Just a Material Girl

Attending a conference for Conservators of Cultural Materials, Tauranga Historic Village 

ERCO tote

Even the promotional material on offer at the 2024 conference of NZCCM - https://nzccm.org.nz/ - was something of a revelation to one of the newest members of the society (me).  ERCO, one of the sponsors for the conference, offered, in a high-quality and stylish tote bag, two equally stylish, impeccably designed magazine-type pamphlets intended to describe “the encounter between artwork and collector… a special moment that deserves qualitative, individual light…” 

The intensity so often present in GLAM [1] sector language was, refreshingly, not often used in the papers put forward over the following two days.  Nevertheless, the underlying commitment and concerns expressed by those describing their own encounters with items as various as a silk embroidery of Queen Alexandra, the dendroglyphs on Rēkohu (Chatham Island), whāriki (fine woven mats) recovered after the devastating Cyclone Gabrielle flood at Rangatira Marae [2], and the sailing vessel Edwin Fox, “a large – very large – composite object” stood alongside the practical realities and continual compromises needed to solve problems, do no (or as little as possible) harm, and – invariably – find ways to pay.

Putting a price on the survival of cultural objects is, of course, the most materialistic attitude of all.  However agonising it is when matters are taken away from human agency – as when the expected protection of a shipping container storing harakeke raranga and other taonga proved inadequate to meet the fury of Cyclone Gabrielle (“Swept away – now on its way to China” co-presenter Dr Rangi Te Kanawa was told) – it seems even worse when the costs of preservation are deemed to be too much for the owner to bear.  No doubt this is a factor explaining the abiding popularity of the TV programme, The Repair Shop, where small items of immense sentimental value are lovingly re-created - apparently at no cost - to a condition that satisfies (we only ever see the success stories, of course) the owner.

In a stimulating juxtaposition of engineering and conservation, Dr Kepa Morgan offered his Mauri-ometer [3], “a useful alternative to other decision support tools including cost benefit analysis” to attempt to establish the value of, well, almost anything that has ecosystem, cultural, community and economic dimensions – characteristics of most memory institutions, often vexingly considered only for their economic viability.

Compared with the coyness within the Repair Shop barn, money is often front-of-mind in the Baumgartner Fine Art Restoration studio, based in Chicago.  American respect for paying for the best (expertise as well as artwork) is a consistent and often overt aspect of Julian Baumgartner’s practice.  But not this time.  As is evident in his video [4], this overlooked artifact seems to have been an uncosted part of a job lot – the memories associated with it as faded as the object itself.

Baumgartner still shot

 “We don’t own them – we merely care for them, for the next generation,” Julian muses as he prepares to unveil what museum-trained conservators might regard as a rather over-done exhibit.  (You will have to watch the video for the full before-and-after effect.)  But the dawning delight of the inheritor of Aunt Vi’s framed wedding photograph, and the plausible possibility that the framing workshop made this as a one-off, special tribute to her, are important elements of what we here in Aotearoa would call the mauri of this object.

The NZCCM conference offered some rather more low-key, local insights into “the complex reality of private conservation practice” from two practitioners, one at the start of her career, the other heading her own business, Heritage Preservation and Field Support Solutions [5] (the name says a lot), based in Taranaki.  The talk was headlined, “Balancing Ethics and Efficiency” – two poles of a useful continuum that might assist in the still-not-quite-settled debate on the Tauranga Museum project.  The Mauri-ometer, of course, introduces a few other factors.

Friends of the Museum newsletter front page

For a very long time now, the Tauranga Heritage Collection has had only very limited exposure on the cultural and community fronts.  Kept in strictly regulated storage conditions, conservation efforts limited to gentle cleaning with de-ionised water and cotton swabs (and only on some items), reliant on conservation assessments by trained professionals in selecting and preparing objects for eventual exhibition, challenges await these artifacts.  Mostly they are best preserved by being left cold and in the dark.  Hardly conducive to a joyous, special encounter in a carefully chosen quality of light.

Silk top hat and cotton lace collar from Brain Watkins House

Like the one-time Edwin Fox Society [6], (and, since 2023, the Marlborough District Council [7]) the Tauranga Historical Society has its own large, composite object to care for.  Brain Watkins House is both beloved and unique, and complex and expensive to maintain.  (It might be fun to assess it against the Mauri-ometer.)  Even the two very small objects pictured above carry their own mauri.  The collar, showing few signs of wear, will now never be put to its purpose of adorning a blouse for a special occasion.  The silk hat undoubtedly went on the imposing head of the respected shipbuilder and stoneworker Joseph Brain, but will never be worn again.  As a result of the NZCCM conference, I am left to ponder whether, even though they are cherished as collection items, the joy has left them.

References

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[1] Acronym for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums – also sometimes called “memory institutions”.

