He Tangi Mo Ha’apuani

Paradise Camp (2021) was first inspired by an unpublished essay by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku presented at the Paul Gauguin Symposium held at the Auckland Art Gallery in 1992; and was further developed after viewing Gauguin paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York on the occasion of my solo exhibition entitled ʻLiving Photographsʻ presented at the MET in 2008.

The full transcript of the essay accompanied with an epilogue by Te Awekotuku is featured in the Paradise Camp exhibition catalogue edited by Natalie King and published by Thames and Hudson.

Published with the permission of Ngahuia Te Awekotuku.

He Tangi Mo Ha’apuani: Gauguin’s Models – A Maori Perspective

Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

Paper presented to the Gauguin Symposium, September 1992 Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand

Mihi - a ritual introduction in Maori

He whakaaro taka tapuhi; for years I have looked at those faces, and I have wondered about them. Who were they? And sometimes, I ask myself, what were they?

He wahine, he tane ranei? He mahu, pea? Either gender? Or the one in between?

Obviously, I am a Maori. And I look at Gauguin’s paintings with a Maori’s eyes; before the screens of academic training or learned objectivity slide into place, I respond to these images of beauty from my Maori heart.

And in doing so, I see very different things; the works present, for me, a very different visual language, and vocabulary, than they do for my pakeha colleagues and friends.

Where they see, and accept, representatives of Tahitian, or Marquesan, women, I pause, and I question myself, and the model. Ko wai koutou, ake? Who are you, really?

As well as Te Ha’amana, Te Hura, and Tohotaua, whom I know, reflected in the women of my own extended family; in the nineteenth century postcards of my grandmother, a popular model; there are others, too.

And these others are the ones I wish to address.

Because I grew up in a village community rich in Maori language and cultural life, and that community included men who lived and dressed and spoke as women, and actively loved me. And who were loved in return. They were just there; they looked after babies and made and wore beautiful clothes and often went away to the Big Smoke.

As an adolescent, I followed them. Came to Auckland, and the University. Met the paintings of Gauguin. Recognised their serene, beautiful, arrogant, unforgettable faces.

Twenty five years late, I am still contemplating them, and they have become the focus of my presentation today. And others have contemplated with me – I shared certain images with various friends and relations. With no prompting at all from yours truly, many exclaimed mightily, or identified themselves on their own girlfriends with great glee, and earnestly observed that this pakeha painter has done some awesome pictures of ngai taua – of those of us “like that.”

The world awaits a comprehensive study of the homosexual or transvestite homosexual in Polynesian Societies – the record is a judgmental and grotesquely sanctimonious as it is descriptive and fascinating. What has persisted, even to this very day, is the occurrence – and despite vast ocean miles between each place, the astonishing commonalities. We are part of an ancient tradition, an honourable and resilient one.

Among the commonalities are such factors as flair, mannerism, gesture, vocal technique, carriage, and sense of humour. And trickery.

Which brings me to my next question – was Gauguin initially, and hilariously, tricked? Conned, like so many of his countrymen?

And in being tricked, did he choose to sustain the humour, the theatricality of it, and play a trick himself, on his audience, his prospective buyers, the jaded bourgeoisie so far away?

And their succeeding generations?

We may never know. But I still wonder.

Danielsson,[1] Levy,[2] and Oliver[3] all note that homosexuality was practiced in the societies of Central Polynesia; their Eurocentric distaste for the subjects nevertheless prevents objective scrutiny though sources abound. These include the writings of appalled missionaries, fascinated crew members, and stoic sea captains; they deplore the practice, but occasionally, as in the case of the Bounty’s Captain Bligh, describe specific anatomical adjustment in lurid detail.[4] So I repeat, the world awaits.

What does make amusing and informative reading, though, are the tales of mahu trickery – for mahu is the term for such people, in Hawaii, French Polynesia, and the Cooks.

Ironically, we have lost the term in Aotearoa, but as the slides will show, they even flourish here in our temperate southern isles.

So I open with a story from my own village of Ohinematu, often visited by gentlemen – tourists on a certain type of quest, over a hundred years ago.

“We scattered ourselves amongst the huts. Crawling through the low entrance of one, I seated myself cross-legged in the midst of the family circle, and became popular by the present of a little tobacco, a portion of which, mingled with many compliments I presented to what I imagined to be a young and lovely Maori belle, with a pair of huge and magnificent eyes, her graceful form being wrapped up in a blanket, when to my disgust after a short time I found I was flirting with a boy!”[5]

as had occurred, in Cook’s time, when a “gentleman”

had been with a family of Indians and paid a price for leave to make his addresses to any one young woman they should pitch upon for him; one was chose as he thought who willingly retired with him but on examination proved to be a boy; that one his returning and complaining of this another was sent who turned out to be a boy likewise; that on his second complaint he could get no redress but was laughed at by the Indians. Far be it for me to a attempt saying that Vice is not practised here, this however I must say that in my humble opinion this story proves no more than that our gentleman was fairly tricked out of his cloth, which none of the young ladies chose to accept of on his terms, and the mater of the family did not chuse to part with.”[6]

