Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Fashion

Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk: Cultural Appropriation, Intellectual Property Rights, and Fashion Peter Shand University of Auckland, New Zealand INTRODUCTION n 1907 the English manufacturer Walters; his style, in turn, was based on Royal Doulton introduced porcelain a geometric version of the koru. Cur- Ifeaturing a design called “Maori rently, numerous Government depart- Art”: cups, saucers and plates glazed ments have stylized koru or Maori weav- with red, black, and white to reproduce ing-derived patterns in their letterheads, a suite of interlocking patterns that are and tourists clamor for Maori art prod- generically known as “koru.” From the ucts made both in New Zealand and 1930s similar patterns have appeared on overseas. Fashion houses, both at home New Zealand postage stamps, and the and abroad, have appropriated Maori koru is currently employed in a decora- design as modish. It appears painted on tive border on the two-dollar coin. Since the faces of famous men adorning the the 1960s Air New Zealand has ferried covers of fashion magazines, or as part people around the country and the of a global advertising campaign for a globe, a koru design on its tail and until sporting goods manufacturer. It enters the late 1970s plastic tiki given to every the world of the pop music market passenger. In 1985 packets of New through a tattoo on Robbie Williams’ left Zealand butter included a small graphic shoulder by Maori tattooist Te Rangitu which told consumers a portion of the Netana. Maori intellectual property purchase price was going to support the would seem from this to be global—cer- America’s Cup Campaign in tainly it is more widely and more casu- Freemantle, Australia. That graphic was ally received than it has been in the past. a blue and yellow triangle containing a In this same year, 2002, Te Waka Toi series of alternating bar-stop figures de- (the Maori-funding arm of the national rived from the mature style of the mod- arts funding agency) launched “Toi Iho” ernist New Zealand painter Gordon a Maori-made mark, which is intended Cultural Analysis 2002, 3: 47-88 ©2002 by The University of California. All rights reserved 47 Peter Shand to function as a mark indicating Maori lectual from cultural, taonga from authorship of products and as a quality Matauranga Maori, graphic from perfor- mark. In addition, the Waitangi Tribunal mance) is, in some sense, artificial, for (the national body established to hear Maori culture is informed and strength- claims arising out of New Zealand’s 1840 ened by the interaction of its many fac- Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi ets. I declare, at the outset, that I am not signed between the Crown and many Maori myself but claim pakeha iden- Maori iwi) is still hearing evidence in one tity—which, for me, is a specific identi- of the most complex claims likely to fying nomenclature given by Maori to come before it: the Wai.262 claim on people who, like myself, are of nominally Matauranga Maori (knowledge) and European, predominantly British de- Taonga Maori (treasures). Unlike previ- scent. I also register that the article is ous claims, which have focussed on real somewhat wide-ranging in its discus- property or specific resource rights, this sion. The intention of this is to try to re- claim focuses on the intellectual re- flect the range and interrelatedness of the sources of Maori. The mark and the claim many issues that emerge in any discus- are indicative of the currency of the is- sion of the reproduction of indigenous sues raised in this article; they also reg- cultural heritage and issues surrounding ister the reality that contemporary indig- its reproducibility. enous peoples continue to engage with these issues and to develop new strate- THE KORU: A SEMIOLOGICAL gies in order to shape the manner of the ANALYSIS reproduction of indigenous cultural heri- In general terms, the koru is the design tage. form of a curvilinear element punctuated In the broadest sense, this article sits with a circular stoppage. It serves as the in a similar time and space inasmuch as central design feature of a number of it is a discussion of some of the ways in modes of traditional Maori artistic prac- which Maori design has been copied and tice; moko (tattooing), heke (rafter) paint- utilized by non-Maori. Its predominant ing, and hue (gourd) and hoe (paddle) focus is drawn from two fields of inquiry: decoration are the principal examples of cultural appropriation as this has been these. As one part of what is often a com- figured in art history and cultural stud- plex interaction of attenuated and tense ies, and the law pertaining to intellectual schemes, formally resolved within an property. These are, of course, enormous overall compositional scheme on skin or fields