[2] For a fuller account (and illustrated) of the catastrophic effects of, and community response to,  Cyclone Gabrielle at the Rangatira Marae, see Jamie Tahana, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/cyclone-gabrielle-rangatira-marae-whanau-salvaging-precious-taonga/UHIJC4PLMZBG5GF4DFT4BA72NA/

[3] http://mauriometer.org/

[4] Baumgartner, J. “Wither [sic or (maybe) pun intended] the Heirloom?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Fr7YGpvXw

[5] https://www.facebook.com/artefactpreservation/

[6] Dissolved on 11 November 2015: see https://app.businessregisters.govt.nz/sber-businesses/viewInstance/view.html?id=229a78e05307b6d8bf1b29667f00cb17e52c69c2a77717ac&_timestamp=576264963864127

[7] https://www.marlborough.govt.nz/your-council/latest-news-notices-and-media-releases/media-releases?item=id:2l4sqafer1cxbylqhyy8

History of Karewa Island - Part 2

The Tuatara Collectors
(contd from Part 1)

Karewa Island is a pest free wildlife sanctuary, administered by the Department of Conservation. Inhabited by fur seals, tītī (mutton birds) and other seafaring birds. It is also the home of tuatara (Hatteria punctata).  For Tauranga’s iwi, the island was an important, traditional harvesting place for tītī, paua and koura (crayfish). Karewa’s tuatara were, and remain, creatures of great cultural significance for Tauranga Māori. Viewed variously as mythological ancestors and kaitiaki or guardians of knowledge, misfortune, calamities and death might also be attributed to tuatara, which during the 1800s, often horrified the Māori who saw them.¹

Departing Tauranga for the Bay of Islands on the little schooner Glatton in March 1838, the missionary William Wade said of tuatara:

The island Karewa, off Tauranga, is said to swarm with them. Although perfectly harmless, the lizard is held in great abhorrence by the New Zealanders, who say it is the form or resemblance of Wiro, the evil Spirit.²

Karewa, as seen by voyagers approaching the Island and Tauranga from the north-east

Karewa’s tuatara were frequently collected by visiting overseas scientists as specimens for study, and for exhibition in public and private museums, and zoos. As noted in Part One, German naturalist Ernest Dieffenbach failed to personally obtain a tuatara from the island due to bad weather in June 1841. He eventually acquired a specimen in Auckland, originally obtained from Karewa by Rev James Stack who was based at the Te Papa mission station.³ Dieffenbach later gifted the ‘Tuatera’ to the British Museum, though whether alive or dead is not clear.

Twenty tuatara were taken to Europe by the German geologist Julius Von Haast, who, along with fellow geologist Ferdinand Von Hochstetter, visited Tauranga in May 1859. All are believed to have been taken from Karewa Island, and all survived the homeward voyage. Six were presented to the King of Belgium and fourteen placed in the Berlin and Vienna Zoological Gardens.⁴

Ferdinand Von Hochstetter

In 1873, Tauranga resident and colonial soldier Gilbert Mair sent two tuatara from Karewa to the British Museum, though sending them by post was not without its risks.⁵ In 1868, Major St John of the 1^st Waikato Regiment reported from a sunny hillside overlooking Tauranga harbour.

Lying lazily on the clover covered ground, and well shaded by a big "rimu," we had a perfect panorama before us. Tauranga harbour and the coast line, northward and southward for many miles could be all taken in at almost one glance; and out at sea rose several islands: the Great Barrier, a mountainous mass; Motiti, or Flat Island; and, nearest of all, Karewa, a rocky islet abounding in obsidian, and the home of a peculiar lizard, something like a small iguana. They are not handsome beasts these lizards, but they are pretty tenacious of life. One was sent a long distance by post, and arrived safe at his journey's end; another, I was assured, had eaten nothing for three weeks, and I was invited to go and look at it; in this case however, the fast had proved too protracted, and, when the box was opened, the brute was as dead as Julius Caesar.⁶

Major John Henry Herbert St John of the 1st Waikato Regiment

Andreas Reischek, an Austrian taxidermist, naturalist, ornithologist and collector, undertook extensive collecting expeditions throughout New Zealand. He was also notorious for robbing Māori graves and the treasures of their occupants during his expeditions. Living in New Zealand from 1877 to 1889, the specimens of fauna and flora that he collected for New Zealand and overseas museums and private collections included tuatara, on which he reported:

On all the larger islands they live principally on insectivorous foods, such as beetles, grubs, wetas, grasshoppers, flies, etc., which I found on dissecting. I think where such food — which they prefer even in confinement — is plentiful, they will not prey on birds.

But on my visit to Karewa Island, at the beginning of 1885, I saw many young birds with their heads off, and I followed one of these lizards with a bird of considerable size in its mouth, which tried to escape in a burrow, but got stuck at the entrance. They catch the bird by its head, and then chew until it is devoured. My opinion is that, as this island is small, and these lizards so numerous, this is the reason they prey upon birds.

