INTRODUCTION TO ROBERT WHITFORD'S HINE RA, OR THE MAORI SCOUT: A ROMANCE OF THE NEW ZEALAND WAR

Treachery, deceit, superstition, forbidden love and war. Robert Percy Whitford’s Hine-Rā, or the Māori Scout: A Romance of the New Zealand War ticks all the boxes for a dramatic and engaging nineteenth century New Zealand novel. Hine-Ra makes use of a sensationalist plot which seeks to develop a rich and unique New Zealand idea, and can be a considered a Māori romance, exploring Pākehā perceptions of Māori, breaking away from the traditional European romantic setting but incorporating undeniable elements of Romantic and Victorian writing traditions into the new New Zealand landscape. Whitford’s novel positively exploits the Māori setting, speaking of a New Zealand paradise, an exoticness that is corrupted by war and violence. Despite the violence, New Zealand is portrayed as beautifully striking and wild, with rich cultures and peoples which attract the interest of foreign readers. Whitford perfectly encapsulates the tropes of early New Zealand writing to present a detailed, exciting novel which grips the reader and immerses them into the setting of Aotearoa. Whitford’s intention is to engross the reader in a fascinating foreign landscape which twists and turns through the New Zealand landscape through a series of gripping events.

Published in 1887 in Melbourne by W.H. Williams, Whitford’s text has been largely forgotten amongst colonial scholarly criticism and the New Zealand literary canon, yet it is a novel which richly explores early Aotearoa and the development of a New Zealand novel as its own separate discourse in colonial writing. The New Zealand novel as its own discourse sought to identify a literary genre which was unique to the country, making use of the culture, landscape and peoples. New Zealand’s literary beginnings include writing which was highly influenced by Victorian ideals; romantic and rationalist writing, late-eighteenth-century poetry and colonial encounters with a foreign world. Authors were not writing for a New Zealand audience, but instead aiming to produce their works overseas in order to induce interest and fascination with the exoticness of the foreign land. Early authors writing fiction about New Zealand sought to establish a sort of cultural identity, influenced by the colonial settlers but unique in terms of characterisation and the obviously unique and unexplored setting. New Zealand novels tended to explore the exoticness of the culture, peoples and setting of New Zealand, creating a unique novelistic genre.