the more elusive ‘sense’ of their design motifs. Well aware that moko designs had served to identify their bearer, Robley asked his correspondents if local elders could define the tribal and individual marks on given examples of moko.

“The [2] heads, when [received] in the Auckland [Museum] were recognised by Maoris and the fight they fell in, My five [Mokamokai, witheld from the American Museum of Natural History sale] are better than those ….”

Robley

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

“I wonder if any of the heads [about] 1831–5 could be recognised by old men. I well send you other portraits.”

Robley

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

“All [Moko] have some distinguishing crest — Dr Hocken & I came to the conclusion on this distinction mark [paepae] — I did not have it in 1st [edition of] “Moko”.”

Robley

ibid

The task of divining the symbol basis of moko was, however, beyond the estranged researcher. Certainly Elsdon Best — among the Tuhoe —, and Gilbert Mair — among Te Arawa — provided Robley with no significant information on the subject. Whether this was from their failure to approach tohunga on the matter, or from a general decline in the contemporary knowledge of the art of the tohunga ta moko, Robley was forced to concede that the identification of Mokamokai was beyond him.

Robley-Fildes:1922 VUW Fildes/10

“… it remained for me to copy still life & measurements, and so learn.”

Robley

ibid

Robley's precisely rendered drawings give the impression that the designs of moko are clearly — and unmistakeably — defined on Mokamokai. This is not always the case. The processes of preservation (pakipaki) tightened the skin; the pigmented channels apparent during life became lines of subcutaneous dye within the skin's surface. The clarity with which these lines can be deciphered is greatly diminished by this transformation. Many of the Mokamokai studied by Robley, however, bore post-motem tattoo. The marks rendered by the tattooing of the skin after the drying process are reminiscent of lines carved in leather; they retain their depth but do not ‘hold’ the usual pigment. Although such tattooing was generally regarded as being inaccurate — applied only to enhance the market value of Mokamokai — Robley saw a number of ways of addressing the ‘accuracy’ of these lines.

“I was very struck on seeing 2 heads before 1800 — brought here history real, and some is [tattooed] design cut on dry skin — so it is evident it was not always for trading this took place — Moko artists had to practise their designs (no drawing paper) & did so in this way … [One] is a fully covered head & what is not subcutaneous colour is added to very well by some practised hand in elegant designs …”

Robley

ibid

“Maori barters of old did often add by cuts on the dry skin to the patterns they knew, yet grooves & cuts looked different.”

Robley

Robley:n/d AIM MS2256 R66

“When I said post-mortem [I] did not mean man dead & then tattooed but when he had no patterns in some places the dried head had then added to it, as it were, by cutting on the dried head. I have had heads part moko — part scored with an implement like wood carving — this is generally deeper than the healed up cicatrices & was sign of the days when sale was wanted, and it would take in even a Museum …”

Robley

Robley-Fildes:1920 VUW Fildes/10

It is quite clear from Robley's many references to moko and post-mortem tattooing that he regarded both practices as yielding relatively ‘authentic’ designs. The art he was recording had, after all, been created during a time of cultural upheaval and change. Unable to objectively identify the symbolic sense of individual motifs and designs, he based the criteria of his interests in more specifically aesthetic concerns. His immense familiarity with many examples of moko apprised him of a ‘standard’ by which he measured the relative merit

Moko drawing ink sketch Hocken Library MI 488 p.66A of each new design he encountered.

Robley recorded moko patterns openly, with little inclination towards constructing an absolute model by which he might adjudge the ‘correctness’ of given examples. On the contrary, he was more interested in the expansive nature of moko, the manner in which the act of its application triggered an apparently infinite range of patterns. Robley's identification of the basic structural manner in which the designs of Mataora Moko were articulated was of greater importance in suggesting ‘authenticity’ than a consideration of whether the patterns had been carved in life or after death.

“… none but Maoris even could or ever did score a head properly to ancient designs …”

Robley

Robley:n/d AIM MS256 R66

“[my drawings record] the full custom, and the decadence of the art.”

Robley

Robley-Thomson:1914 NMNZ Ethn.MS

“I beg to present you with photos … of a Maori Chief's head [NB: the photograph is missing]… the tatus show very well as they are done with the old bone implements — which has indented the skin into various patterns — The artist has exhausted [the] elegance of “moko” on the spaces near ears… (my emphasis)”

Robley

Robley-Shepheard:n/d AIM MS256 R66

Robley's understanding of moko — better explained by his drawings than his verbal accounts — is based in an appreciation of the correlation between the physical properties of the practice of moko and the quality of its designs. In other words he approached a consideration of the art of the tohunga ta moko. If that art had altered during the period of European cultural ‘influence’, Robley was in no position to identify the nature or extent of that change. The design principles — if not the symbol principles — he considered to have remained steady throughout that change. It should not be assumed, however, that Robley accepted any or all Mokamokai as being authentic within this expansive model; those on which the lines of tattooing were poorly realised or were articulated by other than Maori artists were quickly identified and dismissed as worthless.

The importance of the act of tattooing in defining the exact nature of moko designs was specifically addressed by Robley in his drawings. He rarely accorded visual weight to either the carved, pigmented lines of tattooing or to the uncarved unpigmented spaces

Moko pattern (detail) ink sketch Hocken Library MSI 488 Robley was keenly aware of the wide diversity of patterns within the carved, pigmented areas of moko. Many artists before him had failed to understand the importance of the lines left by the uhi of the tohunga ta moko. left between them. Although he generally saw the latter as the positive designs he carefully delineated the ridged marks left by the uhi (chisels) of the tohunga ta moko, effectively incorporating signs of the act of carving in the image of moko. It is precisely because moko is articulated within an ambiguity of positive and negative element that Robley's consideration of both was so essential to his evolving understanding of the art. Using a number of serrated points — the tohunga ta moko carved the human face in a fashion intended to leave unmarked designs.

“The smooth edged blade is the Uhi tapahi, cutting chisel, used for cutting the skin only. The one with serrated edges is the uhi puru, used to insert the pigment, the serrated edge holds the liquid. The patu used is simply a piece of stalk of fern. The patu, or Ta, is held in the right hand between the first (index) and second fingers so as to leave the thumb and forefinger free for handling pigment. The uhi is held in the left hand, fingers closed on it except the little finger which is extended and rests lightly so as to steady the hand. After a stroke on the uhi puru the operator, with ends of thumbs & forefinger takes the piece of muka (flax fibre lying in wai ngarehu [pigment] and daubs pigment on blade edge of the uhi puru, still retaining grasp of patu which is gripped between base of 2 first fingers — the uhi is placed on cut line & a light tap forces it in, taking pigment with it — This takes but a light tap, for the skin has already been cut with the tapahi — The handles of uhi are made from wood of the branches of matai (podocarpus spicata). The point of uhi was placed flat on the skin, not fashion — though with a slight inclination of the blade, ie. the point inclined inwards towards hand that holds it the blade not being set at right angle with handle — the cutting operation was just that of an adze, the cut inclining inwards slightly towards operator.”

Elsdon

Best-Robley:1906 Hocken Library MI 488 p. 50B

“[One Mokamokai in my Collection] is curious as it shows the operations & difference of touch with the chisel of three artists, it seems … So intense is the pain, & so great the inflammation that quickly succeeds the operation, that only very small portions can be done at a time: and it is seldom that any New Zealander is fully tattooed on all those parts of the body, where tattooing is customary before he has passed the meridian of life.”

Robley

Robley:n/d ATL MS1387/26

In his own artistic emulation of the art he discovered within moko designs, Robley was unrestrained by the peculiar properties of carving living human flesh. As a result his graphic rendition of moko — on rare occasions — exhibited a tendency to embellish given

This sketch — appended to the foot of a letter — details Robley's understanding of the order in which the designs of moko were usually applied. He arranged his Mokamokai in accordance with this progression, the least tattooed being labelled No 1 and so on. This meant that at each new addition to the Collection the numbering system had to be altered. Because of this, drawings of the same Mokamokai — sketched over a number of years — may bear a wide range of numerical classifications. Alexander Turnbull Library Robley-Mair: qMS/1898–1922 patterns with secondary koru motifs and ‘developed’ interpretative details. In this he appears to have been carrying the implications of his understanding of moko beyond the actual designs he observed. The question of such elaborated patterns' authenticity is subjective: given the means of his ‘making’ of moko designs, the rules which gave rise to the original carved lines were provocative of further extension.

In drawing the patterns of moko the artist is open to a constantly expanding, infinite range of possible motifs. At each turn of a koru element, the artist may choose between a number of secondary ‘offshoots’. The decision made will give rise to a subsequent choice, and so the process continues. It is this radical generation of pattern that Robley's drawings — that is to say, his investigation — uncovered. Not only does the infrastructure of this design rationale suggest a continual creation of new patterns, it requires such an ongoing, changing replication. The creative element — and it is that quality which most profoundly informs Robley's understanding of moko — is essentially within the art. In the act of tattooing the tohunga ta moko was faced with the particular presence of the person to be tattooed: that person's peculiar physiognomy, who that person was, who that person was of, what that person was (occupation, social role). Working from the structural design base of moko the tohunga ta moko had to develop, to interpret, a design which would befit that person. In that moko implicitly referred to — and conferred — likeness, the artists changed with the ability to formulate and apply moko designs were regarded as persons of extraordinary mana. Thus empowered, the tohunga ta moko — who designed and carved moko — required considerable remuneration for their infinitely skilled work.

An exact account of the payments for male and female tattooing is included in the William Marsh (Te Rangikaheke) Manuscripts in the Auckland Public Library; GNZ MMSS 89

Because so many Mokamokai had been tattooed during the period in which the ‘Trade in Heads’ had flourished, the designs they bore — and bear — may have been formulated without the specific criteria of traditional moko. The ‘symbol’ quality of many of the motifs found engraved upon these Mokamokai must — in lieu of any firm, comparative information — be regarded with a degree of caution. Robley's (generally) objective drawings of the designs he observed are not strictly validated or invalidated by the uncertainty of this question. Whatever the state of the art they record — be it one of decadence or otherwise — they do record a singular ‘system’ of schematic design; a ‘system’ which is essentially referential to — and may cast light upon — that contained by other arts of the Maori.

Robley's study of the patterns produced within this extraordinary artistic structure appears to have engendered in him an enthusiasm to employ its implied expansion. It was that desire to actively engage the creative principles of moko — and therefore of Maori art — which informed the work he undertook from the turn of the century until his death in 1930.

Within his drawings — through which his involved investigation of moko was effected — Robley describes something of the energy which attracted him to the art. It is a life generated by his continual making of these images. The student of moko — and especially the practically emulative student — will recognise in his work an understanding of the artistically generative nature of that energy.

On the 15th October, 1923, Gilbert Mair wrote his last letter to Robley.

“My very Dearest of Old Comrades,

Not withstanding your loving wishes, united to those of hundreds of durable friends & relatives & [an] almost unimaginably strong constitution, the call which must sound for us all, sooner or later, has sounded & I thank God that time has been afforded me to say my last farewell. My dear old General, our friendship has stood the test of many years and it gives me a wonderful consolation to know that I have held yours for so long. I hold treasured up as little mementoes almost every scrap of writing that you sent me since being parted from you, [The] little embellishment of your inimitable skill. All, all, I have kept sacred, Not withstanding a very strenous & active life. And now the time has come to say a last farewell. You have led a much more useful life in one particular direction which puts one entirely to shame — I mean by preserving one particular & most interesting phase of savage life. The Art of Tattooing Amongst the Most Interesting Savage People of the World. Despite your removal of 16,000 [miles] to distant lands & immersed as you are with high military duties. Yet you found time to render this great scientific service thereby making Society your debtor for all time. In your notable works on tattooing, being your masterpiece, you are the greatest acknowledged authority. I consider this the very highest accomplishment possessing as you had the limited opportunities at [your] command. It is extraordinary what a deep regard the Maori people hold towards you. They look upon you as the preserver of the most interesting custom existing & consider your knowledge priestlike and divine. Time will never lessen the importance of your work. Will you convey to those 2 or 3 of our comrades who are still with us my affectionate regards and good wishes. It would have been glorious to have seen you face to face once more but it was not to be & I can only pray to God to fill your remaining days with every blessing & mark of his favours. From your affectionate old comade Gilbert Mair.”

Mair-Robley:1923 ATL MS1503/1

Robley was immensely proud of this letter, transcribing it on a number of occasions and sending the copies to his friends in New Zealand. “The Most Interesting Savage People of the World” — a phrase which Robley himself often used in reference to the Maori — provides the key to an appreciation of the perceived relationship between the pakeha ‘friends of the Maori’ and the Maori people. It is a relationship which linked Mair, Robley and Te Arawa (the Maori to whom Mair is referring) during the campaigns of the 1860s. It is, as well, coined in language which has a sense removed from the modern standpoint.

Robley's pleasure at receiving this ‘Maori’ praise for his work highlights the isolated nature of his dialogue with the race. Had he actually made a return visit to New Zealand, had he met his son and grandchildren, had he talked with kaumatua and tohunga, his understanding of moko — and of the Maori — may have developed somewhat differently. Certainly he would have become aware that the ‘decadence’ into which a knowledge of moko had passed was not as he — and other observers — had imagined. As it was, his dedication to the study of Maori art was the principal medium of any dialogue he maintained with the race. The response of Maori people to his endeavours — of which Mair's letter represents one of the only examples (and certainly the most praising) — could hardly have failed to please and move him.

Taiaha (no details) ink sketch Hocken Library MI 488 p. 86B

Whakairo design (no details) ink sketch (part of letter) Alexander Turnbull Library Robley-Mair; qMS/1898–1922 Robley's drawings of such patterns typically record the lines of the uhi (chisel) as part of the design. The design reproduced above is likely to be an ‘invention’ of Robley's.

4. In London; Making Maori Art

Although Robley's association with moko — and thus with Mokamokai — represented the primary focus of his study of Maori art, he was constantly involved in the parallel, if less extensive, consideration of a number of other Maori artforms. As much as moko had immediately interested him in 1864, his long term investigation of its structure and designs was increasingly informed by, and informative of, the exact relationship of moko to those other arts. In its design base, its articulation of pattern and its symbolic relationship to human life Robley saw moko as a ‘key’ art; as one through which the singular art of the Maori might be most fruitfully studied by the alien artist/observer.

On retiring from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in 1887, Robley was awarded the honorary rank of Major-General.

Robley, then a Colonel, retired from the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Regiment on 20th June, 1887; eight days before his forty-seventh birthday.

His military career had been notable, both for his rapid promotion and for his wide-ranging foreign service. Relinquishing command of his Regiment he was, for the first time since 1858, without the British Army. He was forty-seven and unmarried; his only living relatives were his two sisters, one of whom lived in Italy.

One of Robley's sisters was married to a Mr Miller of Leghorn, Italy. Robley spent many holidays at their villa.