And in Tahiti, a few years later, Mortimer records:

“One of the gentlemen who accompanied me on shore took it into his head to be very much smitten with a dancing girl, as he thought her; went up to her, made a present of some beads and other trifles, and rather interrupted the performance by his attentions; but what was his surprise when the performance ended, and after he had been endeavouring to persuade her to go with him on board our ship, which she assented to, to find this supposed damsel, when stripped of her theatrical paraphernalia, a smart dapper lad. The Otaheiteans on their part enjoyed this mistake so much, that they followed us to the beach with shouts and repeated peals of laughter; and I dare say this event has served as a fine subject for one of their comedies.”[7]

In the context of this time, and this symposium who has the last laugh? Has Gauguin tricked us?

Or can we, effectively, spring him?

Slides Shown at Gauguin Symposium, ACAG, September

1. Sorcerer of Hiva’oa: Ha’apuani 1902

2. He Wahine Maori 1899–1900

3. Three wahine Maori (my grandmother and grandaunts) 1899–1900

4. The Pratt sisters turn a trick

5. Those girls again

6. Hustling on the beat

7. Snapshot – Christine of Wellington

8. Nafea Fa’a ipoipo 1892

9. Te Nave Nave Fenua – The Delightful Land 1892

10. Arearea 1892

11. Pape Moe – Mysterious Water 1893

12. Women, Sea Shore – Femmes sur Bord de la Mer 1899

13. Primitive Tales 1902

14. The Bathers 1902

15. Ha’apuani 1902

He Korero Whakamutunga

The title of this brief presentation is He Tangi Mo Ha’apuani – lamenting Ha'apuani, a perspective coloured by Maori, and homosexual, experience.

Craving a more pristine environment, and something more nobly savage – a place and a people that fit his own expectations and ideals, Gauguin left Tahiti for Te Fenua Enana – the islands of the Marquesas, the veritable cradle of mana’o Maori; a place without origin. He went to Hiva’oa; he met the charismatic, intriguing Ha’apuani. A ta’u’a, a sorcerer; someone of knowledge and possibly, for Gauguin, someone who personified many of the qualities he sought to understand.

Through meeting with, and painting, Ha’apuani, Gauguin may have begun to resolve various conflicts and contradictions within his own life, one of which was probably – and forcefully – his sexuality.

Brettel notes that

“he seems to have become almost obsessed with ambiguous male sexuality in 1902”[8]

Yet, I sense that this obsession may have been seeded much earlier; and it may have been sustained. Many of the Tahitian models from his initial visit have been described as having an ‘ambiguous, almost androgynous quality’, and for many Maori viewers, there is nothing ambiguous about figures at all. They are clearly, confidently, maahu.

And I suspect that although he may have been tricked at first, and possibly turned some tricks himself, striding from the ship, La Vire, among those who saw him as a ‘ta’ata vahine’; a man/woman; a maahu, Gauguin eventually knew, and enjoyed and celebrated, the maahu experience. He assertively proclaimed himself ‘sauvage’ – he actively sought this affirmation; perhaps maahu became part of that process. The sensuality of his close encounter with a muscular axe man may reveal this; but still he chooses to retain the mystery, the true mana’o, of his models,

“something indescribably ancient, august, religious, in the rhythm of their gestures, in their extraordinary immobility. In the dreaming eyes, the blurred surface of some unfathomable enigma....”[9]

Notes

[1] Danielsson, Bengt. Love in the South Seas, Allen & Unwin, 1956.

[2] Levy, Robert. Tahitians – Mind & Experience in the Society Islands, University of Hawaii Press 1974.

[3] Oliver, Douglas L. Ancient Tahitian Society, University of Hawaii Press, 1974.

[4] Bligh, William. A Voyage to the South Sea, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Breadfruit Tree to the West Indies, in His Majesty’s Ship the Bounty, Including an Account of the Mutiny on Board the said ship. 2vds, G. Nicol, London 1972.

[5] Cooper, H.T. “Seven Days in Hot Water” in Victoria Magazine, 1871 : 523.

[6] Banks, Joseph in Beaglehole, John C. ed. The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks 1768–1771, 2 vols. Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1962.

[7] Mortimer, George Observations – Remarks Made during a voyage to the Islands of Teneriffe, Amsterdam, Maria’s Islands near Van Diemen’s Land; Otaheite. Sandwich Islands in the Brig Mercury Commanded by John Henri Cox, Esq. T Cadell, J. Robson & J. Sewell, London, 1791.

[8] Brettel, Richard, Cachin, Francoise, Freches-Thory Claire, Stuckey, Charles. The Art of Paul Gauguin, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1988.

[9] Gauguin – Noa Noa-Voyage to Tahiti.