On December 10, the boatman informed me that we should have to leave these islands, as bad weather was expected. I left unwillingly, for time had been all too short.⁷

Andreas Reischek

Māori were not alone in finding tuatara strange and sinister creatures. In May 1876, the Evening Post recorded considerable public interest in thirteen recently acquired living tuatara at Wellington’s Colonial Museum:

Some were almost two feet in length, described as ‘having an exceedingly sinister aspect, strongly resembling crocodiles with spiky backs and extensive smiles. However, they are quite harmless and very gentle, the thirteen living peacefully together; quite a happy family amongst their artificial rockwork, grazing pastorally on the worms, with which they are liberally supplied.’ People were startled by their sudden movement after seeing them completely motionless.⁸

While safe from the introduced pigs and ships’ rats that killed off their mainland relatives, Karewa’s tuatara were regularly captured by well-meaning locals and amateur naturalists.

Two specimens taken from the Island were donated to the Auckland Institute by H. T. Clarke, almost certainly Henry Tacey Clarke (1825-1902), the son of missionary George Clarke. Henry ‘served in the military, spoke fluent Maori, was a registered interpreter, a Native Land Court Judge, and Commissioner of Tauranga’.⁹ The anonymous writer, who contributed an article titled ‘A North Island Trip’ in the Cromwell Argus in 1880, mentioned that in 1873 he had visited Karewa Island, ‘home of the giant lizard,’ to obtain specimens.¹⁰

Tuatara were also taken from Karewa by some of Tauranga’s early European settlers, who kept them as novel garden pets and conversation pieces - sometime held  in place with a light chain around their necks.¹¹ As late as 1908, the New Zealand Herald reported how a Mr G. Norris, who had kept ‘a large collection of these strange pets’ at Tauranga had moved to Dunedin taking some of his tuatara with him.  Mr Norris ‘stated that he had kept tuataras ever since he could remember and had so many in his possession at one time, that he was in a position to speak with some authority about their habits’.¹²

Sketched by J. Ernest Tinne, an English tourist at an unidentified location in 1873, these tuatara have been chained in place in a garden

In January 1914, the Herald reported on another ‘gentleman at Tauranga [who] has had a number of tuatara in his garden for many years, brought from Karewa’.¹³ An Auckland naturalist once took 12 tuatara from Karewa Island, for study and as pets for his Ponsonby garden. They caused a short lived, local sensation one morning in March 1887, when they were seen and reported by a panic-stricken milkman who mistook them for snakes.¹⁴

 

In 1895, tuatara were protected by law, one of New Zealand’s first native species to be so safeguarded, but they were still poached and continue to be poached for private collections.¹⁵ Today, Karewa’s predator free 3.5 hectares are administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC) in close co-operation with Tauranga tangata whenua, who own the island. In recognition of its important cultural values and status as a pest free wildlife sanctuary, landing on the island is prohibited without a DOC permit. Additionally, access is by boat and visitors must be accompanied by DOC staff after going through biosecurity checks.¹⁶

A Karewa Island tuatara from Andreas Reischeck’s book Yesterdays in Maoriland

References

 

¹ Thomson, Arthur, The Story of New Zealand, Vol 1, John Murray, London, 1859: 29. Best Elsdon, Maori Religion and Mythology, Part 1, Wellington, Government Printer, 1982: 460.

² Wade, William, Journey in the North Island of New Zealand, George Rolwegan, Hobart, 1842: 178.

³ Von Hochstetter, Ferdinand, New Zealand: Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History, J.G. Cotta, Stuttgart, 1867: 442.

⁴ Bay of Plenty Times, 4 May 1936: 2.

⁵ Tinne, J; The Wonderland of the Antipodes, Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, London, 1873: 84.

⁶ St John, J.H.H. Pakeha Rambles in Maori Lands, Robert Burrett, Wellington, 1873: 123.

⁷ Andreas Reischek, Yesterdays In Maoriland: New Zealand in the Eighties, Wilson and Horton, Auckland, 1930: 100.

⁸ Evening Post, 12 May 1876: 2.

⁹ Edwards, Vivien, A Dinosaur From Karewa, Friday, 18 October 2021, Tauranga Historical Society

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Tinne, 1873: 84.

¹² New Zealand Herald, 11 November 1908: 5.

¹³ Ibid: 31 January 1914: 1.

¹⁴ Auckland Star, 1 March 1887: 3.

^{15 Tuatara: New Zealand reptiles DOC. https://www.doc.govt.nz › nature › reptiles-and-frogs}

¹⁶  Site 68. Karewa Island Risk Ranking, https ://www.boprc.govt.nz › media › karewa

Images

Sladden Bernard, 1879-1961, Karewa Island, Ms 33/5/84, photographic collection, Pae Koroki, Tauranga City Libraries.

Photographer unknown, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, circa. 1865, Website Naturhistorisches, Museum, Wien, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_von_Hochstetter

Photographer unknown. Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Herbert St John. Ref: 1/2-028459-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Photographer unknown, Andreas Reischeck, 1902, Wikipedia, http://wikipedia.org/wiji/andreasreischek

Tinne, J; The Wonderland of the Antipodes, Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, London, 1873: 84.

Reischek, Andreas, Yesterdays In Maoriland: New Zealand in the Eighties, Wilson and Horton, Auckland, 1930: 100.