“One must have a hobby or else [one is] done for”

Robley

Robley-Craig-Brown: 1914 ATL MS16/5

Casting around for a ‘hobby’, Robley chose to extend his collecting, a favourite pursuit throughout his military career. Although it was over twenty years since he had left New Zealand and he had, in the meantime, seen service in a number of other countries, Robley immediately focussed his considerable energies

Hei tiki in the British Museum Collection ink sketch Auckland Institute and Museum MS 256 Robley sent hundreds of sketches of Maori items to his friends and correspondents in New Zealand, frequently illustrating artefacts available at up-coming sales. on the acquisition of Maori items. The common perception that he was a ‘Headhunter’, while correctly identifying the importance of Mokamokai in his Collection, fails to recognise the whole range of artefacts he assembled during the decades surrounding the turn of the century. (The acquisition of new items was supplemented by a continual ‘collection’ of photographs and drawings of — and documents relating to — Maori artefacts in Public and private collections).

When, in 1894, Robley initiated the research which led to the publication of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” two years later, he had also begun to compile material for a companion volume intended to discuss the greenstone arts of the Maori.

ibid

This latter project was, however, soon overshadowed by his developing interest in moko; promoted by his burgeoning collection of Mokamokai. He continued to research the topic but the plain to publish a book was shelved. The extensive range of Maori items he had studied during his tour of home and foreign Museums — as part of his preparation for writing “Moko” — had strengthened the primacy of his interest in moko and Mokamokai. In so doing, however, this intensive observation of a wide range of Maori artefacts apprised Robley of the conceptual similarities apparent in the manufacture of different artforms.

had been removed to Europe during the previous century meant that the collector was able to see, and purchase, items never encountered during his time in New Zealand. As well, his limited familiarity with the work of Bay of Plenty artists was replaced with an awareness of the chronological and tribal diversity within Maori Art. The utter wealth of these exhibits, their essence already embedded within his artistic sensibility effectively described the domain of his endeavour for the following four decades.

“[18]64=66 one could look and long for Maori work — but it could be found in England easier”

Robley

Fildes: 1921 VUW Fildes/1507

When “Moko” was completed and published in 1896 Robley did not immediately renew his plans to publish his book on greenstone. Instead, preoccuple with the shortcomings of the tattooing book —

Robley-Hocken:c. 1906 Hocken Library MI 488

which were thrown into sharp relief by his continuing investigation of moko — he continued to focus his interest on that subject. It was not until 1915, after a great deal of help from Elsdon

Robley's comparison of the Buddha and hei tiki forms; from a manuscript copy of “A History of the Maori Tiki”. Alexander Turnbull Library MS 1387/15 Best and the retired Missionary, Canon J.W. Stack (a close friend of Robley's in England) that “Pounamu; Notes on New Zealand Greenstone” appeared. Douglas McLean, son of Sir Donald McLean supervised the publication of the book, on Robley's behalf.

Robley-Best:c.1929 ATL MS16/2

“The book I began at the same time [as “Moko”] with illustrations of the weapons and ornaments in greenstone is just out a few days & has been wanted by collectors, Museums and libraries. This, my book gives the voyages of the history, traditions where found, the manner of working stone, the mythology and the forms of weapons and curious ornaments ground out of pounamu — I am issuing private, a few books … I know you will praise all have done so to date, “Pounamu” by Robley”.”

Robley, 6 Dec 1915

Robley — Craig-Brown: 1915 ATL MS16/5

Although Robley had referred to “Moko” in increasingly deprecatory terms since its publication — “so incomplete and cribbed from all sources”

Robley-Best:1926 ATL MS16/2

— his enthusiasm for “Pounamu” was apparently boundless. It is, however, less interesting than the book on tattooing — because its subject is better addressed by a number of other commentators — and considerably less extensive, being no more than a bound pamplet.

Robley's interest in pounamu, evident in his New Zealand portraits, was principally centered around the hei tiki. As well as amplifying the essential variation he so admired in Maori art — implicit of a continual evolution, which is to say creation — Robley saw in the immaculately formed figures a clue to the origin of the Maori. Attempts to retrace the Race's migration to New Zealand by comparing their linguistic and artistic terms and forms to those of other cultures were popular within contemporary scientific thought. Among Robley's New Zealand correspondents, S. Percy Smith was a well-known proponent of such analysis.

Smith discusses this subject in Hawaiki [Smith:1921]

In a way Robley later acknowledged to be remarkably similar to his own ‘migration’ to New Zealand, he suggested that the hei tiki was a developed form of the Buddha figures he had encountered in India and Burma; drawing partiuclar attention to the alike manner in which the figures were seated, in which their hands were placed.

Robley-Adams:1927 MS 16/9

ATL MS 16/9

This idea was the subject of an article — “A History of the Maori Tiki” — which Robley sent to a number of New Zealand Newspapers in 1926: the Kaitaia “Northlander” published it, in two parts, on the 25th November and the 2nd December of that year.

“Was the tiki at first a symbol of ancient creed; or a representation of a being worshipped in some

Hei tiki ink/wash sketch Hocken Library Ms 488 This hei tiki design, sent to Dr Hocken for use as a letter-head motif, is similar to that supplied by Robley to a London jeweller. long forgotten religion of [the Maori]? — ie was Buddha the origin? — Te Ropere.”

A History of the Maori Tiki by Te Ropere

ATL MS 1387/15

“one may imagine as I did a resemblance, coming as I did from Burmah & Buddhas to NZd & Tikis.”

Robley

Robley-Adams:19227 ATL MS 16/9

“I often wondered if you attibuted Tiki form (in greenstone) to some Indian deity — it is a mixture to me, Buddha & Vishnu birds; from their hands in positions …”

Robley-Best

Robley-Best:n/d ATL MS 16/2

Unlike many of his contemporary commentators Robley seldom accorded such questions any great importance; his researches were never dictated by a desire to prove or embellish such conjecture. In pursuing his graphically emulative study of the design of hei tiki — as was characteristic of his general artistic enquiry — Robley was led to a desire to recreate, rather than represent, their form. Hei tiki had become a fashionable ‘good luck’ charm in London following a number of well publicised incidents such as St Amant's win in the 1904 Derby.

“Just before St Amant's Derby there came to Mr. de Rothschild a letter from an anonymous correspondent imploring him to wear during the race a gift which was enclosed … a New Zealand Greenstone charm representing the Maori God “Hei Tiki” … St Amant won ….”

Aitchison Bros. (Jwellers) pamphlet

Aitchison Bros. (Jewellers) brochure ATL MS 1387/4

Subsequent to the horse's victory Robley noticed a considerable interest in hei tiki among Londoners.

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

Local jewellers, also recognizing this popularity began to produce large numbers of poor realised fakes, claiming for them magical properties. Upset at the incorrect designs being used, Robley designed a reproduction hei tiki which was produced by a jeweller friend.

“I went to … [a] dealer who had patience and now sweet little tikis can be got for 5 [shillings] there, perfect shape.”

Robley

AIM MS 256 R66

“I saw a Maori lady some time ago in Town, walking with 2 cavaliers, and as she had tiki, mako, manaia, in a bunch, long ear drop I asked to see; I found all [were] jeweller made — Yet it was Maggie Papakura.”

Robley

Robley-Best:1924 ATL MS16/2

A less well recorded example of Robley's imitation of Maori art is the series of reproduction Pataka facades he designed and painted during the First World War. In 1916 he erected a ‘whare’ to stand in the foyer of the Hotel Cecil, London, during the visit of the New Zealand Premier, the Rt Hon. William Massey.

Robley-Turnbull:1916 ATL MS 57/77

Later in the same year he designed a pair of maihi to adorn a converted YMCA hut in France, being used as a military hospital for New Zealand troops.

Robley-Thomson:1918 NMNZ Ethn.MS

On these panels, the ‘carvings’ were rendered in a tromp d'oeil manner, the figures being painted so as to suggest three-dimensional relief. A year later, in 1917, Robley was again commissioned to design a ‘whare’, this time for the Royal Albert Hall Exhibition.

Robley-Mrs McLean:n/d ATL MS 16/6

For this project he altered his conception of the earlier whare, the figures being painted in “red and black on a white ground”.

ATL Art Collection A33/24

These more schematic designs were applied to canvases shaped to make up the constitutent element of the whare facade. A number of designs were submitted before the Exhibition Committee agreed to proceed with the project.

“… The Painting will take busy time, 12 days or so … It is possible committee won't pay price but may accept? the stall putting up — or allow part … But the Maori designs on canvas will surely be sold at the final jumble sale, & possibly it will be bought for its Maori designs by someone who knows & secures. The small plans enclosed only give idea of the stall front in rough.”

Robley

Robley-Mrs McLean:n/d ATL MS 16/6

Although no examples of such painting exist today it can be fairly assumed from these sketches and descriptions that the Royal Albert Hall ‘Whare’ presented a schematic interpretation — rather than a naturalistic representation — of traditional carved motifs. The use of red and black paint on a white ground suggests that Robley adapted the image of those carved forms to the properties of two-dimensional image-making.

It was in his study of moko — already discussed — that Robley was made most fundamentally aware of the remove at which his graphic representation of Maori art placed him from the practice of that art. Moko is an extraordinary, alchemical conjunction of the art of whakairo — that is to say carving —, the art of schematic pattern-making and the sensual core of a human being. The results of its practice are the sum of those

Robley's sketch for a ‘whare’ to be constructed at the Royal Albert Hall, 1907. This design was rejected by the planning committee, in favour of a simpler ‘whare’ facade, also designed by Robley. Alexander Turnbull Library Art Room; A33/24 concerns but, in so being, are — in effect — transcendent of that equation. In that any art is essentially restrained and defined by the means and manner of its manufacture, a fully involved understanding of its object image can only be achieved through imitative manufacture. What the eye sees, what the hand draws are essentially separate from what the chisel may carve, from what wood — or human flesh — may allow.

In observing — and drawing — items of Maori manufacture Robley was well aware that their making was an essential proponent of their made image. The shape of a piece of wood defined, together with the artist's thus triggered skills, the form of the figure or device carved from it. The need to actually make hei tiki developed from Robley's habit of observing the work of Maori artists from a practically empathetic point-of-view.

“I unearthed a very greenest tiki … today — no toes marked only heels, the artist had gained all he could of the stone prettily for the front and outline — but, waterworn at back.”

Robley

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS 256 R66

Following an awareness that essential qualites of Maori art — particularly moko — were precluded by his graphic imitation, Robley undertook a number of projects which more closely approximated carving, and thus tattooing. He had, during his time on the East Coast of New Zealand acquired an ‘understanding’ of the haka, an action/dance which greatly impressed him.

Robley-Adams:n/d ATL MS 16/9

Upon his return to England in 1866 Robley attended a Ball at the Ryde Officers' Club. Dressed in Maori vestments he favoured his audience with a performance of the haka.

newsclipping (no source):c. 1867 VUW Fildes 10/1

Moko had been an essential element of the haka Robley experienced in New Zealand; its darkening, dramatizing lines throwing the warrior's facial expressions — especially those evoked by the movement of the eyes and the mouth — into a sharp, awe-inspiring relief. To properly evoke this, Robley applied the desgins of moko to his face — with paint — before beginning his performance. The decoration of his own visage — and subsequently those of others — developed from, or into, a desire to understand the exact relationship between moko and the human physiognomy.

In 1871, again dressed and decorated as a Maori warrior, Robley attended a Ball at Aldershot with his sister, Augusta.

“I was good at even decorating my face correctly with Mataora patterns.”

Robley

VUW Fildes 10/1

“Perhaps the best dress in the room, on account of its accuracy and fidelity of detail, was that of a New Zealand chief — it was perfect, down to the most minute tattooing. The arrivals of this grim and formidable warrior caused quite a sensation; but his mission was peaceful … and he joined in the dance with a lady [Augusta Robley] in a very charming Polish costume.”

Newsclipping c. 1871

see note 27

In 1914 Robley was called upon to similarly decorate the fifty men who escorted Miss MacKenzie — daughter of NZ High Commissioner Thomas MacKenzie — to her debutante Ball. (Ironically the 1914 event was a ‘Peace Ball’ to celebrate 100 years of peace between Britain and America.)

Robley-Fildes:n/d VUW Fildes 10/1

“I did paint Miss H. MacKenzie['s] cavaliers as Maoris (as Dominion of NZ) for the Peace Ball 1914 — Donne lent equipment; dressers did tights and gloves & browned faces — Then I came in [to] style”

Robley

ibid

While such processes enabled Robley to gain some idea as to the manner in which patterns related to, and were defined by, the individual physiognomy of their bearer, they ignored the quality of whakairo — the carving of the face.

“I found some lines follow creases of skin, other (take finger [and feel your face] & see) what bone allows”

Robley

Robley-Donne:n/d ATL MS1387/20

As early as 1905 Robley had undertaken another, more permanent, project in an attempt to ‘practise’ moko. Commissioning an Italian sculptor — then working at Chapman & Hall's Publishing House — Robley acquired a number of plaster copies of a ‘life cast’ of a Maori in the British Museum Collection.

Although initiated in 1905, Robley ‘manufactured’ the majority of these engraved casts during the mid 1920's.

The cast had been ‘collected’ by Sir George Grey in the 1850's from Taupue te Whanoa of Ngatiwhakaue, Te Arawa.

Robley-Mair:n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922

“They let me have cast & now I have life cast to make look real as I did see — colour & moko in its real place and measurements.”

Robley

ibid

“If anyone saw me graving moko on Maori casts that was on a Head would see all correct — depth & & and sculptor would open eyes if ever to be copied into bronze … People are astonished at the cicatrices I copy into network of art (when finished). “I took one with me, just showed it to a Bank friend, and everyone crowded to see it — I felt my own bones of face to see I did not put anything wrong, taken the eyes, nose & & & are on edge of bones — yet seem too near eyes — the cast had plenty of [crests] & marks to go by correctly.”

Robley

Robley-Fildes:1923 VUW Fildes 10

Robley made a large number of these casts — two are now in the Collection of the National Museum of New Zealand

ME3764; ex:Mair Collection and acc.69/31; ex:K.A. Webster Collection.

— and on many delineated designs other than those of Taupae te Whanoa.

“just [paid] for three casts, [yours] will have [Tomika] Te Mutu's lines” Robley-Fildes:n/d VUW Fildes 10/1

He went to a great deal of trouble to accurately evoke the object image — as opposed to the graphic, representational image — of the art he assumed had passed from memory. Still upset at the New Zealand Government's refusal to consider the purchase of his collection of Mokamokai — in his eyes the only truly informative image of moko — Robley attempted to send a number of his casts to New Zealand.

“The coloured cast is for your [birthday] — but one cast extra will be useful for replicas to take from — & it ought to catch the Museum's eye.”

Robley

Robley-Fildes:1923 VUW Fildes 10

Robley's enthusiasm for moko was, however, seldom equalled in this country. This was, perhaps, simply because he was peculiarly familiar with, and invigorated by, the designs of moko which were barely evident in the new New Zealand; within either Maori or Pakeha circles. Beyond sending his carved and painted casts to this country, there was little Robley could do to penetrate the apparent indifference with which moko was regarded.

“I will try to send you a separate cast for Goldie to paint for Govt; if you liked however, you keep — up to 11 lbs can go by post” Robley-Fildes:1923 VUW Fildes 10

“It is art. This real face copy ends my era of Maori Art and it being correct some day it might be copied in bronze …” “graving casts takes long time but more correct than drawing, no one will beat me at this.”

