Sophie Hamer 301025629
Transcending Mortality: Polack and the Maori Cemetery.
Arch 274 Project 1 Part B
2
Image 1. Wai-tapu, or Cemetery
“Nations are more remarkable for the unqualified respect with which they honour the departed, in the ratio as they are sunk in barbarism.�1 - Joel Samuel Polack
1
J S Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders Volume 1 (Capper Reprint, 1976), 120
3
Introduction The presentation of Maori Cemeteries initially seems straightforward. They are a place for the burial of their dead. However, when presented with Maori Cemeteries we are invariably presented with tarnished accounts. At its core, this account, (which itself cannot not claim purity) will present a reconsideration of one such European account of Maori Cemeteries and the Maori relationship with their dead. The context in which Maori Cemeteries were born, or buried, is implicit in their representation. In the search for the most traditionally correct account we are asked to delve further back in time, but in doing so, find the period of colonisation. There was little or no written language in New Zealand before this time. Given that the major aim of the Europeans during the colonising period was to defeat the Maori, be it by killing the people, or by murdering their customs, this has significant impact on largely European recorded understandings of the importance of Maori Cemeteries. More specifically, this essay will consider how the architectural responses to death have been sculpted by cultural values. In the first instance, this sculpting is a result of Maori metaphysical beliefs, and practiced traditions. In the second instance, and the instance from which this essay takes its starting point, (in fact must, being another European account) the initial response is re-sculpted by the European vision of Joel Samuel Polack. “The manners and customs, habits and opinions, of the natives of New Zealand are speedily about to disappear,” opened Polack in The Manners and Customs of New Zealanders, 1940 2 . It was inherent, then, that his essay should include some discussion of the Maori relationship to death, to burial, and essentially, to how Polack envisioned this demise. His account grapples with a quest for a strange type of preservation, as if he might immortalise Maori practice through his words, and thus, they might be allowed to die out in reality. Polack further suggests that this ‘death’ of the Maori culture arises from their merging with European culture. It is, perhaps, the insistence of defining and understanding Maori culture in a European way, which Polack championed, that plays a key contributory role in this death. The cemetery is thus, in physical and spiritual terms, one of the least static of architectural spaces, and the most vulnerable. Ken Worpole, in his book Last Landscapes, writes that “the places of the dead are pivotal landscapes, where past and future values and beliefs are held in balance or negotiated (as such, the cemetery exerts a moral power within the wider culture).”3 The links between cultures, languages, architectures, and between life and death, will be examined thus.
2
J S Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders Volume 1 (Capper Reprint, 1976), 1 Ken Worpole, Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the West (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2003), 4 3
4
The Problem of Translation Two connected circumstances have caused a critical situation in Polack’s early accounts of New Zealand. The first and most important is Polack’s own culture and ethnicity, in contrast to that of which he describes. The second, related to this, is the growing importance and expected outcomes of the colonisation of New Zealand. Given these two circumstances, Polack’s claim of “matter over manner”4 in his accounts, while admirable, is perhaps ignorant and from the outset unachievable, not recognising that no manner in one culture, when imposed upon another, is just another kind of manner. An analysis of language is thus important. Polack’s account is a translation of Maori customs into an English written document. The transition from physically demonstrated customs to written demands some misdirection. However, it is the linguistic translation from Maori to English – particularly in a colonial status – which necessarily neglects a comprehensive cultural understanding in favour of a European understanding of the Maori culture. This problem of translation is evidenced as Polack presents the key chapter for this investigation, entitled “The Maori Cemetery, or Wai-Tapu.” In English, the word ‘cemetery’ denotes a place where the dead are buried. In Maori, the equivalent term given by Polack as Wai-Tapu5 has nothing to do with dead bodies, instead meaning “Waters made tapu/sacred by karakia/prayers, having cultural and spiritual significance.”6 The term ‘wai,’ translating to water, can literally mean a place of water, but can also connote travel and passage, as water was the major means for travel for the Maori people. Thus, the ‘or’ translation presented to us by Polack is already a re-appropriation and Europeanisation of the Maori culture. Given the context of translation and re-appropriation, Polack’s reference to barbarism becomes interesting. While undoubtedly referring to what he considers to be the ‘savageness’ of the Maori tribes, the term barbarism actually refers to an error in language use within a single word, which is more a descriptor of Polack than of the Maori.
