Page 31 - Constructing Craft

rudimentary understanding of its significance. Māori traditions however, did survive

between the wars, particularly in rural areas, because Māori were aware that art
and craft were a vital element in the struggle to ensure that Māori culture survived.

Before the Second World War the responsibility for ensuring the survival of their arts

and crafts was left largely to Māori. To some extent, the establishment of a Māori
Arts and Crafts Board in 1926 helped this process. The legislation establishing the

Board was described as:

“An Act to Encourage the Dissemination of Knowledge of Maori
Arts and Crafts.” The duty of the Board is defined as “to foster
and encourage the study and practice of these arts and crafts,”
and in furtherance of its objects it is empowered to establish
schools of Maori art or other institutions; purchase, acquire, or
vend any carvings or other articles having distinctive Maori
characteristics, and take custody and control of native
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antiquities.

The act emphasised the traditional nature of art and craft but it did not establish a

rigid prescription for how its development should proceed. In 1927 the act provided
the Māori politician, Apirana Ngata (Ngāti Porou), with the means to assist the

establishment of the Māori School of Arts and Crafts in Rotorua. Māori had
originally been told to adapt to Pākehā ways, but by 1929 progressive leaders such

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as Ngata, basing their thinking on the theory of localised development as
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advocated by Gilbert Archey, the Director of the Auckland Institute Museum,
decided that the retention of traditional ways, including traditional crafts, was a more

appropriate way to advance Māoritanga socially and artistically. This encouraged a
resurgence of interest in traditional ways with an emphasis on regional difference.

But Ngata also realised that Māori craft needed to remain dynamic: ‘the time may

come when new designs will be evolved according to impulses of individual
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craftsmen.’ Ngata’s comment suggests he was aware of the changes Modernism
was having on European art and craft and felt Māori craftspeople needed to be
aware also.

Pākehā tended to mythologize Māori culture, creating a philosophical conundrum
for Māori and Pākehā. Barbara Brookes, in an essay on the controversy over a

school booklet published in 1964 called Washday at the Pa, suggested that: ‘Māori

Constructing Craft