Robley

ibid

It was kowhaiwhai which suggested to Robley a means of circumventing the removal of representation from making. As well as being a schematic, two-dimensional art itself, kowhaiwhai

Teko teko figure T.E. Donne Scrapbook; “The Maori” Alexander Turnbull Library qMS/ca. 1903–1941 was directly related to the more organically formulated panels of design in moko — notably the paepae, putaringa, hupe, kauae and titi patterns. As was characteristic of his working methods he accurately represented the designs of kowhaiwhai; building up a working familiarity with their construction, formulation and juxtapositioning. These drawings were intended to record.

“I know the motifs that are tika and should not be forgotten … if I send motifs of rafter patterns they will not be stiff and stilted.”

Robley

ibid

Contemporary exponents of kowhaiwhai had, in a manner similar to the jewellers' reproduction of hei tiki, created perverted versions of the patterns. Robley was particularly upset than an ‘authority’ such as Augustus Hamilton should use designs as “careless of pattern” as the “bottom border” in Maori Art [Hamilton: 1896].

Robley-Donne:n/d AIM MS256 R66

He was, however, unusual among collectors and ‘scholars’ of the art of the Maori in that he accorded to it a positive, artistically-based enquiry. Rather than work from the belief that the Maori artist's work could be understood from an appreciation of its outward appearance, Robley interested himself in the figurative essence which gave rise to the art's distinctive aesthetic. He was concerned that, in their ignorance of an underlying aesthetic sense, contemporary copyists trivialised the remarkable nature of bona fide patterns and forms.

In making many copies of kowhaiwhai patterns Robley became aware of the manner in which they were formulated from single motifs, arranged in differing relationships to one another. This columnal expansion, its cyclic nature amplified by the alternate red and black colouring of the panels' ‘ground’ suggested further propagation to Robley. In defining a single motif as the unit from which pattern was generated it became possible to endlessly replicate that unit, and thus that pattern without going beyond known design elements. Taking a single band of kowhaiwhai he began to expand it laterally — as opposed to its original longitudinal displacement —, producing a design field open to infinite nuance. Although this modified the ‘single thread’ implicit in the rafters and their ‘symbol’ quality within Maori architecture, Robley's exercises opened up the secondary ‘threads’ — essentially implied in their original state — to further growth.

Design on envelope flapink sketchAlexander Turnbull Library Art Room: E280/1 Robley's designs for the flaps of envelopes often imitated the forehead titi designs of moko.

It was because he divined this unitary root in his understanding of Maori art that Robley seldom invented designs. He could, in differently arranging and detailing — by the displacement of koru, the balance of colour-motifs, describe an expansive range of patterns. His perception that real Maori design could be generated from an understanding of correct motifs, and the way in which they might be articulated gave rise to a fertile range of work in the last few years of his life. Invigorated by the extraordinary beauty, and diversity of the devices of moko — especially those rendered in the ‘spaces’ between structural designs — Robley had divined his own system of creating in Maori art.

“The Maori decorated by shape — paddle, post or box — so the nose got [ngu, pongiangia, whakatara patterns], the chin [kauae patterns].”

Robley

Robley-Fildes: 1923 VUW Fildes 10

Untitled sketch. Alexander Turnbull Library Art Collection A80/27a

Working from the unitary breakdown suggested in this sketch

A80/27a acc.no. 78–554

— the ‘building block’ nature of the upper drawing — Robley began to formulate designs within shapes alien to traditional Maori cultural production. With remarkable skill — which is to say, familiarity — he articulated Maori patterns within the letters of the alphabet, oval borders, circular platters and a myriad of other items; and these he presented to his New Zealand friends as gifts. His artistic sensibilities were, by the time of his death, saturated with the infinite beauty and elegance of Maori design and with his ability to invent within that elegance.

It is clear that despite his discovery of an extraordinarily adaptive and vigorous creative element within Maori art, Robley was unable to understand contemporary developments by Maori artists as being anything other than decadent. Despite the new possibilities introduced by the ‘civilization’ he had actively helped to introduce, Robley appears to have shared the view that the Maori Culture needed to be restrained within its past if it was to survive. To an important degree he concurred with the imperialist attitudes of Pakeha ‘experts’ such as Augustus Hamilton, regarding the re-making of past examples of art as the only viable means of preserving and perpetuating ‘authentic’ Maori art.

“It is too late to set up a school of Maori carving — myths are not in knowledge but replicas of old work could be faithfully copied.”

Robley

Robley-Fildes:1922 VUW Fildes 10

His remove from the Maori, their tohunga and kaumatua, meant that Robley had no real way of knowing the contemporary state of mythological and artistic knowledge in New Zealand. His correspondence with New Zealanders on these subjects was with Pakeha commentators who had, between them, assumed the task of ‘saving’ a knowledge of Maori art from cultural extinction. In so doing these ‘patrons’ and connoisseurs cemented in place a controlled — that is to say, largely static — imitative style of art which ‘reduced’ the work of the Maori artist to being, in European terms, a ‘piece of art’. The effects of these attempts to promote an on-going ‘traditional’ style of classical Maori art have continued to pervert the freely organic evolution of cultural forms until the present day.

Robley's separation from the Maori led him to develop an appreciation of their art coined in terms of a European concept of the ‘art object’ and its aesthetic life. He was capable only of hypothesizing as to the more subjective, mythological concerns that those artforms contained, gave voice to. In his work as an artist he generally accepted — and remained within — these formal constraints.

It is in studying Robley's paintings and drawings — rather than his writings — that his appreciation of Maori art is best understood. In seeking to preserve, to perpetuate, to record the patterns and designs of the Maori he became aware of a life within them which was (and is) essentially provocative of an infinite range of further forms and motifs. His situation without a Maori cultural situation meant he was unable to carry this to any significant fruition, because he was incapable of penetrating the full sense of the system of art he discovered. While aware of the formal workings of the system of that art, he did not (and could not) understand the philosophy, the meaning, the symbol life thereof. Nonetheless Robley's many representations of items of Maori manufacture record a remarkably full investigation of their formal qualities and properties.

Works of art continue to be possessed of a life when their maker has died. Their on-going life is defined by the manner in which they are subsequently perceived, by the way in which they are culturally informative. New generations being new meanings to ‘pieces’ of art; interpret new meanings of them. Robley's unique, generally objective, representation of the work of other artists has a peculiar life in the continuing cultural development of this country. His work essentially opens out, rather than attempts to define, an understanding of Maori art: the present-day student may thus learn from it or dismiss it from his/her own point-of-view.

Letters of the alphabet; decorated ink sketches Alexander Turnbull Library Art Room; E280/49

One way to wear Huia feathers ink sketch Auckland Institute and Museum MS 256

Mataora Moko

The designs of Maori male facial tattooing commonly known as Moko, are also referred to as Mataora Moko. Mataora is the Mythical figure attributed with venturing into Rarohenga (the Underworld), bringing back with him knowledge of tattooing. Elsdon Best recorded a number of versions of the Mataora Myth in “Maori Religion and Mythology; Part II [1892:227–240], of which the first example is here included in abridged form.

The original text of the myth quoted by Best appears, in unabbreviated form, in the Memoirs of the Polynesian Society, Vol 3, 67–76.

“‘The maid Niwareka was a member of a race of Turehu whose abode is in the underworld, the spirit world called Rarohenga, to which descend the spirits of the dead. She was a descendant of Ruamoko and of Hine-nui-te-Po, the Lord of Earthquakes and Queen of the Spirit World. ‘Now it came about that Niwareka ascended to this world with a party of Turehu folk, and came to where Mataora lay asleep in his house … On observing the party, Mataora saw that it contained a remarkably handsome woman … Mataora asked that one of those women should be given him, and was asked which he preferred, whereupon he pointed out the handsome woman … This was Niwareka, daughter of Uetonga, of Rarohenga, the spirit world. ‘So Mataora and the Turehu maid were married and lived happily together for some time, until he became jealous and enraged, and so it came about that he struck his wife. Niwareka then fled to Rarohenga, the home of her elders and parents, while Mataora mourned for and lamented her. ‘Mataora resolved to go forth in search of his wife. He went to Tahuaroa, at Irihia, to the above of Te Kuwatawata within Poutere-rangi, … Te Kuwatawata, who is guardian of the entrance to the underworld, allowed Mataora to pass down to Rarohenga, the spirit world. He went on until he met Tiwaiwaka … Mataora enquired for his wife and was told: “She has passed on with swollen eyes and hanging lips.” So he went on until he came to the home of Uetonga where he saw that chief engaged in tattooing a person, and the blood of that person was flowing freely, hence he called out: “Your mode of tattooing is wrong; it is not done in the the upper world.” Uetonga replied: “This is the way we tattoo in the lower world. Your method is wrong.” Said Mataora: “Our method is the hopara makaurangi.” “That mode of tattooing,” said Uetonga, “is so termed when applied to house decoration, but when devices are merely marked on a person it is known as tuhi.” Then Uetonga put forth his hand and wiped the painted devices from the face of Mataora. All the folk laughed to see tattooing effaced, and Uetonga remarked: “O the upper world! Ever is its adornment a farce, behold how the tattooing is effaced; it is merely a marking. Know then that there are several branches of whakairo (adornment); there is the female branch, the embroidery of cloaks; and the male branch, the carving on wood; that on your face is simply a marked pattern.” Then Mataora learned that these people of the underworld tattooed by puncture, it was not merely marked on the skin. He said: “You have spoiled my tattooing and must now do it properly.” So Uetonga called to those who delineated the tattoo patterns, and told them to mark them on Mataora, which was done. He then commenced to tattoo him, puncturing the marked lines with his chisel. ‘Mataora now experienced the intense pain of being tattooed …’ ‘[Mataora] then proposed that [he and Niwareka] should return to the upper world … Came Uetonga to Mataora and said: “Maybe you are thinking of returning to the upper world; if so return, but leave Niwareka here. Is it the custom of the upper world to beat women?”; and Mataora was overcome with shame. ‘Then said Tauwehe, brother of Niwareka: “Mataora, … Let us dwell below; leave the upper world and its evil deeds as a realm apart from the lower world with its peace and goodly ways.” ‘Then Mataora answered Tauwehe: “I shall adopt the ways of Rarohenga (the lower world) as mine in the upper world.” ‘Now at last Uetonga and his sons allowed Niwareka and Mataora to return to the upper world. The former said: “Mataora, farewell; return to the upper world, but beware, lest the evil of that realm afflicts us again.” Said Mataora: “By the token of the incised tattooing you have embellished me with, the ways of the underworld shall be my ways.” … ‘After the return of Mataora to this world, then the art of tattooing by puncture became known, and the fame of it spread to Awarau, to Tonga-nui, to Rangiatea, and to Hui-te-rangiora, such being the names of islands in the region of Tawhiti. A messenger came to ask Mataora to go to Irihia, to the home of Nuku-wahi-rangi, that the people of those parts might see him.”

Orekoukou of Cape Brett (after Sydney Parkinson) Parkinson shows clearly the lines of facial puhoro tattooing. Reproduced from “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” fig. 1. The original Parkinson work is in the Collection of the British Library, British Museum.

The tattoo designs described at Mataora Moko are the most recent stage in a long development of facial tattooing by the Maori. The earliest designs of which we have some knowledge are those referred to as Moko kuri.

“This fashion of tattooing consisted in rows of short straight linges, alternately horizontal and vertical, repeated all over the face, except between the eyes … the central forehead mark took a shape resembling the letter ‘S’. [

Black and white drawing of straight lines arranged in the shape of the letter 'S'.].”

Tregear

Tregear: 1926 p. 262.

The facial tattoo designs which were apparent to early Europeans such as Sydney Parkinson mediate exactly between Moko kuri and Mataora Moko. Their carved, pigmented marks echo the lattice-work nature of the earlier designs but ‘frame’ uncarved and unpigmented ‘positive’ elements. These trilateral scrolls — puhoro — are near-straight lines which are curved at their ends — like breaking waves — to thus run into new lines. This arrangement is usually continued until the lines describe a triangular form. Puhoro elements were retained in the titi forehead designs of Mataora Moko, as well as in the late-period tattooing of the thighs. [see page 182]

It is clear that Mataora Moko arose directly out of the puhoro trilateral scrolls. The two systems are, in a structural design sense, very similar. The exact nature of the development of Mataora patterns from the earlier puhoro appears to have had its root in the manner in which Moko was formulated and applied.

It is known that the Tohunga ta moko initially painted designs upon the face.

An account of traditional processes by William Marsh (Te Rangikaheke) records this fact. [APL GNZ MMSS 89]

The spaces between these painted lines were then carved and pigmented. The outcome of such a process was that the designs first painted on the face were an exact ‘negative’ of the patterns tattooed — that is to say of the marks lefts on the face after the original paint was washed away.

The puhoro ‘system’ of design is clearly derived from this practice, the pigmented areas being tattooed to ‘fill’ in the spaces between the intended patterns (the trilateral scrolls). In this manner of formulating designs, the act of tattooing is noticeably of secondary importance to the ‘drawing’ of those lines.

The genesis of the Mataora patterns may be traced to the increasing influence of the act of tattooing in the formulation of designs. In contrast to the earlier styles of tattooing the carved, pigmented areas in Mataora Moko describe only those marks of the uhi (chisels) rendered in the articulation of the uncarved, unpigmented elements. There is thus an equal correlation between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ elements; in some areas of Moko the former appears to describe the ‘pattern’, in other areas the latter.

“the decision [Augustus Hamilton] comes to, that the spaces are the pattern — I am considering it cannot be so on the nostrils however … only on thigh …”

Robley

Robley-Mair: c. 1921 ATL qMS/1898–1922

The importance of the physical and formal properties of tattooing is suggested by the remarkable economy with which very elaborate motifs are rendered. From designs such as the interlocking (‘breaking-wave’) points of the puhoro scrolls, the spirals of Mataora Moko are a practical extension; suggested by the properties of a carved form of tattooing and by the specific nature of the physiognomy thereby tattooed. In expanding this process, the human face became tattooed in Moko, rather than decorated with Moko. The nature and extent of carving allowed by the peculiar qualities of living flesh, of the human face — and it must be remembered that the threshold of human pain is essentially involved — came to define the patterns of Moko.

The patterns of Mataora Moko were formulated within a standard structure. Within that ‘system’ of design the Tohunga ta moko was able to ‘interpret’ the exact nature of the patterns tattooed.

“… the art was done by regular rules, from one set of lines that must first be done spring a 2nd — 3rd & so on, besides framing patterns to finish … [Right & Left] being always different & these which are the distinguishing marks … the other lines of Mataora being so much alike that one fully tattooed man looked like another (till examined …) it requires … a map portrait of a chief, two side views — no pictures, photos &c have given these & any ½ or ¾ face does not show near ear — so that portraits in books & taken even by good artists are not complete … “… [My] collection [of Mokamokai] is historical and quite irreplaceable — it shows … what is not known & will be forgotten — the first lines — the gradual extension from ornaments or bases given by the first placed — the way a spiral or ornament is filled in &c. Only this will demonstrate otherwise all will be oblivion.”

Robley

Robley-Mair: c. 1904 op cit.

