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Mokomokai: Commercialization and Desacralization

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The first head obtained by westerners, was ironically, on only the second voyage to land in New Zealand. Joseph Banks, the naturalist who traveled with Captain Cook, bought a head of a 14-year-old boy on January 20th, 1770 (Robley 1998: 167). The Maori were extremely reluctant to part with the head and there is no information about the rank of the youth or if the preserved head was tattooed.

The first record of a mokomokai traded in Sydney was in 1811. The head was stolen and not a regular trade item. It was not until the 1820’s that the trade in tattooed heads was commonplace and “‘baked heads’ acquired a separate entry among the imports at the Sydney customs” (Robley 1998:169, 171). The story that led up to the regular trade of the mokomokai began when Thomas Kendall invited Hongi, a Maori chief who had been converted to Christianity, to England in order to aid in the creation of a bilingual dictionary and the translation of the Bible into the Maori language.

While in England, Hongi was presented to polite society, where his dignified bearing and his elegantly tattooed face excited great admiration. King George granted him an audience and presented him with a large trunk full of gifts as a reward for his efforts in spreading the gospel.

On his way back to New Zealand, Hongi stopped off in Sydney, where he exchanged the King George’s gift for several hundred muskets and a large supply of ammunition…and used his muskets to launch a series of highly successful raids against his traditional tribal foes (Gilbert 2000: 68).

War has long been a part of traditional Maori life, but the introduction of guns changed the nature war. Before muskets and other trade items entered the economy, wars were started to gain women, slaves, greenstone, and mana. Later wars were fought to kill the enemy, conquer his land, take tattooed heads, gain access to trading areas, and grow economically (Lewis 1982:8).

As some tribes obtained guns they gained an enormous advantage over their neighbors. The other tribes in the region were forced to obtain guns to defend themselves and went to any means to obtain them.

The destruction caused by the new warfare engulfed not only the defeated chiefly families but their people as well, on a scale never seen before. …Maori fighting chiefs with the well-armed taua lay waste the populations of their rivals. Only the possession of sufficient muskets could save a tribe from this fate. (Evison 1997: 50)

Chiefs traded flax, potatoes, slave women, and tattooed heads for guns and ammunition in order to protect their tribes from destruction (Evison 1997:50). The trade in the mokomokai grew because of the increasing demand by European museums and private collectors. Other trade items were considerably less valuable: for example, it took a ton of flax to purchase one musket (Gilbert 2000: 68). Later the demand rose and “European traders demanded two such heads, a ton of potatoes, or a shipload of flax for one musket” (Lewis 1982: 93). The heads, however, were a valuable trade items and the trade expanded. After one battle, ten of the most desirable enemy heads were sold to an American ship for guns and ammunition (Evison 1997:69).

Once the arms race began, muskets were so essential to survival that many raids were started with the sole purpose of obtaining heads to trade (Robley 1998:167-8). The mokomokai, once essential objects in the establishment of peace, became the source of guns and the cause of wars.

Traders could sell the heads to museums and private collectors in Europe for large profits (Gilbert 2000: 68) It is estimated that hundreds of these heads were bought and sold during the peak years of the trade in mokomokai from 1820–1831 (Blackburn 1999:18) Of course captured warriors and slain chiefs could not provide sufficient heads to meet the demand so soon the Maori found other ways to fulfill the market demand. Slaves were tattooed and killed because their head was worth more than their living body (Lewis 1982: 93).

The tattooing of slaves was another example of the denigration of Maori moko. The moko was a mark of rank and importance. Slaves were never tattooed until a market was created for tattooed heads (Robley 1998: 24). Furthermore, tattooed slaves and the heads created for commercial purposes were done carelessly and without attention to detail and the tattoos that resulted were a “jumble of meaningless motifs” (Simmon 1999:66). Understanding the mana associated with a proper moko explains the conscious errors in the commercial mokomokai. Thus the commercial demand for the art not only desacralized the mokomokai but destroyed their aesthetic value as well (Hiroa 1982:301). This seems to be a trend with western demands on indigenous art.