4
J S Polack, Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837,Vol.I 1938 (New Zealand, Capper Reprint, 1974) 5 In some areas, the term ‘Urupa’ is used, meaning the land site of burial, thus bearing a much more direct translation to cemetery. The term ‘wai-tapu’ has been changed to ‘wahi-tapu’ in recent years. 6 Dictionary of the National Library of New Zealand, accessed at http://mshupoko.natlib.govt.nz/mshupoko/00002350.htm on 12/08/08.
5
The Maori Cemetery Polack does not outline a specific individual cemetery in his account. Rather, he embraces a number of practices and ideals under the one term – the Maori Cemetery. This could be in light of his presumed familiarity with the nineteenth century European Cemeteries, which apart from a few exceptions, could be described with a clear set of formal architectural, spiritual and geographic rules. However in this context, Polack’s decision sheds light not on the cohesion of the sample, but rather on the disparity and range apparent. This essay will follow this precedent, engaging more with the idea of Maori Cemetery, than the specifics of a single place. In line with this, Polack did not set out to see or collect data on Maori Cemetery. His meetings were chanced, and uncontrolled by him in terms of their length and style. Polack writes that he “passed an extensive grove containing a Wai-tapu. In this place was deposited the bones of a male and female chief of Kaipara.”7 Rather than state that this land is a wai-tapu, as in European tradition it would be stated that the land is a cemetery, Polack digs the wai-tapu into the ground, using the word containing. This also has a sense of a difference between the desirable and the undesirable, as in the phrase ‘contain the spill’ or ‘contain the situation.’ Polack also states, in very clinical, sterile terms, that “the bones of a male and a female” were “deposited”8. Here, he refuses to reference burial customs, and refuses to engage with the dead in the context of the living. Polack’s language reveals, rather than the Maori articulation of the cemetery, a very European perspective and manipulation. Using these terms Polack wanted the Maori cemetery to echo the European cemetery in burying the dead. According to Worpole there are three ways to dispose of the dead. One might “burn them, bury them, or build them a place of their own”9. So which of these does the Maori Cemetery fit into? Of that same cemetery that he passed, he wrote “The house which enclosed these remains of mortality was build of old canoes, that, having belonged to the deceased, were not allowed to be used after their death.”10 Where in English, he would describe that place of burial as a grave, coffin, or tomb, here he has given a “house” which “encloses”. Polack perhaps does begin to embrace a significant, different architectural response to death here. A house, which is generally understood as a place for living in, is gifted to the dead by this phrase.
7
J S Polack, Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837,Vol.I 1938 (New Zealand, Capper Reprint, 1974), 137 8 Ibid. 9 Ken Worpole, Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the West (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2003), 7 10 J S Polack, Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837,Vol.I 1938 (New Zealand, Capper Reprint, 1974), 138
6
Image 2. Wai-tapu by the River Hokianga
However, it seems that Polack misses the depth of importance in the use of canoes as building material. The canoes are not the building material simply because they can no longer be used as canoes, as they are under tapu – but precisely because they are canoes, a tool of travel, and will thus guide the dead onward. The canoe is transformed into a new stage of ‘life’ alongside its possessor. Furthermore, the placing of the canoe in an upright position and in the ground shows a change in directionality of the passage of the person. Where canoes once signalled horizontal motion across seas, they now signal a relationship between the higher beings, and a return to Papatuanuku and Ranginui. The importance of this interment of goods with the deceased can be seen through its appearance in other written accounts. In 1855 Richard Taylor wrote that “It is still usual to inter the property of the chief with him.”11 This shows the endurance of this tradition where others have evidently been lost, and that the tradition is discounted by the Europeans. What is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Polack’s Cemetery analysis comes not in the form of text, but his sketch of a Cemetery near the East Cape (Image 3.). This demonstrates a custom of lifting up the dead. This is achieved with a ‘floor’ being raised on four corner poles above the ground, creating a raised platform on which the body of the deceased rests. This is significant in a number of ways. Firstly, the body of the dead is raised above the realm of the living, not just spiritually, as in the belief systems of both Maori and European tradition, but physically. This creates a distance between life and death. However, it also physically honours the dead, placing them above and reminding the living people that they are below. The raised 11
Richard Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 1855
7 columns dictate the space in which living can occur, by pushing apart Ranginui and Papatuanuku, the sky father and earth mother of Maori mythology.