“… the lines and formation of the face [were] followed so that one general idea, Mataora, could be carried out at intervals & by different artists …”

Robley

Robley-Best:n/d ATL MS72/5a

Illustrated letter; Robley-Mair:n/dAlexander Turnbull Library Robley-Mair; qMS/1898–1922

Mataora Moko The Patterns

Moko Nomenclature (Male)

It is not possible to formulate an absolutely correct list of the names used to identify elements in the Mataora patterns of Moko. Systems of nomenclature, derived from varying tribal traditions, have tended to be somewhat elastic — a factor evident in the interpretations of given names by early recorders. [see “Maori Art” Hamilton: 1896–p. 313].

It has been common for a name, used by one commentator to identify a particular design, to be transferred to an adjacent design by another writer. Those names which have survived tend to be generally descriptive of physiognomical features, rather than being specific titles for the moko designs engraved thereon. It is probable that a number of the more specific names have passed from knowledge.

The names used throughout this thesis are those Robley, aided chiefly by Elsdon Best, saw as being the most appropriate. As this system of nomenclature was settled upon at a late stage in Robley's studies, many of his drawings and notes employ slight variations on the names given here. Details of these differences are outlined in the notes on the following pages.

Titi

Tiwahana

Pukaru

3a.

Kape

Rewha

Kohiti

Ngu

Whakatara

Pongiangia

Hupe

10.

Kauae (Kauwae)

11.

Kumikumi

12.

Kowhiri (Kowiri)

13.

Paepae

14.

Putarinqa

15.

Korowaha (koroaha)

16.

Rerepehi

17.

Wero

18.

Kokiri

19.

Waiora

The Nature of Moko Nomenclature

The following notes, drawn largely from “A Dictionary of the Maori Language” [Williams: 1975], are intended to amplify the origin of names used to identify the various elements of Moko. Where alternative names are known, these have been listed in the relevant sections. The naming of Number 12–14, in particular should be noted.

1. Titi [Williams: 1975] “1: n. peg, pin … titi roa, a long wedge for splitting wood. 2: Comb for sticking in the hair. 3: Long streaks of cloud … [see ‘kapua’ below] 4: Radiating lines of tattooing on the centre of the forehead. 5: v. i. Stick in (as a peg etc.)” Kapua [Williams: 1975] “1: Cloud, bank of clouds … 2: Part of the titi pattern in tattooing.” 2. Tiwhana [Williams: 1975] “1: v.i. Be curved 2: n. Lines of tattooing over the eyebrows.” Whana [Williams: 1975] “1: v. i. Recoil, spring back 2: Kick. NB: Robley also referred to the forehead designs (titi and tiwahana) as being known as Te Tonokai: “That is, a chief on being asked by a servitor if ready for meal, simply got a movement of the tattoos = “bring food”. [Robley: n/d. AIM MS256] 3. Paukaru [Williams:1975] “1: n. Fine lines of tattooing on the temple, at the outer end of the eyebrows.” NB: from pu = origin, base, foundation; and karu = eye [Williams: 1975] 3a. Kape [Williams: 1975] “Kape (ii), n. 1: Eyebrow … 2: Tattooing below the eyebrows 3: Eye socket.” 4. Rewha [Williams: 1975] “1: n. Eyelid 2: Eyebrow … 3: Tattoo marks above the eye … 4: a. Squinting 5: v. i. Raise the eyebrows as a sign of assent, etc.”

Robley's personal ‘work’ copy of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” is extensively annotated. The page reproduced above shows his changing system of moko nomenclature. Hocken Library MI 488 p. 78

5. Kohiti [Williams: 1975] "(= kowhiti) 1: v. t. Pick out, pull out … 2: v. i. Rise, as a star; appear, as the new moon. 3: n. New moon. 4: A place where fern root has been dug. 5: A pattern in tattooing.” NB: Robley also, on Elsdon Best's authority, referred to this mnark as ‘Tore’. [Robley-Best: 1906 ATL Best Scrapbook qMs/3]. 6. Ngu [Williams: 1975] “1: n. Squid. 2: Egg case of paper nautilus. 3: Some marine animalcula. 4: A person unable to swim. 5: Tattoo marks on the side of the nose. 6: Ghost …” 7. Whakatara Robley misinterpreted this as Wakatara and translated it as meaning “the seats of a canoe”. “There is a misconception here. Mr Elsdon Best had informed the author the word is Whakatara, & while it cannot have the meaning implied is the Maori name for the lines on the bridge of the nose.” [Fildes: 1921 p. 100]. [Williams: 1975] “Whakataratara v. t. Make rough, notch, fit with a barb …” [ornamentation with notches] 8. Pongiangia [Williams: 1975] -“Pongiangia, pingiengie, n. Tattoo marks on the lower part of the nose. // poniania.” -“Poniania, n. 1: Lower part of the nose. 2: Tattoo marks on the side of the nose. 3: A pair of feathers thrust one from each side through the septum of the nose, and worn during a haka.” 9. Hupe [Williams: 1975] “n. 1: Discharge from the nose … 2: Tattoo marks at the point of the nose. 3: A pattern in carving.” NB: Hupe refers to the designs on the upper lip (ie beneath the nose) rather than at the point of the nose. 10. Kauae [Williams: 1975] “kauae, kauwae, n. 1: Jaw. 2: Chin. 3: Tattoo marks on the chin. 4: A pattern in carving = whakakauae, pukauae.” 11. Kumikumi [Williams: 1975] “n. 1: Beard … 2: White throat feathers of the parson bird. 3: Byssus of mussels etc. 4: Black whalebone of the right whale. 5: Tattoo marks (Shortland says under the eyes).” NB: This is likely to be derived from the third definition given by williams. The Byssus of a mussel is “The tuft of fine silky filaments by which [such molluscs] attach themselves to the surface of rocks.” [Shorter Oxford English Dictionary: 1950]. 12. Kowhiri [Williams: 1975] “v. t. 1: Select. 2: Whirl round.” NB: The upper cheek spiral is more usually known as Paepae, a name Robley used until 1907, when Elsdon Best suggested Kowiri as the more correct title. [Hocken Library MS488] Best transferred the ‘paepae’ label to the design between the cheek spiral and the ear, previously known to Robley as the Putaringa. This latter name was transferred to the design immediately below it, until then referred to as the Pu. Although most of the early Authorities favour Robley's original system of nomenclature in this area, the system he finally adopted, at Best's suggestion, would appear to be more appropriate. 13. Paepae [Williams: 1975] “-Pae 1: n. Horizon … 5: Any Transverse beam … 8: Circumference … 13: Lie on one side … 19: v. t. Surround with a border … -Paepae 1: n. Beam, bar … Threshold … 2: Dish, open shallow vessel 3: Upper curl of tattooing on the cheek. 4: A pattern in wood carving …” NB: Most Authorities identify the Paepae as being the upper cheek spiral, an identification Williams supports. It is in the sense in which this design, between the ear and the cheek spiral, serves as a ‘border’, that the Best/Robley identification is based. Best was working from names supplied by Tuhoe tohunga. 14. Putaringa [Williams: 1975] “n. Tattoo marks under the ear.” NB: from pu = origin, base, foundation; and taringa = ear. [Williams: 1975] Robley also records Pupuwai as a name for this design. 15. Korowaha [Williams: 1975] “Kaoraha = Korowaha, n. Large curl of tattoo marks on the cheek.” NB: from koro = noose or korokoro = throat, loose, slack; and waha = mouth, entrance, voice. [Williams: 1975] NB: Robley refers to the outer lines of the koroaha spirals as Rito. 16. Rerepehi (Williams: 1975] “n. tattooing on the breech, and beside the mouth.” NB: Best also advised Robley that this design could be called Pakiwaha. [Hocken Library MS488] 17. Wero [Williams: 1975] “1.: v. t. Pierce, spear … 2: Throw a spear, dart, etc… 8: Tattoo marks on the cheek …” 18. Kokiri [Williams: 1975] “1: v. t. Dart, throw, thrust … 3: rise in a column, as smoke … 4: n. Spear 8: Lines of tattooing on the cheek.” 19. Waiora [Williams: 1975] “n. 1: Health, soundness. 2: Spaces between lines of tattooing.”

Supplementary Tattooing Terms

The following list of Tattooing-related terms comes from Robley's collection of notes collated with the aim of publishing a second edition of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. Supplied largely by Best, who was primarily informed by Tuhoe Tohunga, this list should be viewed as a supplement to the Moko nomenclature detailed above. All definitions are from “A Dictionary of the Maori Language”. [Williams: 1975]

Moko a.

Kokotiki — Tattooing on the cheeks.

Tapawaha — Tattooing on the cheek.

Rehe — Tattoo marks over the eyebrows.

Ngutu — Lip. [Robley Ngutu pu rua to describe the tattooing of both lips. There appears to be no support for this term.]

Whakairo tangata a.

Puhoro — Tattoo marks on the thigh or arm.

Pakituri — A pattern of tattooing for the thigh = Puhoro.

Paeturi — Tattooing on the thigh.

Porori — Tattoo marks on the breech.

Rape — Tattooing on the breech.

Rito — Tattooing on the buttocks, between the Rape.

Tattooing Terms (General) a.

Muhu — Incorrect, faulty of carving.

Kurumatarehu — Tattooed man.

Piha — A pattern of Tattooing. [lattice]

He rangi paruhi — A face fully tattooed.

Tukupu — Tukipu — Covering completely, spread over.

He moko tukupu — [fully tattooed face].

Papatea — Having no tattoo marks on the face.

Female figure detail of Cat. No. 178 Koruru See page 357 Hawkes Bay Art Gallery & Museum MMC 802

Moko and Whakairo Nomenclature (Female)

Robley's investigation into the tattooing of women was less comprehensive than his study of male moko. This was largely due to his reliance on Mokamokai for information relating to tattooing. Female Mokamokai were rare, and of the two examples Robley saw during his lifetime, at least one was tattooed in an atypical manner. [see page 176]

Robley's many notes and drawings do not significantly add to the information on the tattooing of women which he presented in the relevant chapter in “Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1896]

Aided principally by Elsdon Best's Tuhoe informers, Robley collated the following list of names for the designs used in the tattooing of women. It should not be seen as definitive.

All definitions, except where otherwise noted, are from A Dictionary of the Maori Language”. [Williams: 1975].

Moko 1.

Hotiki — Tattoo marks on the forehead of a woman.

Pihere — Tattoo marks on the side of the mouth.

Hupe — Tattoo marks on the upper lip. [Robley: 1896]

Ngutu — Lip. [Robley uses Ngutu pu rua to describe the tattooing of both lips. There appears to be no support for this term.]

Whakatehe — Tattoo marks on the chin of a woman.

Kauae — Tattoo marks on the chin.

Kauae tehe — Woman with tattooed chin.

Whakairo tangata a.

Puhoro — Tattoo marks on the thigh or arm.

Haehae — Parallel grooves between lines of dog-tooth pattern in carving.

Tauri — A Tattooed band roung the wrist or ankle.

Takitaki — Tattooing on the calf of a leg.

The Patterns

To begin with, Moko must be approached frontally.

The standard structural patterns of Mataora Moko are arranged about the central, vertical waiora line which runs down the face from the hairline to the chin. Usually left as an uncarved and unpigmented line over its entire length, the waiora is seldom more than 5 mm in width. As well as providing the axis about which the standard designs are — generally speaking — symmetrical, the waiora line effectively divides Moko into two halves; the left side and the right side. Broken only at the mouth and the under-side of the nose, the waiora also articulates Moko vertically and by extension, relates the Head to the verticality of the body (and vice versa).

The lower half of the face — below the eyes — is decorated in a number of circular and spiral motifs; the four cheek spirals (upper and lower), the rerepehi lines which circle the mouth and the small spirals of the nose patterns.

The kowhiri spirals on the upper cheeks originate in the kumikumi lines at the nose, immediately below the inner corners of the eyes. After echoing the line of the lower eyelid, they describe an ever decreasing double-spiral to the centre of the cheek. (In a number of cases the right kowhiri spiral is replaced by horizontal, ornamented bands which run from the kumikumi to the paepae design of the right ear

The Moko of the figure in the Te Hau-ki-Turanga House (National Museum of New Zealand) generally accepted to be a personal portrait of that House's principal carver, Raharuhi Rukupo, features a remarkable example of this variation.

In a similar, though inverse manner the lower cheek spirals — korowaha — have their origin near the lower extremes of the rerepehi lines. From there they are carried outwards and, in a double-spiral form continue to the centre of the lower cheek.

The spaces left between the korowaha, kowhiri and rerepehi designs are known as the wero.

The rerepehi lines describe a semi-circle from the outer nostril to the tip of the chin (where they either run into the kauae designs or meet the waiora line). Viewed frontally the left and right rerepehi delineate a ‘circular’ motif; surrounding and accentuating the mouth.

The areas above and below the mouth, defined within the rerepehi lines, are among the ‘spaces’ left by the structural designs of Mataora Moko. The hupe — above the upper lip — and the kauae — below the lower lip — are more freely articulated; there is a great diversity evident in their design. In most cases the kauae arises — at least in part — out of the lower rerepehi lines. Less frequently the hupe runs into the upper rerepehi.

The lips are often tattooed.

The designs applied to the nose have the effect of apparently diminishing its relief. The upper ngu spirals — immediately inside the inner corners of the eyes — unwind from their centre and run down the shaft of the nose towards its tip. There they turn outwards into the pongiangia spirals which cover the nostrils. The areas left on the shaft of the nose are tattooed with a notched pattern that is known as whakatara. The flattening effect of the nose designs is due to the ngu spirals visually equating the actual relief of the similarly decorated lower nose

A number of Moko designs feature a small motif on, or immediately above, the bridge of the nose. This is usually referred to as the kohiti.

The patterns on the upper face — above the eyes — introduce a dynamic aspect to the more static spirals below them.

The lines of tiwhana — usually four above each eye — echo the line of the eyebrow, exaggerating their form as they radiate upwards from the inner corners of the eyes. (At this point the lines curl under the eyebrow in a device known as rewha.) Following the line of the eyebrow the tiwhana descend at their outer limit, finally leaving the face at the temple as a series of horizontal, parallel lines. At the outer corners of the eyes the lower lines of tiwhana curl under the eyebrow. Usually embellished with secondary koru motifs, this device is known by the term kape. The finely detailed koru motifs tattooed within the lines of tiwhana at the outer tip of the eye are referred to as pukaru.

The ‘V’ shaped forehead design tattooed between the upper tiwhana is known as the titi. While the structure of titi patterns is generally constant, different examples bear a wide diversity of detailed motifs. At times the left and right halves of the titi are asymmetrical, although this is not usual. Descending from the hairline, the titi design introduces the waiora line to the patterns below.

The effect of these standard, frontally-perceived, patterns is to enhance and dramatise the points of sensual entry and emission. In darkening the tone of the skin the eyes and the mouth are highlighted: the expressive power of facial gesture is modified.

The division, by the waiora lines, of Moko into right and left halves is essential to an understanding of the Art. While the frontally perceived patterns are generally symmetrical in their detail and arrangement, the areas under the ears are invariably asymmetrical.

Two people looking at different sides of the same Moko will see different designs.

The patterns immediately before the ears, the paepae, are the most diverse within Moko. The putaringa patterns below them are frequently articulated as extensions of the paepae. A close examination of various examples of Moko will reveal an endless range of patterns in these areas.