in themselves, so to try to come to wood, the koru is both clearly identifi- a closer focus, the article seeks to ana- able with Maori artistic practice and an lyze one part of Maori intellectual prop- indication of the formal sophistication of erty rights, those pertaining to graphic that practice. It speaks both of the generic works, and position this analysis in rela- identity of Maori art-makers as tangata tion to one aspect of their use, the fash- whenua (indigenous peoples) and of ei- ion industry. In doing so I register that ther the specific individual identities of such a division of cultural terms (intel- wearers of moko1 or, by its inclusion in 48 Scenes from the Colonial Catwalk the interior of whare runanga (meeting frond” or as banal as “stalk and bulb.” house; center for the community), of the The important factor in making this collective identities of specific iwi, hapu, distinction lies in that between or whanau (tribe, sub-tribe, extended denotational and connotational mean- family). ing. Roland Barthes writes of the char- W.J. Phillipps posited a definition of acter of connotation that it is “at once the koru in a 1938 article in Art in New general, global and diffuse; it is, if you Zealand. He described the design as or- like, a fragment of ideology” (Barthes ganic in origin, referring to the apparent 1967, 151). This fragment is of consider- morphological similarity of the single able relevance to any analysis of Maori koru to a curving stalk with a bulb at one art, a point pursued by Neich when he end (Phillipps 1938). This interpretation writes: linking the koru to unfolding plant growth is one which, as Roger Neich [it] has limited denotative meaning notes, “is now very strong in the Maori but a wide, rich field of connotative view” (Neich 1993, 39). This is, to some meaning, which finds its reference in extent, the result of apprehending an the total cultural ideology. Thus the apparent visual similarity between the signifieds of denotation are the few limited meanings that can be ob- design and flora, desiring, perhaps, some tained by direct questioning, while connection of human culture and the the signifieds of connotation require natural world and implying, positively, a familiarity with the cultural ideol- a sense of growth. An alternate natural ogy for their appreciation. form is claimed by Augustus Hamilton Connotation takes one away in The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race from the immediate context to the in New Zealand where he claims a con- general diffuse culture. This probably nection between the koru and the form explains why European investigators, of waves beating upon the shore lacking the conceptual tool kit for ask- (Hamilton 1896). Again, the assumption ing relevant questions about Maori seems to be based on a morphological art, could rarely penetrate below the superficial denoted meanings. (Neich analysis of the design and the known 1993, 36) natural world of the artists who used it. Nevertheless, this denotational reckon- A pertinent example of this may be ing of Maori iconography is inherently found in the rafters of the meeting house misleading. What is absent from such a and on some tombs and monuments— focus on the potential visual sources for many of which are painted with the form in the natural world is the rec- kowhaiwhai (a system of attenuated in- ognition of the important connotational terweaving koru elements). In the case significance that applies in the use of the of the meeting house, kowhaiwhai are koru. These are often complex semiologi- frequently painted along the tahu (ridge- cal constructs that afford deeper and pole) and down the heke (rafters). These broader patterns of meaning to emerge standard sites of kowhaiwhai significa- than something as defined as “fern 49 Peter Shand tion are symbolically important to the was unique to place. In this rubric, mean- whakapapa (genealogy) of individual ing is made over from a specific connec- tribes. The tahu, for example, refers not tion to the implications of individuals or only to the ridgepole of the house but individual structures to a more broad- also to important tupuna (ancestors), based national identity. This strategy was starting with the original tupuna. The adopted by a number of New Zealand heke, regularly spaced rafters, symbol- pakeha artists in an attempt to develop ize the lines of descent from these tupuna a distinct strain of modernist practice. or to their migration (heke as a noun This was, to varying degrees, founded means rafters and as a verb can mean on a process of mutual racial assimila- both descend and migrate). In this re- tion with the notion of something new spect, the decorative scheme takes its and different emerging from the connec- place within the overall symbology of the tion.

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