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 "The
Moko is by no means a fashion accessory." Pouroto Ngaropo
"You should be happy to have a tribute to your country and your people" spokesperson for fashion designer Thierry Mugler From Once Were Warriors to once was in a boy band: Robbie
Williams has recently had a Maori design tattooed on his arm; Hans Neleman’s photo-essay Moko – Maori Tattoo, documenting ta moko
has been shown at the Holland Festival, received glowing reviews in
graphic design-bible
Graphis, and been spotlighted at "bookshop to the stars"
Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard; soccer demi-god Eric Cantona appeared on the
cover of British style mag GQ face-painted with a moko; Designer
Thierry Mugler used masks inspired by moko to launch his spring/summer
collection; an ad for Poloroid cameras features an archetypal boyfriend-your-parents-were-
afraid-of adorned with an imitation moko; explored in National
Geographic; Discovery Channel features moko in its 'Human Canvas' special; Paco
Rabanne's Spring 1998 collection featured two models wearing metal
outfits echoing the stylised moko of the film Once Were Warriors;
you might want to add the Adidas All Black haka commercial winning ad of
the year in Italy; the Spice Girls’ ill-advised attempt at performing a
haka; The Washington Post's and USA Today’sprofiling of the Maori Culture
website
in their recent web highlights section … What this survey of the impact of ta moko and Maori culture on world
media demonstrates is that Maori designs are hot; that Maori culture is
achieving strong currency beyond the shores of Aotearoa. As John Tamihere
says "Worldwide indigenous shares are skyrocketing." For moko to
be classified as ‘fashionable’ or ‘hot’ raises difficult and
complex questions concerning racial politics, diplomacy, emotions and
export. It concerns globalisation, postcolonialism, the history, and the
future of an edge society. |
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The liberal view, a sort of a post-modern global village aesthetic, sees the exposure, when done sensitively, as positive - promoting a specifically Maori/New Zealand cultural and economic edge onto the world stage. Taking te Maori to the world. Maori traditionalists, on the other hand, concerned about ownership of intellectual property, are insulted at having their iconography plundered, especially topped off with lavish plummed headresses and incongruous penile sheaths in a show of unwearable catwalk silliness. Former Te Tai Hauauru MP Tukoroirangi Morgan (ironically no stranger to high-fashion consumption himself) took offence at the inspiration French fashion designers have found in moko "The French are just rude and ignorant and they come as no surprise given the history of French and Polynesian people," he said, linking nuclear tests with "treading on our traditional ta moko". A spokesman for Thierry Mugler said the designer thinks Maori "should be happy to have a tribute to your country and your people". Victoria University Maori studies head Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, explains it as an offshoot of a mix and match consumer culture, postulating that bored people in the northern hemisphere were increasingly turning to indigenous symbols and cultural property to enhance their lives. "By taking our arts they claim to celebrate our genius. I assume we are supposed to feel flattered." Claiming that the appropriation of the designs displayed insensitivity and lack of understanding of Maori culture and the moko's significance, Tangata Records head and Maori MP, Willie Jackson: "Who is this dude Rabanne? I'm just getting tired of it. People with no understanding using bits of our culture as it suits them without having any knowledge of us." However current Maori MP John Tamihere says the idea of European
designers taking Maori culture to the world stage was wonderful and
"not an insensitive act at all". In his maiden speech
to parliament Tamihere urged
Maori and New Zealand to take advantage of a cluttered global village and
the knowledge revolution to stake our point of difference and assert the
product marketing and branding strength of Maori culture. Tamihere locates
Maori culture as an integral part of edge identity, asserting that Pacific design,
definition and points of differentiation will ensure that Kiwi
"... goods, services and products are highly priced, niche marketed,
value added and highly sought after … this is all about releasing
potential and we must acknowledge that the world-wide indigenous shares are
sky rocketing. Take advantage of this as a nation." This is a vision
with resonance: although Fred
Dagg has a certain basic appeal there is nothing like the diverse
variety of colour, tradition, and sheer life of a Pacific edge New Zealand
to build on the fleeting, but binding and intense pride evoked by the All Black
Haka. |