The motif commonly formed in the space between the putaringa and the outer edges of the two cheek spirals is known as the kokiri and is in general quite regular.

The patterns outlined above refer to a hypothetical standard example of Mataora Moko. Actual designs may differ from this model — to a greater or lesser degree — without ceasing to be described by that term.

While these patterns describe the full extent of standard Mataora Moko, it is by no means certain that a Moko design is incomplete if not finished to this degree. Those designs in which, for example, only one half of the titi, or only one side of the lip has been tattooed suggest that the absence of patterns may have some positive significance in some cases.

The possibility that a number of the Mokamokai Robley collected were tattooed with inauthentic designs does not preclude their adherence to the structural ‘rules’ of Mataora Moko. It is in the areas in which the Tohunga ta moko was freer to articulate original patterns — ie. the paepae, putaringa, kauae etc — that the uncertain nature of these Moko designs might be apparent.

Nga Mokamokai Whakairo tangata

The following pages contain Robley's drawings of, and notes pertaining to, Mokamokai. His many watercolours, drawings and sketches of Mokamokai have not, however, been catalogued as individual works, nor listed in the form of an inventory. Rather each Mokamokai is represented by an amalgam of images, comments and notes drawn from Robley's prolific investigation into the subjects of moko and Mokamokai.

A small section containing the designs of whakairo tangata (tattooing of the body) recorded by Robley is included immediately subsequent to the Mokamokai section. (see page 181)

The designs of moko are referred to by the names listed in the Glossary on page 108.

Abbreviations and Terms AMNH

American Museum of Natural History, New York

AMNH sheet

This refers to the sheets of information Robley provided with each of the Mokamokai purchased by the American Museum of Natural History. (see pages 142 & 147)

The Mokamokai represented on the following pages are those collected by Robley, and those which he studied closely but did not — or could not — acquire. As such, the designs of moko here reproduced are those from which the basis of his understanding of the art was drawn.

It is possible, indeed probable, that a number of these Mokamokai originated from the Trade in Heads which flourished during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Because of this the ‘correctness’ of their moko designs is a somewhat subjective question. In the following catalogue, Robley's drawings, comments and notes have been arranged so that they might serve as a point of reference for further study, analysis and discussion. It is from carefully observing these designs and comparing them — with one another and with other examples of moko — that the true nature and value of Robley's work is best approached. A written discussion cannot adequately perform the same function. Similarly, the exact quality of these designs' authenticity must be addressed within the specific terms of the observer, and in reference to moko in a more general sense. Although these drawings are by Robley, it is the art at their source — that of the Tohunga ta moko — which most profoundly informs them.

NB: Because of the nature of Mokamokai, the designs represented on the following pages are all those of male Mataora moko. The only female Mokamokai (see page 176) bears the designs of male tattooing; either because of the woman's rank within her tribe [see Simmons: 1983 p. 240], or because the moko was carried out during the ‘Trade in Heads’, in which male tattooing was preferred by European collectors.

The American Museum of Natural History Collection (AMNH)

The majority of the Mokamokai here represented are those purchased from Robley by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. (Mr Morris K. Jessup, of the AMNH, acquired thirty-five Mokamokai from Robley in 1907.)

The classification of the Mokamokai in the AMNH Collection is complicated by the wide discrepancies apparent between the existing systems of cataloguing and classication.

The principal existing classification systems are:

AMNH Sheets (Robley) When Robley sold the thirty-five Mokamokai to the AMNH in 1907 he also provided the Museum with a sheet of detailed information for each Head. Examples of these sheets are reproduced on pages 142 and 147.

Unfortunately the Museum staff at the time made no cross-reference between these Sheets and the Mokamokai to which they referred. This, together with the fact that Sheets No 26, 34 and 35 are missing, means that it is not possible to identify the Mokamokai with any certainty on the basis of these Sheets alone.

Robley's drawings The numbering system used by Robley at the time of the 1907 sale (ie that system defined by the AMNH Sheets discussed above) was different to that used during the earlier stages of compiling his collection of Mokamokai. The rationale behind his numbering system was, beginning at No 1, to arrange the Mokamokai from those displaying the least tattooing, through to those which were completely covered. His judgement of the ‘quality’ of the moko was the secondary criteria for the arrangement within this general order.

This system meant, for example, that when Robley added the eleventh Mokamokai to his collection, it did not simply become No 11, but was placed in its relevant position within the existing number system, if, for example, Robley decided that it would be classed as No 8, the existing No 8–10 would become No 9–11. Because of this practice, many of his drawings of the same Mokamokai are referred to by widely varying numbers. It would be incorrect, therefore, to identify or classify a Mokamokai on the basis of the number accorded it in an individual drawing or representation.

Robley's inconsistency in numbering the Mokamokai — and thus his drawings — should not, however, be seen as evidencing a lack of scientific accuracy on his part: it should not cast doubt as to the accuracy of the drawings themselves or of the non-numerical annotations.

P. C. Gifford Classification In attempting to define the relationship between Robley's number system (ie that described by the AMNH Sheets) and the AMNH accession numbers, Mr Philip C. Gifford of the AMNH Anthropology Department made a set of catalogue cards which tentatively link the two classifications. While these cards can be followed with a degree of confidence, they leave a number of the Mokamokai unaccounted for. This inevitably raises doubts as to the accuracy of some of the other, rather uncertain, classifications made by Gifford.

D. R. Simmons Classification Working largely from Gifford's cards and first-hand observation of the Mokamokai themselves, D. R. Simmons of the Auckland Institute and Museum has clarified many of the earlier discrepancies. [See “Catalogue of Maori artefacts in the Museums of Canada and the United States of America”: 1982] There are, however, discrepancies between a number of Simmons' classifications and information contained in other sources, particularly in Robley's many annotated drawings of Mokamokai. In some instances these discrepancies are such that they bring into doubt the accuracy of Simmons' classifications.

The problems surrounding the classification of the AMNH Mokamokai are complex. As it has not been possible for the author to observe the Mokamokai first-hand, the following Catalogue has been arranged from a careful sorting through of information drawn from each of the systems of classification outlined above. In many cases there is no discrepancy between the AMNH Sheet number, the AMNH accession number, Gifford's classification and Simmons' classification. In these instances there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the details as presented.

Where there is a degree of uncertainty surrounding the classification of a Mokamokai, this has been noted on the relevant page. In all cases priority has been given to ensuring that there is an exact accordance between the visual representation of the Mokamokai, and the written notes purporting to describe it. It is on these latter grounds that discrepancies are most apparent in the existing systems of classification. There remain, however, a number of instances of minor discrepancies between the visual and written information. These we may attribute to the vagaries apparent between different representations of the same Mokamokai; in some, for example, Robley has rendered the eyes sewn closed, in others he has shown the eyes open and preserved in place. Because of his tendency to overlook such details on some occasions, it is inevitable that minor inconsistencies are — in rare instances — apparent in his documentation.

In some of his drawings of Mokamokai, Robley deviated from the original designs to a marked degree — adding further motifs and secondary lines of ‘tattooing’. These drawings are, however, rare and do not undermine the accuracy of the body of his work. Care has been taken to only include those representations of moko which are most likely to adhere to the lines of tattooing present on the Mokamokai in question. Because Robley drew each of these on numerous occasions it is possible to define the correct design — as opposed to an interpreted, or embellished redition — with a degree of certainty.

Although Robley's representations of Mokamokai give the impression that the lines of moko tattooed thereon are definitely traced and easily decipherable, this is not always the case. Those lines tattooed during life frequently lose much of their definition during the drying process of preservation (pakipaki). It is possible, therefore, that Robley's perception of such tattooing was prejudiced by this uncertainty of design. Given his extraordinary familiarity with moko and Mokamokai, however, it is difficult to accept such a conclusion.

A major short-coming of these graphic representations of Mokamokai is that they do not — or perhaps could not — differentiate between lines of life tattooing and post-mortem work. As it is likely that this difference is of great importance in determining the authenticity of the designs tattooed, this omission is unfortunate. It does, however, bear out Robley's contention that the study of the Mokamokai themselves was (and is) the only way to acquire a complete understanding of their moko.

Nga Mokamokai

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethonology Dept (No. 28)

Mokamokai 1

Robley No. 1

AMNH Collection 80.0–624

Provenance

Purchased at the Sale of the late Dr Paterson's (Bridge of Allan) Collection, Edinburgh; 28th November 1898. [Lot 478] No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

The koru ornament in the upper right band of tiwhana is unusual in that it parallels, rather than reflects, the ornament in the upper left band. The orientation of the left-hand ornament is usual.

The lower bands of tiwhana, right and left, are wanting.

The kauae is incomplete on the right side, and not begun on the left. Robley presumed the finished design would be thus:

Remarks “-

These are about the first lines begun in tattooing.

Base of head is bound with flax and a hoop.

wound, right jaw. (bullet)

curly hair — cut with a shell in front and quite close to the top of head — behind it is left long.

slight moustache — some hair on chin.

ears perforated for ornaments.

lips have been sewn up at centre and sides.” [Robley. ANMH Sheet /1.]

Notes: “Mr Russell … wrote me there was a sale of Dr Paterson's famous Colln at Edinburgh 26th Nov I was up at once/ to see lot 478, Maori chief's head & comb. Sir. Wm Turner of [British] Museum & very many others bid for it … but as my order was to buy I got it — I waited in the sale from 12 to 3.30 when it fell to me … I also got a stone Maori spear head [and] some axes … of some South Island stone, found by a Mr Eliot near Wairau.” [Robley-Hocken: 1898. Hocken Library/ MS1 488.]

“As soon as it became mine, to the astonishment of the sale room bidders I hongi'ed it, explaining the rubbing of noses was a correct greeting — it was exhibited at the Northern Club, thence by night mail to London. To study its points was natural, but not to the ticket inspector on way, whose wondering face when he looked in, was a brief study of astonishment.” [Robley: n/d. VUW Fildes 1507]

“The operators in Moko were generally professional artists who worked for hire, and their different degrees of excellence were as well known as that of painters among the moderns; and they were in fact regarded by their less able countrymen as men of great talent and repute — “[Robley. AMNH Sheet/1]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai, Hocken Library MI488 p. 148A

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 11)

Mokamokai 2

Robley No. 2

AMNH Collection 80.0–625

Provenance

Purchased at the sale of the Wallace Collection; at Distinction, Cumberland.

No History. (see notes)

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

The rewha and ngu designs are incomplete on the right side.

The right koroaha is in progress, with only the outer [rito] lines completed. (The left koroaha is not begun.)

Remarks “-

The lips had not been sewn together

eyelids partly open.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/2.]

Notes: “No 24 Urukehu, fair type Maori, the design on upper parts of the nose NGU in progress on right side …” [Robley (w/c) AIM PD48/22]

“Head of a young man, moko in progress — bought [sic.] to England, 1835.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm. E-121-9/No. 9]

Description: Two black and white sketches of mokamokai, lower: National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 23) and upper: American Museum of Natural History

Mokamokai 3

Robley No. 3

AMNH Collection 80.0-626

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, Guys Hospital.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the kauae is incomplete at tip of chin.

the design at the meeting point of koroaha and rerepehi is unusual.

the lower lines of tiwhana — on the temples — are ornately decorared (the same, left and right)

the left side has no tattooing other than the tiwhana, nose designs, kumikumi, wero, rerepehi and kauae lines.

Remarks “-

eyelids sewn up.

lips have been sewn up in centre.

ears perforated.

a wound at back of head.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/3]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1896] figure 92.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library; MI 488 (iii)

Mokamokai 4

Robley No. 4

AMNH Collection 80.0-627

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, St Thomas' Hospital, London. c. 1896.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

two bands of a zigzag design (whakakokikoki) run vertically through the lower three bands of tiwhana, on the left side.

Remarks “-

a wound on the right jaw has been sewn up with hair.

base of head has been bound.

The brains have been extracted (pakipaki

paki paki: Cure, preserve by drying; Dried human head. [Williams: 1975]

… as called) — different from other heads, vide natural openings of base of skull which is not enlarged as usual

seems to have been preserved by friends, vide eyes & & &.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/4]

“[This head] has the most beautiful heraldry near ears, such good work. The mere cut on right jaw is filled in with a lock of hair different from the red hair on chin [& moustache].” [Robley-Buller: 1896 ATL MS48/27]

“wooly hair, bunch of curls behind, red moustache & chin tuft; left cheek spiral not begun … same pattern near both ears … the cleft is filled with hair from the head … lips blue …” [Robley (drawing) Hocken Library/MS488]

Description: Mokamokai 4 Hawkes Bay Art Gallery & Museum MMC 793

Description: A black and white sketch of two mokamokai, lower: Hocken Library; MI 48 (iii) and upper: National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept (No. 25)

Mokamokai 5

Robley No. 5

AMNH Collection 80.0-628*

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, Kings College, London. 1984.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the inner bands of rerepehi have only two lines, instead of the usual three.

Remarks [Robley. AMNH sheet/5] -

deep cicatrices by bone implements of tattooing.

wound on left ear.

skin sewn left jaw fracture.

eyelids stitched close.

*Notes: D. R. Simmons identifies this Head as AMNH no. 80.0–645. [Simmons: 1982. p. 271] Details on the AMNH Catalogue Card however, as well as among Robley's notes and drawings, are not consistent with this identification.

Reproductions

“Maori Art; Part IV” [Hamilton: 1896] page 315 (top left)

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library; MI 488 p. 166A.

Tiwhana AIM MS256 R66

Mokamokai 6

Robley No. 6

AMNH Collection 80.0–649*

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, Guys Hospital, London, 1894.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

The upper band of tiwhana is ornamented.

Robley believed that the right paepae design is incomplete. He presumed it would be finished thus:

Remarks “-

the forehead skin in centre is shrunken.

eyelids partly open & remains of eyes.

teeth much ground down.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/6]

“-

back of hair bared for examination, teeth are much ground down from eating fern root. [Robley (drawing) Hocken Library M1 488/page 166A]

“-

Head of a Maori born c. 1800. Eyes preserved … upper band of left tiwhana is special design … it is unlikely this head fell into hands of raiders — as the patterns on the face are conventional; one artist in tattoo was always able to continue from the work commenced by another. So a carver in this case has, on the dried skin, completed the Mataora [tattooing] pattern on upper forehead and cheeks.” [Robley. AIM MS256]

*Notes: D. R. Simmons identifies this as AMNH no. 80.0–628. [Simmons: 1982. p. 270] Details on the AMNH Catalogue Card however, (as well as among Robley's many notes and drawings) are not consistent with this identification.

Description: A black and white sketch of two mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 1).

Mokamokai 7

Robley No. 7

AMNH Collection 80.0–654*

Provenance

Purchased from the sale of Dr. Meetham's Collection; Devonport, 1899.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

The tip of the nose is ornamented in an unusual manner.

The titi is incomplete on the left side, and not begun on the right side.

A Kohiti motif is featured, immediately above the nose.

Remarks [Robley. AMNH Sheet/17] -

Tattoo seems to have been done hurridly — the strokes of the uhi or adze have gone on the skin less deliberately than usual.

hair cut short in front with a shell, curls behind.

base of skull thickly bound with flax.

eyes preserved.

