Interview: Philippa F Graham talks about South Island Māori Rock Art

Philippa Flower Graham is a Christchurch-born writer who has lived all her married life in South Canterbury, near Māori rock art sites. After graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in history and geography, she served for over two decades on the South Canterbury Committee of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, including many years as chairperson. Her professional career as a contract librarian has included time with the National Archives, the Royal Police College, Te Waka Toi Māori, now a branch of the Ministry of Heritage and Culture, the Canterbury Public Library and the Open Polytechnic, Lower Hutt. In addition to contributing to the Timaru Herald and The School Journal, she has written two entries in the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography. Philippa talks to NZ Booklovers.

Tell us a little about South Island Māori Rock Art.

Māori rock art is mostly found in the limestone areas of South Canterbury and similar areas of Otago near the inland towns of Duntroon, Takiroa and Kakanui. The Weka Pass site is north of Christchurch. 

Early tribes who possibly drew the motifs were the Waitaha and Ngati Mamoe, who settled in the South Island before the North Island Kia Tahu tribe occupied most of the South Island in the 1700s by warfare and intermarriage.

Early Māori also drew on greywacke shelters in the Waitaki Gorge. As random small drawings in Otago areas are found on schist, sandstone and other rock types, Māori obviously enjoyed drawing. Animals such as their dogs, motifs of hunted and observed fish, birds, moa and extinct eagles are found.  Three complex South Canterbury Opihi taniwha, along with possible monsters, can be seen. There is one very long Miro-type drawing on a farm.  Frog-like human motifs are featured, with or without body blanks (empty centres). Some drawings may have depicted landmarks, group scenes, and mythological beings from Māori legends. Rare incised motifs, including spirals, are recorded. Red ochre paint was used for many drawings; it was carried in paua shells, ground and mixed with animal or bird oil, then painted onto the shelter’s surface. Charcoal predominated as fires provided sticks for finer lines on grainy limestone.  Viewers today find Māori rock drawings faint and lacking the colours evident in, for example, Australian Aboriginal art, which had access to a wide selection of colourful minerals.

What inspired you to write this book?

Some time ago, an Otago Museum gallery featured a row of dusty rock drawing slabs in framed concrete. Their original sources were unknown. But the Hocken Library, Dunedin,  held a large collection of Mr Elmore's tracings and a few of his photographs. I realised that these held the key to their sources and more. In the 1970s, I had joined the local Historic Places Trust Regional Committee, comprising interesting, knowledgeable South Canterbury people. We successfully continued a fencing programme (begun in the 1960s by the local committee), working with the local Lands and Survey Department (L&S), which merged into the Department of Conservation (DOC)  in the 1980s.  Fencing was funded by the Historic Places Trust (NZHPT).  

As a local South Canterbury farmer, I spent many years exploring and checking the sites with the farmers' permission, often with offspring, field staff from the Department of Lands and Survey and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, museum curators, and archaeological monitors. I guided schools and interested people, including overseas visitors, especially local Māori, around some of the accessible sites. Familiarity with so many sites gave me the advantage of knowing many of them. location, the conditions and subject matter. Little had been written about the history of these fascinating sites since Michael Trotter and Beverley McCulloch’s popular 1971 publication, Prehistoric Rock Art of New Zealand and Michael Dunn’s smaller book, Maori Rock Art.

I wrote a few newspaper articles for the local newspaper;  a School Journal article was accepted, and two articles were requested by the editor of the new NZHPT Historic Places in New Zealand magazine. Two entries were accepted for the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography volume 1. In 2002 I completed the Fiction Writing Course tutored by Owen Marshall at the Aoraki Polytechnic. 

In 2004, I applied successfully for research funds from the Canterbury Historical Foundation to write a book. Other small grants emerged. I knew a first-class editor. Māori had a formidable oral tradition but were then ignorant of the numerous European written records and databases about Māori rock drawings found in New Zealand institutions. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT), now Heritage New Zealand, for example, held a library containing a wealth of detailed Māori rock drawing files and correspondence.  Here was some fresh material to use, and the Arowhenua upoko to advise and correct me on cultural Māori details. 

What research was involved?

