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Moko; or Maori Tattooing

Chapter XIII — Mokoed Heads in Museums and Collections

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Chapter XIII
Mokoed Heads in Museums and Collections

The time is approaching when the history of moko will be written only from the comments of previous writers and from the dried specimens of moko-mokai in the collections. With regard to literary sources of information, I think I have exhausted everything of interest, certainly most that is of importance in the preceding pages. As to the specimens in the museums and collections, I have travelled much and seen all I could. From many I have taken drawings, portraits, or photographs. Looking at the specimen heads, a lady might almost wonder if the object had had a sweetheart or a loving wife; while a man might speculate in what mêlée or ambuscade he fell, or whether friend, foe, or master used the tomahawk about his neck. The best specimens of moko-mokai in Europe are included in the list in my appendix; and I will now give some account of them.

The specimens range from 1770 to over 1830. So some of the earlier are perhaps as much as one hundred and twenty-five years old, though this is doubtful; the later are over sixty-five. The page 184 acquisition of the first specimen of moko-mokai by Europeans has already been noted. It was bought in the year 1770. The traffic

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 155.—Royal College of Surgeons, London.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

was, as we have lately seen, stopped as far as possible in 1831. Consequently, all the specimens now extant were obtained in the comparatively short period of about sixty years. It will however be found that a very large majority of dried heads were bought in the last twenty years of this period. For it was not until after 1820 that the traffic in them attained its wide dimensions and its revolting character. The majority then of the heads with page 185 which we have to deal are as moko-mokai from sixty-five to seventy-five years old. They are in fact in wonderful preservation. During 1864–66, and to any one interested, it could not be but a matter of regret that such fine heads as those that fell then should be buried. Many of them I sketched, and their moko is represented in these pages—the only memorial of them

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 156.—Royal College of Surgeons, London.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

and their face-carving that now exists. The good head I spoke of just now “with eyes” is sketched on p. 145. On p. 162 there page 186 is a drawing of a boy's head tattooed after death (left eye gone). The hair of these heads is usually more firmly secured than

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 157.—Specimen in the Royal College of Surgeons, London. (Presented by the late Sir Erasmus Wilson.)

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

when their owners were alive; for owing to the careful drying after steaming and other precautions the hair of a dried head is nearly ineradicable; though it remains, as before, long, wild, and unkempt. In the case of chiefs, it was sometimes combed in a special fashion—the beard was scanty, a little moustache page 187 or tuft under the chin sometimes remains, and the eyebrows keep well. One well-whiskered head is in the Royal College of Surgeons; and it is represented on this page. All sorts of hair are included in the collected specimens, black and brown, straight and curly, matted and frizzled, and even gray and reddish. There is one very fair-haired specimen in the Florence

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 158.—Royal College of Surgeons, London.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

Museum, and it is not one of a white man, but of a native, the moko lightly scratched in with a sharp instrument. The Maori teeth, too, are always splendid; and in the dried head they page 188 remain like ivory. As already noted, in most faces the hair was quite eradicated and the flesh on the upper lip and chin

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 159.—Head showing some post-mortem tattooing. (Royal College of Surgeons, London.)

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

was often quite smooth. There are no stubbly chins amongst the old dried specimens. The clean dried state of these skulls can best be observed by turning over a specimen and observing the marks of the smoke in the interior. In the instance given at p. 172 the opening large enough for the hand will be remarked. It is increased by the removal of the base of the skull. The page 189 hoop binding of the base is neat. Sometimes a flax loop is added so that the head can be hung in a certain position.
Post-mortem moko is easily distinguished by the non-appearance of the subcutaneous colour; and where moko was incomplete at the time of death the pattern was often added to. But the difference of the cuts on the live and on the hardened flesh is

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 160.—Royal College of Surgeons, London.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

easily recognised. Again, sometimes the pattern scored in life has been recut deeper into the leathery surface after death. These new marks on the old lines are also readily distinguished. In one page 190 of the British Museum specimens this post-mortem tracing is of totally different pattern to that cut during life, and this is the

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 161.—Specimen in British Museum. The best in that collection.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

more regrettable as the original pattern was not only good and complete and well preserved, but the new one is carelessly worked or scratched, and looks pale over the blue of the older and real moko. In some heads in collections the effects of careless curatorship are readily seen—damp and over-varnish being the page 191 chief causes; while there are many as trim, neat, and fresh as when first dried and smoked.
Where the eyes are preserved, it is usually concluded that the head was dried tenderly by relations or friends, or at special order. The open mouth with the lips stretched wide is frequent in the collections, and mostly indicates an enemy's head; while sewn-up lips or a pouting mouth indicate (as elsewhere stated) a friend's embalming. These last are of course rarer.

