Māori traditional textiles
The organisation Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa, the national Māori weavers' collective, aims to preserve and foster the skills of making and using these materials.
[4][1][5] Māori fibre techniques are also used for making fishing and bird nets, kites, rope, bindings for tools, jewellery, waka, building structures, poi and food storage containers.
[5] The weaving process (whatu) for clothing was performed not with a loom and shuttle but with the threads being manipulated and tied with fingers.
Tāniko patterns are very geometric in form because they can be reduced down to small coloured squares repeated on a lattice framework.
These base square forms, articulated in the hands of a weaver, constitute the larger diamond and triangle shapes that are visible in all traditional weaving crafts.
This design is associated with the survival of an iwi (tribe), hapū (sub-tribe), or whānau (extended family), the idea being that it is vital to have a large whanau, just as there are many stars in the Milky Way.
[7]Māori made textiles and woven items from a number of plants, including harakeke (New Zealand flax), wharariki, tī kōuka, tōī, pīngao, kiekie, nīkau and toetoe.
[11] Oral histories describe the paper mulberry tree as being introduced to New Zealand by the Ōtūrereao, Tainui and Aotea waka.
[12] The tree was mostly grown around North Auckland and the Waikato, and did not thrive in southern areas, or grow as well as plants in the Pacific had done.
[12] The tree was commonly seen during the voyages of James Cook in the 1770s, primarily used to create a soft, white cloth used for fillets or in ear piercings by high status men, however were rarely seen.
[12] Oral histories tell of early experiments to create felted material similar to aute from houhere (Hoheria populnea), however attempts were unsuccessful.
[12] The fibre of the tī kouka (cordyline australis) plant is durable and so was used for sandals, anchor ropes and sails.
Red oche clay (kōkōwai) was used to dye muka around the Waitākere Ranges, however its use was rare in other areas of New Zealand.
To meet the cold and wet conditions of the New Zealand winter, a rain cloak called pākē or hieke was worn.
It was made from tags of raw flax or Cordyline partly scraped and set in close rows attached to the muka or plaited fibre base.
The technique to weave it created a very strong foundation in the garment, which is needed to hold the weight of the six layers of undyed hollow lengths of harakeke.
[1][26] In modern times, they are worn on special occasions, as part of some university graduations, and by important figures such as the reigning monarch.
[14] Aho pātahi was originally used to create fishing traps, and the technique was adopted for Kākahu and other soft garments.
[29] Hukahuka are made by the miro (twist thread) process of dyeing the muka (flax fibre) and rolling two bundles into a single cord which is then woven into the body of the cloak.
But by 1844, when George French Angas painted historical accounts of early New Zealand, korowai with their black hukahuka had become the most popular style.
Hukahuka on fine examples of korowai were often up to thirty centimetres long and when made correctly would move freely with every movement of the wearer.
[34] Kahu kurī were made largely between 1500 and 1850, and it is thought that production had ceased altogether by the early nineteenth century.
[5] Some of the names for the types of kahu kurī include tōpuni, ihupuni, awarua, kahuwaero, māhiti, and pūahi.
These efforts that started with notable weavers such as Rangimarīe Hetet, Diggeress Te Kanawa and Cath Brown continued through to the 1980s and became part of the Māori renaissance.