A preliminary meeting in 2004 was held with local Māori iwi representatives involved, including the Māori Rock Art Project advisory manager, to explain my project and gain their support. Having completed a Bachelor of Arts (1970)  majoring in History and Geography and a Diploma of Librarianship (1989) in Wellington, I had some basic knowledge of research sources. The first visit was to the Auckland War Memorial Museum. One librarian came from  Maungati, South Canterbury, an area of important Māori rock drawings. Surprisingly, the Otago Museum’s 1915-1918 correspondence concerning the cutting out of rock art slabs had been sent to this museum. The Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa, provided excellent photographic records and fresh correspondence concerning their past curator, Thompson. The Alexander Turnbull Library was followed by, for example, the New Zealand Archives, local museums, the Canterbury and Otago Museums, the Gore Art Gallery, the University of Auckland Libraries, the New Zealand Archive of Film, TV & Sound, and online Papers Past. The Heritage Library held detailed files on Māori Rock Art Shelters and photographs.  There were many other museums to check, particularly the Dunedin Hocken Collections. To complete my art chapter, I contacted most New Zealand civic art galleries and holders of relevant collections. Copyright entailed approaching many people associated with artists or sources of illustrations or reproduced text.

Overseas travel to the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, was necessary, as the artist who extracted many Māori rock drawings had sold numerous paintings of them to the Museum. They discovered one little smuggled shark slab from Maerewhenua Otago in a Ku Ringi Gai National Park slab, Sydney collection. I visited the British and Pitt Rivers Museums in England but found little relevant material.

What was your routine or process when writing this book?

My work pattern was quite irregular.  To defray constant expenses for illustrations and my editor’s time, I looked after student homestays for some years and loved having them. I usually worked in the mornings or in the evenings. Gradually the chapters fell into place, and by 2018 the book was ready for publication (the publisher was Canterbury Museum), having been indexed but needing minor corrections. The excellent project manager left, and COVID curtailed any further corrections to the book by the editor or the author. After COVID, I had fresh material to include;  the editor resumed corrections but was committed to completing other publications. The museum realised that macrons were needed for certain Māori words. Then the Canterbury Museum closed in 2023 for major earthquake strengthening and upgrading, but even so, the book was completed at last. 

If a soundtrack were made to accompany this book, name a song or two you would include?

Ka kitea

Ka kitea ki te tonga
Ko tāku raukura he iti kahurangi e
Papaki
Papaki kau ana ki runga te maunga
Aoraki e koro e
Tū ana
Tū ana ki te Rangi heke ana ki te Papa
Ko tāku tūranga e
Ko te Wai
Ko Te Waipounamu
Ko Tahu Pōtiki
Tāku tupuna e

As I look to the south
To my plume
My precious jewel
Blow gently on the mountain
Aoraki, my koro

Up to the heavens
Down to the earth
This is where I stand
This is Te Waipounamu
Tahu Potiki is my ancestor.

What do you hope readers will take away from reading your book?

An appreciation of the Māori Rock Art, the background history of the museums and their curators, some knowledge of the photographs,  sketches,  drawings and written  records, the local people, landowners and how the local iwi have successfully presented their rohe (area of responsibility) to all age groups. Final sections about the use of rock art motifs include commercial items, exhibitions and institutions.  The last chapter of South Island Māori Rock Art concludes with a chapter focusing on New Zealand artists who have been inspired by the rock drawings. There are 413 illustrations and maps, an index,  a Māori glossary, and two poems by Rangi Faith, as both general and academic readers are kept in mind. 

What did you enjoy the most about writing South Island Māori Rock Art?

Meeting people, especially artists and widows of mostly Māori artists. A few people who had no idea about their ancestors. The companies, private collectors who permitted the reproduction of relevant paintings, collectors of commercial items, modern gifted Māori artists, trustees of modern New Zealand artists. The fantastic librarians and staff of numerous New Zealand museums and institutions. 

What did you do to celebrate finishing this book?

I had dinner with my editor, my book designer and a friend in a special venue. 

What is the favourite book you have read so far this year and why?

Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia by Sam Dalrymple. This was an overview of the British Empire’s demise. It was a fascinating, informative read. Generally,  the British acted poorly, especially when Sir Cyril Radcliffe in England, who had not even visited India, drew the boundary lines between India and Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten organised the process of Indian independence too rapidly.

What’s next on the agenda for you?

To ensure that a good quality map of accessible Māori Rock Drawings is produced for travellers, tourists and interested people. 

Canterbury Museum