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 162.—Specimen in British Museum. The lips have been cut after death.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

The noses are plugged up, and a stick is used to preserve the shape; and there are instances of over- or too little stuffing. The contraction of the skin makes the nose appear shorter, affects the page 192 lips, and draws down the centre of the forehead. The ears are always shrivelled up, and the lobe pierced to carry a pendent

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 163.—Specimen in British Museum.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

ornament. The skin of the cheeks is always tightly stretched. One specimen at Berlin has some of the neck-skin attached. In some museums one finds the dried skin of the face hanging over a skull, or even over a plaster cast; there is an instance of the former at the Royal College of Surgeons, and of the latter in the Natural History Museum in Paris. The colour of the skin varies much, and is dependent on that of the skin in life, and on the manner of curing and on the care employed in keeping.
page 193
These dried Maori heads, even those which have only very few lines of moko, and also the occasional specimens of dried European heads, are now valuable. The head is a work of art; and its value is subject to all the vicissitudes that affect the value of other works of art. They are all very scarce; and the number in private hands (as distinct from museum ownership) is very few; while only those in private hands

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 164.—Specimen in British Museum. The good and complete moko done during life has been nearly covered all over with post-mortem carving of quite a different design.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

can ever be sold. The early want of appreciation of these mokoed heads as works of art also affects their ownership. It page 194 is curious that the museums in New Zealand and Sidney have the fewest and worst.
The two heads in the Auckland (New Zealand) Museum once formed part of the collection of Dr. Barnett Davis, of London.

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 165.—Specimen in Author's collection.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

I give pictures of one. Dr. B. Davis's collection was sold about 1880, and these specimens were acquired from the purchaser in exchange for a pair of Moriori crania from the Chatham Islands. When the mokoed heads reached Auckland they were recognised by some natives from the Bay of Islands, as two of HKawiti's tribe, named page 195 Moetarau and Koukou. These persons were killed in a fight which took place about sixty years earlier, near the present railway station

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 166.—Specimen in St. George's Hospital, London. Some of the work very good. Latterly purchased by General Robley for £50 (Hospital Donation) & after publication of moko."

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

of Opua. They were taken to Te Puna, where they were preserved by an old chief named Muru Paenga, and were afterwards presented to the party of Hokianga natives who had assisted in the fight. page 196

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 167.—Specimen in Museum at Halifax, Yorks; showing hands of tattooing on cheek; a very good specimen of the finest moko.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

By these last the two heads were sold to the captain of a vessel for £20. They were among the last heads preserved in the Bay of Islands.
page 197

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 168.—Same specimen in Halifax Museum; showing unfinished nose. Varying patterns.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

I will give a list, with remarks, of some well-preserved specimens.

At the Royal College of Surgeons there are six heads and a page 198 skin. At Aberdeen Marischal College there are seven. At South Kensington Museum there is one. At the British Museum there are four heads; and at St. George's Hospital one. At Guy's Hospital

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 169.—Specimen in Berlin Museum of Ethnology.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

two, and a good wax model from nature of the Maori patient who died in the hospital in 1849. The impression in wax of his tattooed face has come out very well. His moko was deep coarse work.—a really good specimen of a man partly tattooed. The furrows are well shown in the model. His marks may be thus described: Part of set of radial lines on forehead; one, right nostril and right tip of nose; two cheek lines right and left; left upper and right lower lips with four lines; chin rather well done. At King's College Museum there are two and an infant's. page 199 At the Paris Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle there are six heads obtained in the course of voyages by Buchanan de Freycinet, de Lesson and Maxime du Camp, and of these one is a skin mounted on a plaster cast. At Plymouth there are four. At Berlin, Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, there are two, one fitted with glass eyes. At Auckland (New Zealand) there are two specimens, the story of which has been told. At Christchurch (New Zealand),