Image 3. Platform erected to the Remains of an Influential Chief near the East Cape
Polack focuses mainly on the burial of important chiefs, but a short insight into the burial of children can be seen as the other extreme, allowing an assumption for the whole tribe. He writes that “children are generally buried in old boxes, or between two pieces of a canoe, and placed securely among the branches of trees.”12 He goes on to say that adults are scraped clean and then “fixed on top of a stout pole.”13 Raising is common place, it seems. In addition to this, he writes that the dead are ‘buried’ “in an upright position.”14 The idea of being upright has a strength and life to it – both in regards to the building and the body – which is not seen in European cemeteries. It is in direct contrast to the ideas of returning the body to the ground. And yet, Polack seems unmoved.
12
J S Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders Volume 1 1940 (Capper Reprint, 1976), Chapter XI, 122 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid.
8
Image 4. The remnants of Upokia – a Chief of Wangari, lying in state.
His continuing description of this ‘house’ recalls it as “the shape of a large watchbox, with a shelving roof, slanting like a skilling, which it resembled. It was surmounted with a maihi, or frontispiece, which was decorated with feathers. The house was enclosed with a compact fence, on which was fastened, with wooden pegs, large pieces of canoe boards, with hieroglyphics denoting the tattooed marks on the body of the deceased.” 15 The comparison to a watch-box recalls one of only two other Maori structures which is built upwards off the ground, the other being the pataka, or food storage area, which is raised to stop food degenerating. The strangeness calls for this comparison. However, there are no walls. This perhaps means that privacy and protection is expected to come from the spiritual barrier of the tapu ground, not from a physical barrier of a wall. The tapu area is then enclosed by the fence.
Image 5. Typical Maori Pa (Village) with low, grounded buildings.
15
J S Polack, Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837,Vol.I 1938 (New Zealand, Capper Reprint, 1974), 138
9
The second point which Polack raises here is one of decoration. Evidently, like the majority of Maori structures, this cemetery was intricately carved and adorned. However, the term decoration is misleading. In Maori building, this decoration is in fact as important and as much a part of the use of the building as the structure. The same link might be made between the tattoos on the body, which can change and define the person. Here we see the result of how the “…union of the animate and inanimate…disturbs European distinctions between the primary authority of the body that breathes and speaks, and the secondary representations of that body...”16 Polack does not, and perhaps cannot, begin to grapple with these ideas. Furthermore, in Maoridom, all buildings are named for, and are actually considered to be ancestors. The buildings are thus entrenched with a sense of identity, identification, and a sense of place. A building is, as Sarah Treadwell points out, the embodiment of the ancestor, not a representation thereof. Treadwell takes this point even further, commenting that “the human body becomes building, thereby weakening the limits between the body and the world.” 17This weakening of limits plays an important role in terms of defining the limits, purposes, and architectural expressions of the Maori cemetery. Polack writes that “A strict tapu is thrown on any person who touches the body of a dead chief.” 18 Tapu denotes the sacred, and any object under tapu is thus taboo, forbidden to the touch or to sight. It is the link between the spiritual and physical worlds. In recording drawn images of Wai-tapu, Polack would have broken this tapu. Likewise, the person shown in Image 3 would likely have been inserted for the sake of scale, as he would not have been allowed in such proximity to the site. A similar tapu is placed on a building when it is under construction.19 There is, evidently, a tapu around things which are in a halfway stage between worlds of existence – birth and death. The tapu is reignited, as Polack notes that “frequently the house of a deceased person is prohibited from ever being again inhabited.”20 There is a distinct correlation between death and architecture. Not only, here, does the person die, but the house too, dies, or, at least, passes into a new era of ‘use’. The fact that tapu might be placed on a person, a place and a building breaks down the treatment barriers between ‘living’ and ‘object’ which European tradition imposes. Worpole notes, in reference to Western Cemeteries, that “one distinguishing feature of cemeteries historically has been their ‘gathered’ morphology”21 The Maori Cemetery might be seen to break this. Every individual cemetery described by Polack contains one or two bodies. While families may be buried together (so that they might pass into the next world together, or so that shared items may be buried 16