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There are instances of appropriation where edges are blurred: Robbie Williams’ tattoo was done by a Maori artist, Te Rangitu Netana; the All Black Haka, in the adidas commercial (see above) is a performance that briefly infuses a nation with a bi-cultural buzz. Maybe Eric Cantona can be forgiven because he is … well, Eric Cantona, even if Eva Rickard didn’t feel she had earned the mana (respect and authority) to wear the genuine article until a year before her death. But other examples, such as the Spice Girls naïve performance of the Haka are more obviously insulting to Maori. The current global profile surrounding ta moko is a by-product of a Maori cultural renaissance in general, embracing the arts, land rights and indigenous spirituality. Since the 1980s, the ancient art of ta moko, almost lost as Pakeha missionaries and colonial governments frowned upon the practice, has being undergoing a rebirth, using modern machines as well as the bone chisel. Today, preserved through oral history, historical research, the paintings of European artists such as Lindauer and Charles Goldie, the practice lives in its various forms on hundreds of people, men and women of all ages and walks of life, from corporates to high-school kids to grandmothers. For most it is a way of "demanding identity" and connecting them to tribal affiliations and family lines. A cultural and political statement: a way of wearing culture on your face in the same way as a members of different tribes wear a kilt or a hemp suit on their body. Pouroto Ngaropo explains his moko: "Not everyone can wear one. I had to get permission from the elders in my clan. And I prayed to my ancestral spirits to grant me the strength to wear a Moko. Every moko is unique to the wearer. In my case every line tells a story. My moko reflects 480 years of my ancestral line. The four lines drawn from my nose symbolise the four canoes that came to Aotearoa. The two circles on the sides depict my father's and mother's family histories. The lines connect me with my clans, tribal dwellings, canoes and tribes, to the knowledge of nature and to the eternal significance of our culture." The use of the designs raise questions of intellectual property and, as
Tamihere is right to highlight, control over profit from the property.
Perhaps an example of how the issues of ta moko can be handled in a
sensitive manner is respected New York-based Dutch photographer Hans
Neleman's photo-essay, Moko - Maori Tattoo. The book has received widespread exhibition and
acclaim, including the Image Bank Award For Visual Excellence, and the
project was internationally sponsored by Eastman Kodak; Duggal Labs,
Hasselblad, Sinar, and Bron Elektronik AG in Switzerland, as well as a
considerable amount of Neleman’s own resource. Neleman photographed 60
Maori with full-face moko, divided into three sections, gang-related
tattoo, traditional ta moko, and the rastafarian interpretation of ta
moko. The book recieved international attention - Design journal Graphis : "The book’s 72 portraits form
a compelling, haunting, vulnerable, frightened, beautiful, defiant
mix." |
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"I wanted to take pictures of proud people," says Neleman. "It was a conscious decision not to make trite images, not to create images that could in any way hurt them." Neleman had been intrigued by Inia Taylor's stylised facial tattoos in the film Once Were Warriors and after being invited to New Zealand to lecture, decided to try to photograph ta moko. After two years of research in close consultation with Pita Turei, and Tame Iti, among others, and through initial resistance, huis (meetings) and other difficulties, including travelling for two days to find one subject, he completed the project in 1999. Taylor explains a Maori point of view: "Westerners come along with this attitude: ‘why don’t you want to show this to us? We can make a beautiful book!’ And we’re sitting back thinking: whoopdee-fucking-do, we don’t want to sit on anybody’s coffee table! We want to keep our culture to ourselves." The book was dedicated to repatriation of mokomokai (the severed tattooed heads kept in museums such as New York’s Museum of Natural History) and Neleman decided that all profits from the book would be donated to benefit Maori ta moko. "Ta moko exposes more than the revival of a tradition- it reveals the beauty of Maori past and the promise of Maori future," Certainly, for whatever motivation, commercial or curious, exotic or empathetic, the world is interested in ta moko. Its profile raises complex cultural issues, about ta moko and the wider place of maori culture ‘on the edge’. As Neleman demonstrates there are ways to negotiate these issues sensitively (though even Moko - Maori Tattoo has left a mixed aftertaste). As John Tamihere points out Maori culture constitutes a distinctive part of our ‘edge’ identity. Whether you take the stance as Tamihere takes – that it is a challenge to: "grab the tiller and fashion the good ship New Zealand and ride as we know our gene pool can do through