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 170.—Specimen in Berlin Museum of Ethnology.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

Canterbury Museum, there are two—of which one is from the Cambridge Museum and bears their number 1013, and one taken from Taranaki to England in 1837. At the Sydney Australian page 200 Museum there are two not very good specimens.* At the Florence Anthropological Museum there are two, one of which has light

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 171.—Specimen in South Kensington Museum, London. Mostly post-mortem moko.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

hair. At the Washington Smithsonian Institution there is one specimen, and at the Army Medical Museum there are two bought page 201 from a missionary ship by Commodore Wilkes in 1838. These heads are finely mokoed. At Halifax (Yorkshire) there is one, evidently done with iron tools. At Devizes (Wilts) in the museum of the Archæological and Natural History Society there is one. At the Exeter Albert Memorial Museum there is one. At the Whitby

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig 172.—Baron Von Hügel's collection in the Museum of Archæology and Ethnology, Cambridge.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

Museum there are three. At Hull, in the Royal Institution, there are two. At Sheffield there is one specimen. At Saffron Walden there are three, including one of a woman. In Rome, at the page 202 Anthropological Museum, there is one. At York and Dover Museums there are one each. At Oxford, at the University

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 173.—Specimen in Ethnological Museum at Florence. Pattern scratched in as an outline, preparatory to tattooing.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

Museum, there are four; and at Cambridge (Baron von Hügel) there are two. At Dublin there are several—namely, at the Science and Art Museum two specimens, at Trinity College three, page break

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 174.—Specimen in Auckland Museum, N.Z. Moetara, or Koukou.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 175.—Specimen in Canterbury Museum, Christ Church, N.Z., said to have been sent to England from Taranaki in 1837.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

page 204 and at the Royal College of Surgeons four. The Museum of University College, London, has two, one being among the best in existence. At Copenhagen, at the National Museum, there is one. At Munich,

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 176.—Specimen in the Ethnological Museum at Florence. Six lines only from nostrils to chin.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

at the Ethnographical Museum, there is one brought from London; and Professor Gabriel Max has a collection, I am informed. Others page 205 will be found at Bremen (1), Göttingen (1), Hamburg (1), Moscow (1). Professor H. Giglioli at Florence has one. Mr. J. W. Colmer has one of a boy; and the author has a collection

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 177.—Head in Oxford University Museum, the other side has spiral on the cheek.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

and also a thigh and many drawings of Maoris who were in or fell in the fighting, 1864–6.
Many of these specimens are represented in this book by drawings which I have made, as photography does not give their blue lines well, nor the markings on skins. This art of a bygone day and these pictures of Maori faces have long been my study. page break

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 178.—Specimen in Göttingen Museum; showing large amount of post-mortem work.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

page 207 Whether a thought will be bestowed on them by others I cannot say. But for those who are interested I have sought to collect everything that is worth recording; omitting much, no doubt,

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 179.— Specimen owned by Professor H. Giglioli, of Florence, glass eyes added by a European taxidermist. Moko very bold.

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

but omitting only where I doubt authenticity. Should my book be considered “whai mana” or a “standard work” on this particular element in Maori life and history I shall be more than satisfied. I can only, in my concluding words, repeat what I have said in my preface—namely, that it has been my object page 208 to record what I can of a subject that must one day pass out of remembrance. A full description of Maori art life has yet to be written; and even this little book in no way exhausts that portion of it that is dealt with.

[Note added by NZETC as annotator:]

Description: Fig. 180.—Head in Plymouth Museum. (From a photograph.)

This image is not available for public viewing as it depicts either mokamokai (preserved heads) or human remains. The reasons for non-display are detailed in the policy regarding display of images of mokamokai. If you would like to comment on this decision you can contact NZETC.

* Two old specimens, in advance state of decay, both appear to have been fully tattooed; they are well varnished. Are possibly of the time of Capt. Cook

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