*Notes: D. R. Simmons identifies this Head as AMNH no. 80.0–624. [Simmons: 1982. p. 270] Details on the AMNH Catalogue Card however, (as well as among Robley's many notes and drawings) are not consistent with this identification.

Mokamokai 8

Robley No. 8

AMNH Collection 80.0–629

Provenance

Purchased from a Private Collection, 1894.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

there are three bands of rerepehi on the right side, and four on the left.

the lower lip is incised with a single line.

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing.” [Robley: 1896] figure 142.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 142; NB: This illustration, which Robley cites as representing Mokamokai 8 [AMNH Sheet 8] differs slightly from his description of the Head. It seems likely, however, that the illustration does relate to the description; the detailed notes of the latter containing the more correct information.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Auckland Institute & Museum MS256 R66

Mokamokai 9

Robley No. 4

AMNH Collection 80.0-630

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, Guys Hospital, London, 1894.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

The curious paepae on the left side is incomplete.

Remarks “-

hair grown over site of chin tattoo.

moustache.

eyes closed.

ears perforated.

deep wound at back of the head.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/9]

“-

possible turned mihanere (missionary convert) & left off tattooing — which was discontinued at the mission stations (though admired) also grew beard & moustache to hide some of his moko which exists.” [Robley (drawing) ATL A33/21p]

Notes: This Head has a label attached, reading: “The Convert”.

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1896] figure 165.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 165.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Auckland Institute & Museum MS256 R66

Mokamokai 10

Robley No. 10

AMNH Collection 80.0-[655]*

Provenance

Purchased from Museum, Kings College, London

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the left rewha is incomplete.

the tip of the kauae is incomplete. Robley presumed the finished design would be thus:

Remarks “-

Eyelids closed, ears perforated.

remains of moustache, and hair growing on chin over tattoo.

deep wound left side of head over the ear.

the skin sewn up with flax.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/10]

*Notes: D. R. Simmons' entry for AMNH No. 80.0–630 [Simmons: 1982. p. 270] is a combination of Robley No. 9 and No. 10.

“Robley's number ten seems still to be floating in limbo.” [Philip Gifford (AMNH): 1984 Personal Correspondence.]

Reproductions

“Maori Art; Part IV”. [Hamilton: 1896] page 315 (bottom left).

“The Maori in European Art”. [Bell: 1980] plate 62.

“Moko; or Maori Art”. [Robley: 1896] figure 97 (kauae).

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 22).

Mokamokai 11

Robley No. 11

AMNH Collection 80.0-631

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, Kings College, London.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the kauae is in progress, being marked out as an outline.

Remarks “-

eyelids sewn, ears perforated.

lashing at base of skull gone.

Hair cut short in front, with a shell — long curls behind.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/11]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1986] figure 141.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (no. 14).

Mokamokai 12

Robley No. 12

AMNH Collection 80.0-653

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, Guys Hospital, c. 1894.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the inner lines of the rerepehi design run into the hupe, rather than to the nostril as usual.

the left kowhiri is in progress.

the kauwae is in progress. Robley presumed that the design would be completed thus:

the upper lines of the right kumikumi do not join the right paepae. Robley regarded this as an error. [Robley (w/c) VUW Fildes NZ Portfolio/1]

“a slip of the chisel has closed the opening.” [Robley (w/c) VUW Fildes NZ Portfolio/1]

the articulation of the left wero area is not usual.

Remarks “-

binding at base of skull has perished

ears perforated.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/12]

Reproductions

“Maori Art; Part IV”. [Hamilton: 1896] page 313.

“The Long White Cloud; Ao-tea-roa”. [Reeves: 1898].

“Moko; or Maori tattooing”. [Robley: 1896] figure 11.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 138.

Mokamokai 13

Robley No. 13

AMNH Collection 80.0–648

Provenance

Purchased from the F. W. Lucas Collection.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the titi is divided by a horizontal line.

the right putaringa is in progress.

both lips are tattooed.

there are only three lines of rerepehi on each side, rather than four.

Remarks “-

Hair cut with shell in front — greyish/faded hair.

would at back of head — deep.

wound at right chin — slight (a spear wound)

ears perforated, eyelids open -

base of skull bound with flax & hoop.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/13]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1896] figure 138.

Description: Moko Map American Museum of Natural History

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library MI 488 (iii).

Mokamokai 14

Robley No. 14

AMNH Collection 80.0-645*

Provenance

Obtained from the Museum, St Bartholemews Hospital (in exchange for another).

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the inner lines of the rerepehi work into thehupe design.

the kauae is in progress, the left side being almost complete.

Remarks “-

Head had 3 wounds; the one on left jaw may be from a club, the others from a tomahawk.

mouth with flax sewing -

Base of Head with flax cord & hoop.

eyelids closed, ears perforated.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/14]

“-

this head has the [pitau] nostril pattern of fern frond.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No 11]

*Notes: D. R. Simmons does not agree with this identification. [Simmons: 1982. p. 271] It is probable that the Head he catalogues as AMNH no. 80.0-628 is this one, although there are a number of differences in the details given.

Reproductions

“Maori Art; Part IV”. [Hamilton: 1896] page 315 (top right).

“The Magazine of Art”. October, 1897.

Mokamokai 15

Robley No. 15

AMNH Collection [80.0– ?]

It has not been possible to identify this Mokamokai.

Reproduced below are Robley's notes relating to this Head. (He provided the American Museum of Natural History with similar details for each of the Mokamokai they purchased.)

The system of nomenclature Robley was using at the time he compiled these notes differs from his later system, that employed throughout this Thesis. The terms Putaringa and PU should be read as Paepae and Putaringa respectively. (see page 111)

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library MI 488 (iii).

Mokamokai 16

Robley No. 16

AMNH Collection 80.0–632

Provenance

Purchased (privately) from an old collection (see notes).

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

there are only three bands of tiwhana on each side, rather than the usual four.

the right pongiangia spiral (nostril) is in progress.

the right kauae is not begun.

the titi design is asymmetrical.

many of Robley's drawings of this head include an additional koru near the left ear.

Remarks “-

has straight hair — cut shorter on forehead

teeth much triturated with fern root.

ears perforated.

base of skull bound with flax.

ring in septum of nose (Cook & Polack mention ornaments placed here, a note on this is in Hamilton's “Maori Art”.)” [Robley: AMNH Sheet/16]

“-

This may be one of the original Fern root Eaters early inhabitants NZ vide teeth … a very old specimen … had been dipped in tar by sailor who bought it to London, the tar was so old it broke as brittle as glass, & the head was in splendid condition of keeping.” [Robley. ATL MS1387/26]

Notes: “Amongst finds was one at a Carpenter's in North London, who advertised a Dyak's head — he stated this had been brought over years ago by a sea captain in the family — it had been dipped into tar or varnish of some sort which came away under my treatment. The tattooing to one who knew was recognised at once — it has been shown at small reunions or so; no one seemed wiser — perhaps because it had a ring of thin iron wire through the septum of the nose.” [Robley: n/d VUW Fildes 1507]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library MI 488 (iii).

Mokamokai 17

Robley No. 17

AMNH Collection 80.0–633

Provenance

Obtained from the British Museum.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

upper band of the left tiwhana is ornamented.

the inner lines of the rerepehi work into the hupe design.

the kauae is unusual, a spiral koru motif interrupting the waiora.

Remarks “-

hair cut short on forehead.

eyelids sewn up.

shell in nostrils.

traces of flax binding, at the base of the skull.

right ear only perforated.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/17]

“-

Old smoked specimen — ranks in my collection as 15th in value.” [Robley (drawing) AIM MS256]

Reproductions

“Maori Art; Part IV”. [Hamilton: 1896] page 315 (bottom right).

Mokamokai 18

Robley No. 18

AMNH Collection 80.0–634

Provenance

Obtained from the Lancashire & Cheshire Historical Society; August, 1900 (by exchange).

No History before 1850, when it was presented to the L & C Historical Society.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the koroaha on the right jaw is made up of four, rather than three, spirals.

the outer line of rerepehi is incomplete.

Remarks “-

hair curly

base of skull has flax & wooden hoop

lips have been sewn near corners

this head is curious in that the left side of face, with exception of nose & rerepehi & wero, has not been touched by the artist in ta moko.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/18]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept (No. 30).

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand Ethnology Dept.

Mokamokai 19

Robley No. 19

AMNH Collection 80.0–643

Provenance

Obtained from an old collection; purchased out of asle catalogue.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the upper parts of the titi design are incomplete.

the pukaru areas of the tiwhana are incomplete.

the left-hand paepae design, which Robley likens to an ‘E’, is probably incomplete. (The right hand paepae is not begun.)

there is no waiora at the kauae.

Remarks “-

wound at back of head, sewn up.

ears perforated.

eyes sewn up.

hair cut along forehead.

slight moustache.

base of skull has wooden hoop, bound with flax.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/19]

“-

old cloak material used for packing.” [AMNH Catalogue Card]

Mokamokai 20

Robley No. 20

AMNH Collection [80.0–655]

It has not been possible to identify this Mokamokai.

Reproduced below are Robley's notes relating to this Head. (He provided the American Museum of Natural History with similar details for each of the Mokamokai they purchased.)

The system of nomenclature Robley was using at the time he compiled these notes (1907) differs from his later system, that employed throughtout this Thesis. The term Putaringa should be read as PAEPAE. (see page 111)

A facsimile of a sheet of notes about Mokamokai No. 20 written by Robley.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 20).

Mokamokai 21

Robley No. 21

AMNH Collection [80.0–656]

Provenance

Obtained from a Private Collection, 1905.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the lower lines of the left koroaha run right up to the lower rerepehi, without the usual intermediate ornament.

the upper right tiwhana and pukaru are incomplete.

the lower lip is tattooed.

Remarks “-

hair brown,

binding at base of head gone.

ears perforated.

aquiline nose.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/21]

Notes: Robley often used the central motif from the left paepae of this Head as a unit for an invented kowhaiwhai design.

Description: Moko Map American Museum of Natural History

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept (No. 7).

Mokamokai 22

Robley No. 22

AMNH Collection 80.0–635

Provenance

Obtained from Manchester (ex: Wallace Collection) c. 1899.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the kauae spirals are incomplete.

the right koroaha has only the outside lines in place.

the lips have some incisions.

the paepae are alike, but the chisel lines are not identical.

Remarks “-

ears perforated.

base of skull not bound.

the tattooing [of the right-hand koroaha] shows how the outer lines are in place first and then [the] pattern [is] filled in to complete, by central lines.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/22]

Notes: “Somehow the quest led to occassional comic scenes — such as on hearing there was a head for sale in Manchester, I bought the address for £2 from a dealer in London, to whom it had been refused, travelled up with cash and arrived anxiously at 8 am following day — a cup of tea was given; the master of the house not yet dressed — asked from upstairs, “who is there?”. “Gentleman from London about that head.” “Oh, tell him I want no cheques,” but he came down and coin was accepted — Delighted not to have been in an useless raid the prize was taken to Liverpool, where my full collection was at the Museum, on exhibit.”

[Robley: n/d. VUW Fildes 1507]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Canterbury Museum; P/A Ref No 6725.

Mokamokai 23

Robley No. 23

AMNH Collection 80.0–644

Provenance

Obtained from the Museum, University College.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the outer edges of the titi and tiwhana designs are ‘joined’.

the ngu is not completed on the right side.

the left kowhiri is ornamented with koru motifs.

the kauae is marked in outline.

Remarks “-

a long lock of hair on left side is left as a sign of mourning a near relative — it is called reureu or toitoi.

Hair on upper lip & chin.

Ears perforated, eyes sewn up.

base of skull thickly bound with flax.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/23]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1986] figure 148 (photo).

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Alexander Turnbull Library qMS Robley-Mair/1898–1922.

Mokamokai 24

Robley No. 24

AMNH Collection 80.0–636

Provenance

Purchased from Mr. Stedman, St Leonards (inheritor of head).

Ex: Hartley Collection

No History (see notes)

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

this head has a double-spiralkohiti design above the nose.

the kowhiri are in progress on both cheeks.

Remarks “-

a young man.

eyelids sewn up.

nose filled with fern root.

ears perforated for ornaments.

teeth in Maori parlance “me te niho kokota”.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/24]

“-

bold tattoo, black curly hair — very deep tattoo, lips tattooed & with tattoo over bridge of nose and a good lot on to neck.” [Robley-Hocken: n/d Hocken Library MS1 488]

Notes: “[this Head had] been in [a] glass case for years — hair had been destroyed by moths — was impossible to collect again, in powder almost.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/24]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library MS 488.

Mokamokai 25

Robley No. 25

AMNH Collection 80.0–641

Provenance

Obtained from a Private Collection.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the left rewha & pukaru designs are not begun.

the titi has an uncommon design.

Remarks “-

base of head has hoop bound with flax cord, and a bar across from side to side.

eyelids sewn up.

ears perforated.

lips have been closed or nearly sewn together. “me to kuku ka kopai” = like the neat closing of a mussel shell — E. Best.

very fine tattoos — as if done by iron instrument?” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/25]

Titi design National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 5).

Mokamokai 26

Robley No. [26]*

AMNH Collection 80.0–646

Provenance

Purchased at the Sale of the Wallace Collection — at Distinction, Cumberland.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

in different drawings of this Head Robley alters his ‘interpretation’ of the left paepae design. (see notes)

there are only three bands of rerepehi on each side.

Remarks “-

lines extra close together.” [Robley-Mair: n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922]

“-

old man.” [Robley (sketch) ATL E280/19]

*Notes: ‘Robley Sheet/26’ (which would detail Mokamokai No. 26 in Robley's Collection) is missing, making a positive identification of the Head impossible. The Head represented here is identified by Robley as being from the Wallace Collection, a fact also noted on the AMNH Accession Card 80.0–646. The latter also records the fact that the Mokamokai in question was originally known as “Robley Collection #26.”

Robley considered the designs near the left ear to be similar to those drawn in Te Pehi Kupe's ‘self portrait’ This perceived likeness is probably the reason Robley, in some renditions of this Head, incorporated a vertical bar in the centre of the left paepae design. The drawings which include this element are probably more correct.

Mokamokai 27

Robley No. 27

AMNH Collection 80.0–637

Provenance

Purchased from Mr Stackpool O'Dell, London, 1893 (see notes). No History (see notes).

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the kauae is incomplete.

the kumikumi and upper kowhiri lines are ornamented with koru motifs.

there are unusually wide spaces between designs.

Remarks “-

Head has been preserved by friends and eyes conserved.

mouth sewn up in pouting manner.

ears perforated.

Tattooing by different artists evidently.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/27]

“-

it shows the operation & difference of touch with the chisel of three artists it seems.” [Robley. ATL MS1387/26]

Notes: This was the first Head Robley acquired (in Britain). “From the top of a bus … a phrenologist in Brompton Road was seen arranging his window. Here was a Maori head on view outside … result, it was secured at a price …” [Robley: n/d VUW Fildes 1507]

This Head was exhibited, and lectured on, at Selkirk, Scotland over the Christmas period, 1893–94. Robley was to have given the lecture, at the Selkirk Volunteer Hall, but was detained in London with an illness. His old military friend, Provost Craig-Brown, read the lecture notes in his place.