the vagaries of the uncharted, unmapped and unknown global impacts. Let the good ship New Zealand be the ship that embraces change, that tolerates diversity, that defeats adversity." Or instead take a position like that which Inia Taylor explains, asserting cultural privacy - what the leaking, taking, giving of the ta moko on the world stage signifies is an interest in an important part of edge culture. How the dialogue between the edge and centre is negotiated and the questions it evokes are important ones. Whether etched in place as symbol of mana or ephemerally painted on a model’s face on a catwalk, what becomes of the kaupapa/meaning of the moko is an edge challenge: "No one has a monopoly on our unending story of nationhood; no one has the manual for our nationhood." (Tamihere) (It is the living face, it is the living face) AUGUST 2000 Update (April
2002): |
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In 2001 prominent campaigner for the recognition of Maori intellectual property, lawyer Maui Solomon, successfully sued Lego over its right to use Polynesian names in a new game called Bionicle, resulting in an acknowledgement from the Danish toy-makers that: "Future launches of Bionicle sets will not incorporate names from any original culture," and a concession that "The Lego company will seek to develop a code of conduct for cultural expressions of traditional knowledge." The re-branding of British TV channel BBC One in April 2002 featured, among a variety of culturally diverse dance scenes, a team of Welsh rugby players performing a haka led by Maori player, Joe Hutley, of Ngati Porou and Rongowhakaata descent. Solomon comments that: "it was ironic that the BBC - 'an icon of colonialism' - should choose the haka to promote itself [...] the Western culture, having all their own stories, are starting to mine indigenous stories for their appeal. That's what I find objectionable - if they're just taking it for granted, if they're not acknowledging the guardians of that knowledge and that culture." In his defence Hutley argues that he has the right to teach his culture to anyone, responding that he agreed to do the haka segment provided the performers, producer and director understood the cultural and spiritual significance of the haka. "We're not doing anything derogatory towards Maori culture. I refuse to get to the point where you have to go and ask someone. I'm just as entitled to it as the next person – as long as it's done correctly," Rejecting the criticism, he said the 10 English performers (along with three fellow New Zealanders) in the haka had been taught the proper protocol and "did a better haka than most New Zealanders". This performance follows on from a 2001 British TVC for Bass Breweries' alcopop fruit drink Reef showing eight women of various nationalities clad in bikinis and sarongs doing the actions to a haka. The ad was withdrawn due to hundreds of complaints recieved by Britain's Independent Television Commission, (including from the New Zealand High Commission), though haka specialist Pita Sharples wasn't so sure about the offence caused by the use of haka in the Reef advertisement: "If they had bastardised a particular haka or had done it badly or used it in an embarrassing situation then I would be upset. But the way it's been done it's like a feather in the cap in some ways because ... we can say it originates from Maori culture." A restaurant in the Netherlands has rebranded itself using the name 'moko; with associated imagery based around the concept of 'face taste'. Their website features an elegantly designed (but simplistically offensive?) page complete with simulated tattoo ink running the down the face of a "buttery looking Dutch blonde". Again stirring front-page reaction in New Zealand media. Out-speaking the outspoken, Winston Peters questions the sensitivity of some Maori reaction, claiming that, "you can't copyright an entire culture". And ta moko finds its way into an institution that might have been described as another icon of colonialism: the museum. The Skin Deep exhibition is showing at Britain's National Maritime Museum from 22nd March 30th September 2002. A historical survey, It traces the development and diversity of tattoo over the last two hundred years and "its growth as a statement of fashion and identity throughout today's society". Featuring the work of "personal engraver to the stars" Te Rangitu Netana, the exhibition has attracted notice in the UK press - from the knowing and smooth: "a retrospective of fleshy couture" (from the New Statesman review) - to post-colonial sensitivity in The Times: "a short film made in New Zealand reveals how these native cultures are now reclaiming the designs that were so long repressed: fairs and festivals are devoted to the art, and there’s even a return to the use of the traditional hammer and chisel." .... Ko Mataora .... |
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PAUL WARD |
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