Carving a contemporary replica of the 1769 ‘Joseph Banks’ panel using pre-steel tools: reviving a traditional Māori carving technique

Abstract

In this article, the author explores previously lost techniques and practices associated with reproducing a New Zealand Māori wood carving of a poupou (panel) that was collected by Joseph Banks in October 1769 from a partly-constructed house on Pourewa Island, Tolaga Bay (Ūawa), North Island. The original poupou, a rare Māori artefact that pre-dates European influence, is curated today in the University Museum, Tübingen. A conference in Oslo, Norway, in 2014, provided the author, a tohunga whakairo (master carver), with the opportunity to demonstrate the use of Māori pre-steel tools, notably pounamu (greenstone) and argillite toki (adzes), greenstone and toroa whao (albatross bone chisels), and hardwood tā (carving mallets). The unique, historically inspired and practice-led empirical research undertaken in carving the poupou has helped to recover previously lost indigenous wood-carving knowledge. The replica poupou, carved in totara (Podocarpus totara) and coated in kokowai (ochre), was subsequently completed at, and donated to, the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Middlesbrough, UK. The empirical approach to this research required detailed analysis as well as experimental archaeology and ethnography. The carving of the poupou honours the legacy of one of the most famed Māori carving centres and traditional higher schools of learning of pre-European times, namely Te Rāwheoro.