“There was also exhibited a clever sketch of the head in black and white on a scale large enough to permit of the tattooed lines being seen clarely from the furthest end of the hall.” [Newspaper report (no source): 1894 ATL MS16/4]

“The lecture and the notes you added came into the hands of Sir Walter Butler … who … hunted me up to see the head & I gave him a printed copy of the lecture itself … He gave me the following particulars, viz the head was that of one of the Ngaiterangi, Bay of Plenty; that, besides the Kauri & Rimu which give the darkest pigments, the bluest was obtained from the “Koromiko”, a species of beronica — or else the vegetable caterpillar “aweto” was used.” [Robley-Craig Brown: c.1895 ATL MS16/4]

Reproductions

“Moko, or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figures 134 & 144.

“Provincial Medical Journal”. February, 1894.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” fig. 144.

Description: A series of black and white sketches of mokamokai, upper: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” fig. 137 and lower: [tracings from] Alexander Turnbull Library; Art Room A33/21v.

Mokamokai 28

Robley No. 28

AMNH Collection [80.0–638]

Provenance

Obtained from a Private Collection, 1894.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the outer rerepehi bands have only two lines.

the right kauae is not begun.

Remarks “-

head large

Base of skull bound with flax.

eyes preserved, ears perforated.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/28]

“-

a giant, most symmetrical tattoos — eyes preserved.” [Robley-Mair: n/d ATL qMS/1898–1922]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley: 1896] figures 81 & 137.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Canterbury Museum P/A Ref. No. 6726.

Mokamokai 29

Robley No. 29

AMNH Collection 80.0–639

Provenance

Obtained from a Collector at Sheffield.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the kauae is unusual, being comprised of two pitau double spirals.

the lips are tattooed.

the titi is asymmetrical.

the putaringa (right & left) are incomplete.

Remarks “-

hair under under chin.

base of head bound with a hoop & flax cord.

ears perforated, eyelids closed.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/29]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figures 61, 96 & 136.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. figure 136.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai American Museum of Natural History.

paepae designs: National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept.

Mokamokai 30

Robley No. 30

AMNH Collection 80.0–652*

Provenance

Purchased from the Museum, St Georges Hospital, 1895 (see notes).

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the koroaha (right & left) are incomplete.

the right kowhiri is ornamented with koru motifs.

Remarks “-

Base of skull bound with flax.

curious punctures in the skin at the back of the head.

ears perforated.

hair has been cut very short, and a plaited lock left on left side to denote mourning.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/30]

“-

[has] flax through lips … [right] side shows the outer lines of a spiral is done first.” [Robley (drawing) ATL A33/21t.]

“-

same artist's touch near ears.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No. 22]

*Notes: D.R. Simmons does not agree with this identification. [Simmons: 1982. p. 272.] It is based on a general concurrence in detail between the AMNH Catalogue Card and Robley's drawings and notes.

“Another discovery, bought at a Hospital, had a hair cut very short (with a shell) all over except one long lock on the left side … [Having been] informed by a Doctor that he remembered a tattooed head in St Georges Hospital, I asked for permission to draw it and then later approached the authority to purchase it — giving in a copy of my Book “Moko” to prove it was for scientific purpose. The 2 guinea book sold me, for Sir [Isanubard] Owen reading the rarity and value therein asserted — remarked [that] if I had taken it away it would not have been missed, “But if you want it now, after declaring rarity, it is £50 to our funds kept up by voluntary contributions.” It was a treasure.” [Robley: n/d VUW Fildes 1507]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 166.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 27).

Mokamokai 31

Robley No. 31

AMNH Collection 80.0–640

Provenance

Obtained from the Museum, Historical Society of Lancashire & Yorkshire.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the right koroaha is in progress.

the left putaringa is just begun.

the kauae is incomplete.

there is a kohiti design above the nose.

Robley considered the left paepae incomplete, presuming it to be finished thus:

Remarks “-

Ears perforated.

has false eyes of white shell, as were noticed in Cook's voyages in some specimens.

2 wounds on back of the head; one had been part tied up with knot of hair.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/31]

Description: Moko Map American Museum of Natural History

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 3).

Mokamokai 32

Robley No. 32

AMNH Collection 80.0-647

Provenance

Obtained in 1904, when the Chichester Museum was broken up. (It had been presented to that Museum in 1854 by Mr T. Humphrey, who had inherited it.)

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

on the right side the outer rerepehi lines touch the whakatara design; on the left side they touch the pongiangia design as usual.

left rewha not completed.

Remarks “-

long wild hair.

ears perforated.

nose stuffed with flax — traces of red ochre.

Base of skull bound with flax & hoop.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/32]

“-

patterns near ears evidently done by same operator.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No. 18]

“Young man, wild unkempt hair, deep healed up tattoos Al teeth, tattoos about the same amount on both sides … curious variation (rerepehi) yet there is not evidence of any hurried work.”

[Robley-MacDonald: n/d NMNZ Ethn. MS]

Reproductions

“Otago Daily Times” 30 November, 1903 (J. MacDonald copy, after Robley.)

Description: Two black and white sketches of mokamokai, National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 8) and right paepae design AIM MS256 R66.

Mokamokai 33

Robley No. 33

AMNH Collection 80.0-642

Provenance

Obtained from Prof. Jonathon Hutchinson F.R.S. L.L.D, Haslemere. (Exchanged for a Burmese silver bowl.)

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko a.

the hupe & kauae designs match one another.

the titi has an unusual design at its apex.

there is a double-spiral kohiti design above the nose.

Remarks “-

evidently by one operator, touch alike all over face.

eyelids open.

hair cut short in front.

ears perforated.

wound by thrust of a mere on left jaw.

base of skull has been broken off.” [Robley. AMNH Sheet/33]

“-

[This] Head with a very fine tattoo — evidently a young chief who could command one of the best artists in moko.” [Robley. AIM MS256.]

“-

has fringe in front and rest left long behind, this head is quite covered with tattoo and is, I think, preserved by friends — lips being sewn up a bit and eyes preserved.” [Robley-Best: n/d ATL MS72/5a]

Notes: “At another time a famous specialist on leprosy gave me an [invitation to] a day at his place at Haslemere when members of a medical congress went by special train — lo and behold [there] was a Tukipu, that is a fully chiselled man. It was impossible to tempt the owner and some plan had to be pondered over — thought of burglary, [I] might be forgiven [as] a collector. Reading in an advertisement that a lady possessing a large Burmese silver bowl had it for sale, but would only show by appointment — it was seen at S. Kensington refreshment room, rare work of some cunning worker … now I could offer the wife of my rich friend another beauty in exchange for art. The silver font was taken down by the celebrity himself — pleased, and was accepted for the head, now to be removed and brought up to town.” [Robley: n/d VUW Fildes 1507]

“Resembles figure 22 in Book ‘Moko’ the portrait of a young warrior killed at the Gate Pa — 1864 … Te Kani.” [Robley (w/c) VUW Fildes NZ Portfolio/1]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figures 74, 80, 93 & 140.

“Science Gossip” [Periodical] 1898.

Mokamokai 34

Robley No. [N/A]

AMNH Collection 80.0-657

Provenance

Obtained from J.W. Colmer Collection.

Sold to AMNH Collection, 1907.

Moko

Very little, mainly tiwhana & nose designs.

Remarks

“Moka Mokai (18) of a boy, untattooed — head preserved by friends, but fell into hands of traders, who incised some patterns on the dry skin. Capt. Cook 1777 took 2 young boys “Kokoa” a young chief and an attendant away on voyage.” [label, from inside head]

Notes: The Mokamokai was severely damaged, the entire lower portion of the head having been removed.

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 147.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 147.

Mokamokai 35 (infant)

Robley No. [N/A]

AMNH Collection 80.0-658

Provenance

not known

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Moko

not tattooed.

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 135.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 1).

Mokamokai 36

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

ex: Robley Collection.

No History.

Moko a.

the upper, outer lines of tiwhana are unfinished.

the right putaringa is incomplete.

the lower lip is tattooed.

Remarks “-

Head preserved by friends (eyes/ in head) — black hair [is] long, reddish beard growing over tattoos. Tattoo spiral done by careful artist-operator; [the] lines forming tattoo [begin] very close & dark.” [Robley (drawing) Hocken Library A/R666, 72/98]

“-

Jewish type Tiu.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No. 20]

Notes: “I kept 5 beauties [after sale of collection to New York], one is “Tiu” type — long black hair, red beard, hooked nose.” [Robley-Hocken: c. 1909 Hocken Library MS1 488]

Robley usually referred to this head as ‘the Jewish type’; Tiu is a transliteration of Jew.

Description: Two black and white sketches of mokamokai lower: Canterbury Museum P/A Ref No 6781 and upper: Canterbury Museum P/A Ref No 6784.

Mokamokai 37

Salford Museum Collection*

Provenance

ex: Robley Collection.

No History.

Moko a.

both lips tattooed.

unusual motif at the outer sides of the kauae design.

paepae and putaringa designs are very elaborate.

Remarks “-

head with good moko.

hair combed back, with curls.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No. 15]

*Notes: In Robley's own copy of “Moko: Or Maori Tattooing”, now in the Hocken Library Collection [Ml 488], the caption for figure 143 has been altered. The printed note, “in Author's Collection” has been crossed out and replaced with a manuscript note, “No. 2. Salford Museum.”

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figures 75, 79, 143.

Description: A black and white moko map taken from a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept..

Mokamokai 38

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

ex: Robley Collection (purchased c. 1916)*

No History

Moko a.

hupe and kauae designs not begun.

variation in designs at lower termination of koroaha spiral.

titi design is asymmetrical.

kohiti design above nose.

there are only three bands of tiwhana on each side.

Remarks “-

low forehead with only 6 bars of tiwhana.” [Robley (sketch) NMNZ Ethn.]

“-

copied from a head, not tattooed but cut on the dry skin — possibly a slave.” [Robley (w/c) AIM PD48(30)]

*Notes: In a letter to Alexander Turnbull, dated 9th November, 1916, Robley refers to this Mokamokai as “[my] latest head.” [Robley-Turnbull: 1916 ATL MS57/77]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept..

Mokamokai 39

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

ex: Robley Collection.

No History.

Moko a.

the pattern at the tip of the nose is uncommon.

(the right side has only the titi, tiwhana, ngu, whakatara, pongiangia and rerepehi designs in place.)

Remarks “-

base of the skull is bound with flax.” [Robley (w/c) HBAGM MMC 786]

titi, paepae and kauae designs Auckland Institute & Museum MS256 R66

Mokamokai 40

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

Sold at Stevens', London — 1/11/1921 (lot 347) £40. (see notes)

No History.

Moko a.

the titi design is asymmetrical.

the kauae design is very elaborate.

Remarks “-

cut with an instrument on dried skin — the existing moko or life tattooing — only a few lines are to be seen done at top of nose, nostrils, 8 (3) lines lines from nostril to chin, & these 8 lines [rerepehi] have been spoilt by incising them with cuts on dried skin.” [Robley (sketch) AIM MS256]

Notes: This head was not in Robley's Collection. He saw, and drew, it at Stevens' Auction Rooms in 1921. Robley and Henry Stevens were close friends, the latter being the photographer responsible for many of the photographs of Robley with his collection.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Hocken Library; MS488.

Mokamokai 41

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

Unknown.

Moko a.

kohiti design above the nose.

upper bands of tiwhana incomplete on both sides.

Remarks

none.

Notes: The drawing reproduced is the only representation Robley made of this moko. It is possible that the designs are Robley's invention, although their unfinished state would suggest otherwise.

The ‘map-like’ nature of the drawing is similar to others of Mokamokai Robley viewed at sales in the last twenty years of his life. It is most probable that it arises from such an encounter.

Description: A black and white moko map of a mokamokai Victoria University of Wellington Library Fildes/10.

Mokamokai 42

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

Offered for Sale; London, 1923 (£ 100)*

No History

Moko a.

there is an unusual mark near the foot of the nose.

the titi features four double spirals.

the left rewha and lower pukaru are incomplete.

the upper bands of tiwhana are in progress.

Remarks

“Map of a Maori Head of a young man; in progress of incisions … of course head shows the invariable rule of different designs near ears R & L.” [Robley (sketch) VUW Fildes Collection/10]

*Notes: This Head was not in Robley's Collection. He probably drew this ‘Moko Map’ when he viewed it in 1923.

Description: “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figures 167 & 168.

Mokamokai 43

Halifax Museum Collection*

Provenance

not known.

No History.

Moko a.

the left kowhiri is replaced by bands, incorporating the whakakokikoki (zigzag) design.

the ngu design is incomplete on the right side.

the left tiwhana is not finished to its usual design.

Remarks

“South Island [designs ?]” [Robley (w/c) VUW Fildes NZ Portfolio/2.]

*Notes: This Head was in the Collection of the Halifax Museum in 1896, when “Moko: Or Maori Tattooing” was published.

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figures 167, 168.

Description: A black and white sketch of two mokamokai Canterbury Museum P/A Ref Nos 6727 & 6728.

Mokamokai 44

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

not known.

No History.

Moko a.

the right kowhiri spiral is replaced by bands. (As can be seen from the illustrations, Robley significantly embellished the original design. The less ornamented version on the left is more likely to be correct.)

Remarks “-

left side has usual Mataora spirals.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No. 4]

“-

back of head bared, other side has spirals.” [Robley (w/c) AIM PD48(4)]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept.

Mokamokai 45

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

not known.

No History.

Moko a.

the titi is asymmetrical.

the left koroaha is incomplete, the outer lines only being in place.

Robley produced two versions of the right paepae design. It seems likely that the less detailed of the two (below) is the correct one.

the left side features only the forehead, nose and rerepehi designs [Cant. Mm. E-121-9 (w/c)]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Canterbury Museum P/A Ref No 6783.

Mokamokai 46*

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

not known.

No History.

*Notes: This moko is probably invented by Robley, being overly elaborate in execution.

National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept. (No. 31)

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai Auckland Institute & Museum; MS256 R66.

Mokamokai 47 (female)

Saffron Walden Museum, Plymouth.

Provenance

Presented to the Museum — 13 June, 1838.

No History.

Moko a.

both right & left kowhiri spirals are replaced with horizontal, ornamental bands.

the titi is not begun on the left side.

the right pongiangia is not complete to the centre.

the left kauae is not complete.

Remarks “-

post-mortem cutting.

her eyes are well preserved.” [Robley. Hocken Library MI 488 p. 133]

Notes: “I have indeed seen a woman whose whole face was tattooed.” [Dieffenbach: E., “Travels in the New Zealand”. 1974 reprint p. 34]

“[A woman] One half of her face was tattooed in every respect like that of a man, while the other had no more marks than her sex entitled her to; so that two persons, who stood opposite each other, each viewing a different side of the face in profile, … would have pronounced the object to be a man, or a woman, according to the circumstances of his position.” [Shortland: E., “The Southern Districts of New Zealand” :1851 p.16]

Robley saw only two examples of female mokamokai during his lifetime. [Robley-J.A. Thomson:1917 NMNZ Ethn.] An earlier letter suggests he owned the other example, having purchased it from the Wallace Collection in 1899. [Robley-Mair:1899 ATL qMS/1898–1922]. For some reason (perhaps because it was not tattooed) Robley does not appear to have drawn this mokamokai. It is therefore not included here.