Sarah Treadwell,”Tracing the Grotesque: Angas and Kaitangata” published in Fabrications 11. (New Zealand: September 2001), 39 17 Ibid. 18 Polack 1976, page 125. 19 Michael Linzey, “Speaking to and Talking About” (Auckland: School of Architecture, Sept 1975), 4 20 Polack 1976, page 125. 21 Ken Worpole, Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the West (London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2003), 9
10 together, or so they might all be buried in their own house) there is no set ‘cemetery’ area in which everyone is buried. More often that not, each significant death will result in the construction of a new ‘cemetery’. This may account for the large degree of variation we see between burial areas as compared to European traditions. So what then, is the reality of the Maori Wai-tapu? Is there some way in which, despite Polack’s European vision, his early commentary might be re-interpreted in search of a non-language dependant, historic truth? The problem that a purist architectural analysis encounters here is that the Maori Wai-tapu was never going to have a specific, formal vision of a built form. Polack attempted to contain and specify it by squeezing the Wai-tapu under the terminology of ‘Maori Cemetery.’ But the deeper the understanding of such a place, the more the analysis proves that it does not exist. The Wai-tapu is more concerned with space than place, with space than time, with culture than custom, with life than death.22 The architectural response to death that we see as a built outcome of the Wai-tapu is greatly different to the European response, and also presents great variation within the Maori, as opposed to the relatively closed European options. The major cause of difference in the response can be attributed to the purposes each building has to fulfil. In European terms, a cemetery need only be a place in which we might deposit remains, hide them, and recall where they are at a later date. The ‘Maori cemetery’, in contrast, is a house for a dead person to inhabit, a passage to the next world. It is very clear here that the European cemetery is a place pragmatically designed for the living, while the Maori cemetery is purely pragmatically designed for the dead. Of course, this is simply a New Zealander’s sculpting of that same history. And to make the whole thing more confusing, Polack, despite his lack of engagement with the Maori Wai-tapu, does say that “The dead are probably more honoured in New Zealand than in any other part of the globe.”23 On this, there will be no further discussion.
22
Bill McKay, “Maori Architecture: Transforming Western Notions of Architecture” published in Fabrications 14, (New Zealand: Dec 2004),6 23 Polack 1976, page 22.
11
Reference List Primary Accounts: Polack, Joel Samuel. Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders Volume 1 .New Zealand: Capper Reprint, 1976 Polack, Joel Samuel. Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837,Vol.I 1938. New Zealand: Capper Reprint, 1974
Secondary Resources: Austin, M R. “A Description of the Maori Marae” published in Ekistics 39. New Zealand, May 1975 Linzey, Michael. “Speaking to and Talking about: Maori and European educated comportments towards Architecture,” paper presented in the school of architecture seminar series “Under Construction,” Sept 1975 McKay, Bill. “Maori Architecture: Transforming Western Notions of Architecture” published in Fabrications 14. New Zealand: December 2004. Richard Taylor, Te Ika a Maui, or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 1855 Treadwell, Sarah.”Tracing the Grotesque: Angas and Kaitangata” published in Fabrications 11. New Zealand: September 2001 Warpole, Ken. Last Landscapes: The Architecture of the Cemetery in the West. London: Reaktion Books Ltd, 2003. Dictionary of the National Library of New Zealand, accessed at http://mshupoko.natlib.govt.nz/mshupoko/00002350.htm on 12/08/08. All images are Joel Samuel Polack’s own work, as published in Polack, Joel Samuel. Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders Volume 1 New Zealand: Capper Reprint, 1976 and Polack, Joel Samuel. Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, During a Residence in that Country Between the Years 1831 and 1837,Vol.I 1938. New Zealand: Capper Reprint, 1974