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 32.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept..

Mokamokai 48

Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography, Rome.

Provenance

Acquired by the Museum, Rome in 1840.

No History.

Moko a.

the kauae design is unusual. (see remarks below)

Remarks “-

a young man, well tattooed.” [Robley. Hocken Library Ml 488 p. 206]

“-

everyone here says it is [the head of] a “pikapo” [Roman Catholic convert], evidently a cross is one design (on the chin).” [Robley-Best:1926 ATL MS16/2]

Notes: “The Head in the Archaeological Museum, Rome, was drawn in 1901, and copy placed as frontispiece to ‘Moko’, then presented to King Humbert [of Italy] — Queen Margharita accepted also a volume for her library, as the decoration of Maori women was shown therein.” [Robley (drawing) ATL A80/33]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 173.

Mokamokai 49

Unknown Collection.

Provenance

ex: Giglioli Collection (see notes).

No History.

Moko a.

the kauae is very ornate.

the left putaringa design is unusual.

Notes: Professor Enrico Hillyer Giglioli of Florence, a collector of Maori items, became a friend and correspondent of Robley's at the turn of the century. Robley is mentioned in his capacity of Collector/Author, in “La Collezione Ethnografica: Part I — Australisia”. [Giglioli:1911]

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai American Museum of Natural History.

Mokamokai 50

Unknown Collection

Provenance

Unknown.

No History.

Moko a.

a kohiti motif is included above the nose.

the left putaringa design is uncommon.

the lower left tiwhana, at the temple, is ornate.

the right-side features only tiwhana, nose, rerepehi and kauae designs.

Remarks “-

young man, eyes preserved.” [Robley:1911 AIM MS256]

Notes: Robley appears to have first seen and drawn this Mokamokai in 1911. [AIM MS256] It is therefore unlikely that it was, at any time, in his possession.

Description: A black and white sketch of a mokamokai National Museum of New Zealand; Ethnology Dept..

Whakairo tangata

Description: Tattooed Thigh Skin (1) “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 13.

1. Tattooed Thigh Skin

Robley No. 31A

AMNH Collection 80.0-667

Provenance

Purchased from a London leather shop, 1894.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

Remarks “-

the pattern was called “Puhoro” — This skin was found in a London leather shop in 1894 by the artist. It is rare, and none in the British Museum; is figure 13 in “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” (diminished to ⅔rds).”

“Resembles the drawing in Dumont D'Urville's voyages which is copied Fig 16 “Moko”.” [Robley (w/c) ATL A80/7]

Reproductions

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 13.

2. Tattooed Thigh Skin

AMNH Collection 80.0-673

Provenance

Purchased c.1898.

No History.

Sold to AMNH, 1907.

[Female Whakairo Design]

w/c on white paper

368 × 268 mm.

sign.: (w/c) lower right “H.G.Robley”

AIM Collection PD48(44)

Inscriptions Recto: (w/c, R's hand) lower page “Pattern of tatu on mons veneris of a Maori woman of rank taken by Dr. Shortland and verse of a song on this tatuing of the chieftainess Rangi te a Pakura, obtained by Mr Elsdon Best, N.Z.I. “Kei puta atu hoki tawa kai nga taruki i Tutaeahua ka paia pukutia mai e nga nana o te tara Whakairo o Rangi-tea-Pakura … e … ha/ see notes on back.”* Verso: (ink, R's hand) whole page " “Moko” is the tattooing of the face “Whakairo” is the tattooing of the body Dr Shortland's was the only drawing of this tattooing existing — this tattoo existed in Fiji and New Zealand. The one drawing of this tatu existing was taken by Dr Shortland — the writer. the donor was Dr Hocken, a great collector who gave [me] the drawing for my book, Moko or Maori tatu — [sketch] this rare sketch given me by Dr Hocken, copies taken by Baron von Hugel [?] Cambridge, & Wellington Museum & & copy 10/-.”

Notes: “The design was sent me in time [for the publication of “Moko; or Maori Tattooing.”] by Hocken … but I was afraid to print.” [Robley-Fildes: 1920 VUW Fildes Collection/10]

“Tattooing by pricking (not cuts) on a Maori woman of rank.” [Robley (w/c) Cant. Mm E-121-9/No. 38]

“It is correct however that Maori women's blue markings on the body were pricked in by female artists — skin remaining smooth.” [Robley: n/d AIM MS256]

Baron von Hugel was the Curator of the University Museum of Ethnology, Cambridge. [Robley-Mair: n/d ATL qMs/1898–1922]

* David R. Simmons gives this waiata extract — supplied to Robley by Elsdon Best — as: “Kei puta hoki tawa nga tarouke i Tuteahua ka paia pukutia mae e nga nana o te tara whakairo o Rangi Te Apakura … E … Ha,” and translates it thus: “Lest the struggles of Tuteahua succeed they will be stopped secretly by the tattoo marks on the tattooed vagina of Rangi Te Apakura.” [Simmons: 1893 p.240]

NB: Robley painted a number of copies of this work. As well as the two further examples in the Auckland Institute and Museum Collection — PD48(40) & PD48(43), the following Collection include examples of this subject:

ATL A33/25

Cant. Museum E-121-9/No.38

Hocken Library M1488 (Page 468)

Hocken Library MS488 (2 copies)

VUW Fildes NZ Portfolio/2

Auckland Institute & Museum PD48(43)

Robley: Te Ropere 1840–1930 Volume Two Catalogue Timothy Walker

Robley's remarkably prolific — and often repetitive — output as an artist makes it impossible, and inappropriate, to compile a totally comrehensive Catalogue of his work. Because of this the Catalogue has been contained within the following parameters.

Only works held in New Zealand Public Collections have been included. With rare exceptions — when their subjects are of particular interest — sketches have not been catalogued. (The majority of the works documented are watercolour or ink/wash drawings.) Drawings and sketches of Mokamokai have not been catalogued. Their subjects are all represented in the section on Mokamokai in Volume One. Robley's numerous illustrated postcards are not included. The works are arranged within the following six sections 1. Historical New Zealand Scenes Page 190 2. New Zealand Scenes; 1864–66 200 3. New Zealand Portraits; 1864–66 262 4. Historical New Zealand Portraits 329 5. Maori Art 349 6. Non-New Zealand Subjects 366

Layout

Each Catalogue entry follows a common format. A hypothetical example is given below.

Works which are unique in representing their subject are accorded individual Catalogue numbers. Where there are a number of works with an identical subject, they share a Catalogue number eg. 260a., 260b., 260c.

25. Old Woman (1985) 1. title w/c n white cart. 2. medium/support 263 × 162 mm. 3. dimensions sign: (ink) centre “H.R.” 4. signature date: (ink) centre “1985” 5. date ABC Collection EG 123 6. Collection/classification Presented by Mrs J. Brown. 7. provenance Inscriptions 8. inscriptions Verso (ink, R's hand) centre [↓]* “Old woman/1864” 9. labels, stickers etc 10. notes 11. reproductions.

*NB: this notation [↓] refers to the orientation of the inscription; in this case the inscription runs down the page, from top to bottom.

title

Wherever possible the title has been drawn from Robley's inscriptions. In the absence of an inscription, a title has been coined to describe the subject or nature of an image. These latter titles are given within square brackets.

A date given in brackets, after the title, refers to the year in which the original version of the image was drawn. It does not necessarily related to the year in which the specific work was executed.

medium/support

The medium/media is given, followed by details of the support (paper, board, etc).

Cartridge paper (cart.) has been distinguished from lighter weights (paper).

dimensions

All dimensions are in millimetres, height before width.

Where the image-size differs from the support-size, two sets of dimensions are given.

Where it was not possible to measure a work without its mount/frame, this has been denoted by the addition of the work (sight) immediately subsequent to the dimensions.

signature

Details of the medium, placement and form of the signature are given.

Where Robley has signed or inscribed his name in more than one place, the primary example is classed as the ‘signature’. Other examples are included in the ‘inscriptions’.

Where the signature appears with other inscriptions it is still detailed as the ‘signature’. Its placement is then noted in the ‘inscriptions’ in the following manner: [sign.]

date

Details of the medium, placement and form of the date are given. These details refer to the date the work was executed.

Where Robley has inscribed a date which refers to the time of the event pictured, rather than the time of the work's execution, this date is recorded as an ‘inscription’, not as the ‘date’.

Collection/classification. The Institutions are as follows:

ACAG Auckland City Art Gallery

AIM Auckland Institute & Museum

APL Auckland Public Library

ATL Alexander Turnbull Library

Canterbury Museums, Christchurch

HBAGM Hawkes Bay Art Gallery & Museum, Napier

Hocken Library, University of Otago, Dunedin

NMNZ National Museum of New Zealand, Wellington

Tauranga Archives, Tauranga City Council

Tauranga Museum Tauranga District Museum & Historic Village

VUW Victoria University of Wellington; Library

WMAH Waikato Museum of Art & History, Hamilton

The classification by which a work is most commonly identified is given immediately subsequent to the ‘Collection’ details.

Any further classification is given on the following line.

Where individual works are not classified beyond their title and artist's name, the term (no class.) has been used.

provenance

Where known, details of previous owners, purchase prices and dates are given.

inscriptions

Transcriptions of the notes on, and adjacent to, the image are preceded by details as to the medium they are written in, in whose hand they are written, and where they are written eg. (ink, R's hand) upper left

NB:R's hand refers to ‘Robley's hand’. In all cases where other people are responsible for the inscription, the full name is given.

The Location of the inscriptions is detailed as follows

Recto: the front, or face, of the image/support

Verso: the reverse face of the image/support

Mt. Recto & Mt. Verso: the front and reverse faces of the mount

W/Mt. Recto & W/Mt. Verso: the front and reverse faces of the window mount

Robley Album: A number of the works in the National Museum Collection have been removed from a bound Album. The Album, still in the Museum Collection, contains many inscriptions.

Supplementary Sheet: In a number of cases inscriptions are continued on separate sheets of paper attached to the work or stored adjacently.

NB: In many cases works bear more extensive inscriptions than are here transcribed. The inscriptions of Museum/Library classification etc. have not been recorded.

labels, stickers, etc.

A small number of works bear these.

10.

notes

This information — wherever possible drawn from Robley's notes and letters — is intended to describe the subject of, and matters with direct reference to, the work.

11.

reproductions

Robley's work has been used extensively as illustrations in texts, calenders, newspapers etc. The more significant of these reproductions are listed: this is not a comprehensive list of all such usages.

In some cases, the reproduction cited in “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” [Robley:1986] represents a view of the subject other than that shown in the specific catalogue entry.

Historical New Zealand Scenes

1. Abel Tasman exchanging for a tiki

ink on white paper

198 × 315 mm.

ATL Manuscript Collection qMS/ca. 1903–1941

T.E. Donne Scrapbook “The hei tiki”

Accn No.: 83-197/2

Inscriptions

Recto: (ink, R's hand) lower page

“Abel Tasman Exchanging for a Tiki”

(ink, T.E. Donne's hand) upper left

“An imaginative/ sketch by Major-General/ Horatio Gordon Robley -/ Sutherland Highlanders/ who fought in Maori War/ of 1865.”

1. Abel Tasman exchanging for a tiki Alexander Turnbull Library

2. Scene in New Zealand 1841 (After Merrett)

ink & pencil on white cart.

165 × 255 mm.

ATL Picture Collection A80/22

Accn. No: 76–158

Placed on Long term loan by Mr. W.N. Pharazyn, 1976

Inscriptions

Recto: (ink, R's hand) bottom centre

“Scene in New Zealand/ 1841.”

Verso: (pencil, R's hand) left side [←]

[sketch of ‘Pataka at Wairoa’ (Cat. No.215)]

3. Moko and Whakairo

w/c, ink & pencil on white cart.

172 × 264 mm.

ATL Picture Collection A 80/12

Inscriptions

Recto: (ink, R's hand) lower left

“Moko and Whakairo”

NB: This work shows a tohunga ta moko at work in front of a carved whare. A wakataua, elaborately carved, is also shown.

4. The Manchester Rifles

w/c & ink on white paper

image: 196 × 267 mm (sight)

support: 235 × 281 mm.

sign.: (red ink) lower left “H.G. Robley”

ATL Picture Collection A 80/21

Purchased from J. Travis, Wellington. 16/10/75

Inscriptions

Recto: (ink, R's hand) lower page

“The Manchester rifles on there (sic.) famious (sic.) march from the/ front [186-]”

Notes: “Possibly a reconstruction of an incident during the evacuation of Korarareka in 1845” [ATL Accession card.]

5. The Tohunga evokes a spirit

w/c on white paper

205 × 123 mm.

HBAGM Collection MMC 155

Presented by Lady McLean, Napier, 1930's

Inscriptions

Verso: (ink, R's hand) centre, inverse

“The Tohunga evokes a spirit.”

(ink, R's hand) lower left, inverse

“H.R.”

Note: This work is missing, but was probably conceived as an illustration to Maning's ‘Old New Zealand’.”

6. “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 152

6a. [Trade in Living Heads]

black w/c on paper

223 × 153 mm.

sign.: (w/c) lower left “H.G.Robley”

HBAGM Collection MMC 803

Presented by Lady McLean, Napier, 1930's

Inscriptions

Mt. Verso: (ink, R's hand) paper label; affixed, centre of page

“- circa 1820 -/ the Rev'd J.G. Wood, records this incident “one of my friends lately gave me a curious illustration of the trade in heads. His/ father wanted to purchase one, but did not/ approve of any that were brought for sale/ on the ground that the tattoo was poor and not a good example of the skill/ of the argument, and pointing/ to a number of his people who had come/ on board, he turned to the intending/ purchaser saying, Choose which of these/ heads you like best, and when you/ come back I will take care to have/ it dried and ready for your acceptance. H.G.R.”

6b. [Trade in Living Heads]

black w/c & ink on white paper

212 × 324 mm.

VUM Collection Fildes NZ Portfolio/ 2

Provenance: Fildes Collection. (see inscription.)

Inscriptions:

Mt. Verso: (pencil, Fildes' hand) upper centre

“Watercolour wash drawing/ by Major-General H.G. Robley, London/ illustrating “Offer of a living mokoed/ head for sale” see Moko p. 171.”

(pencil, Fildes' hand) lower left

“Received from General Robley/ 1922.”

6c. An Episode in the old days of head traffic

black w/c & ink on white cart.

256 × 335 mm.

NMNZ Collection FA 730

Purchased from the Artist by the NZ Govt, 1914. (10/-)

Inscriptions

Recto: (ink, R's hand) bottom

““The Chief pointed to a number of his people who had come on board, and said “which of these/ heads you like best, and when you come back, I will take care to have it dried & ready for you”/ narrative of the Revd J. G. Wood, the customer had not approved of any brought for sale -”

Verso: (ink, R's hand) lower centre

“An Episode in the old days/ or Head Traffic/ G. Robley.”

Notes: The trade in Mokamokai was officially banned by a Governor's Order from Sydney, in April, 1831.

Reproduction.

“Moko; or Maori Tattooing”. [Robley:1896] figure 152.

7. “Moko; or Maori Tattooing” figure 151

7a.