Whakanuia te tangata ringa raupā is a commissioned essay by Eve Armstrong-Coop on the occasion of Mau Āhua by Georgia Tikaputini Douglas Hood and Atarangi Anderson.

She carves away at the leathered uku in long pearls. The pieces fall to the ground and collect around her shoes until she’s ankle-deep. Dust and ash and mud. Uku-covered nose and mata. She wipes clay from her hands, transferring it to her thighs. It’s thirsty work. Muscular, embodied mahi. Heavy on the body and mind. A quiet weight, laden with the grief of her tīpuna. 

The haehae pattern reveals itself slowly, clay falling like blood. She gives a mihi to Hineukurangi, to Hineahuone, and Papa that the mahi moves open, doesn't snap shut or defeat her. It arrives naturally, gently - on the level of the subconscious. Like sunlight touching the shifting skin of awa and filtering down to seabed mud.

The same kupu - haehae - is used for an old practice. Carving the skin in grief. To take a broken pāua shell or piece of obsidian to the chest, releasing the māmae of loss. A call to Hine-nui-te-pō and a sign that one is angry or hurt. Pain - carved out.

The mahi continues. She’s carving out pain in strokes. Her mind remains quiet as she works; her fingers take calm control. Back to the whenua, inside the whenua with Papatūānuku and Hineahuone in hand.

Our people are great wayfinders. We know where we’re going, thank you very much. Tēnā koe. We are guided by great lineages of mātauranga, gifted through whakapapa and protected by tōhunga. I use the kupu ‘wayfinder’ and not ‘navigation’ as our people never relied on instruments to discover these waters. Despite your best efforts, dear coloniser, our methods are tried and true. Happiest of Valentines to you and yours. 

In te ao Māori, wairua moves through life, distinct from the body and mauri. Incepting at the formation of the eyes, wairua is immortal and journeys to Te Pō following the death of the physical body. Aute cloth plays a utilitarian role in this haerenga, used at birth and at death to ensure proper spiritual protection. Care must be taken. The cloth, a product of Atarangi’s arduous, time-intensive mahi, performs this tikanga ritual for her whānau and others who want to honour the ways of onamata. Her art practice exists on a seperate plane, drawn from creative visual dream. So, the cloth and the maker find ways through realms - the utilitarian aspect informing and shaping the artistic. 

Georgia is concerned with what comes after death - for tīpuna and uri, for those who move on and those remaining. In finding a way through grief. The uku, her medium of sorrow and triumph, becomes a vehicle for processing intergenerational grief. She is attracted to the amphora form as a method to configure tīpuna, placed on the plinth with the koha of space and reverence. It is a bringing forth of these ancestral bodies so they are felt and beloved by the onlooker, by the artist. To hold their essence in whenua.

We’re sitting at the bar. I’m deliriously tired from a week of work and dating more than one person. Atarangi tells me it sounds like fun. Mostly it’s fun, but there is very little time left to sleep, I tell her. She throws her head back and laughs, a golden sound. Like butter. Butter and cream and sugar. The sound of it makes me realise how much I care about this writing, the deep and shifting mauri of the works, how this mahi must be treated with a delicate touch. Georgia buys me a wine. She can sense my nerves. We’ve talked about anxiety enough to recognise it in each other. 

They begin to talk about the practice. Caught between snatches of butter, sugar, and cream, I begin to understand the kaupapa. I hope the following gives some shape to that kōrero. A sun-soaked afternoon at the bar - fingers fawning over moko-inked skin. A soaking, sinking, spiralling of uku and aute. Of whenua.

The great thing about having a mother who has immersed herself in te ao Māori (an attempt to reverse my whānau’s assimilation) is that her library is wonderfully stocked. The included pūrākau are drawn from a few of her gems, writers in whose presence I would tremble - shake at the knees. Witi Ihimaera’s Navigating the Stars and Hana Tapiata’s Atua Wāhine,among others. The kupu ‘wayfinder’ comes from Andrew Crowe’s Pathway of the Birds,which my mother had just finished reading as I began this piece. She loves nothing more than to support a Māori writer by buying their book - the deafening call from our kitchen and her credit card, ‘we HAVE to support each other’. 

Atarangi’s work lives in connection with Hana Burgess’ Māori Futures, and the pūrākau to which she most ascribes is drawn from The Lore of Whare Wānanga. I closely read Thies Vaihū’s response to Atarangi’s show, Ngā Mata Aute, before beginning this piece of writing, and she should also be credited.

The remainder of this piece is a collection of personal impressions, tainted, of course, by my love for the work, the wāhine. How could it not be. Maybe that makes it better. 

Atarangi tells me of Hina. Sister to Māui-tikitiki-a-taranga and great kaiwhakatere of onamata. Wahine o te wai. Trusted by Māui to find the way across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa and back again to Hawaiki, to the whenua. In such pūrākau, she sits at the bow of the waka - directing her brothers to safe passage. She has become eponymous with Hine-te-iwaiwa, atua of childbirth, te whare pora, the moon. The cyclical, regenerative nature of te taio and te ira wāhine. Atarangi tells me Hina appears in the aute. With te kiri ō Tāne, she ferries us from birth to death - is with us to help find the way. Ferries Atarangi through the practice, both wairua-based and artistic. 

The aute plant or paper mulberry was carried across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa by tīpuna, one of several transplants that survived the haerenga. She was planted and nourished by the whenua, harvested, beaten, scraped for use. It is colder here than in the ancestral lands, so she was more temperamental, trickier to grow. She became a taonga, a rare breed - suitable for occasions of a tapu nature.

Atarangi’s practice is a re-remembering. She wants to look through tīpuna eyes, to unearth mātauranga that has been hidden. In both aspects, both rivers of her practice, she looks between onamta and anamata. Pulls forth from the past in the hopes of benefitting mokopuna and uri to come. We are tīpuna in the making. There is a responsibility. Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua. 

Atarangi descends from Keriana Aute Te Potae, painted by Lindauer with a basket of peaches, though Atarangi tells me she actually carried tuna in her kete. The Pākehā artist deemed fish unsuitable. Georgia, myself, and Atarangi all agree that tuna would make more sense for someone who carried the name of Aute. She laughs at the whakapapa while she relays it; again, a truly beautiful noise. All the while it was sitting in her blood, this practice. The old ones know. They’re probably laughing too. 

The first stream of Atarangi’s practice is grounded in te ao wairua, fulfilling a spiritual tikanga requirement for her whānau and wider community. Bringing the taonga of aute to communities of diasporic Māori living in Tāmaki, away from the rohe they whakapapa too. This role concerns the reciprocal exchange of knowledge within the tuakana-teina whanaungatanga and the provision of spiritual guardianship through aute. Pēpi, birthed upon the softened fibres - appropriate for the tapu nature of te ira atua. Tūpāpaku wrapped in the cloth for the journey to Rarohenga, to Te Pō, or Hawaiki.

Atarangi’s visual toi practice is a related but distinct dream. It is drawn from an inward awa of creativity and has become a space for mātauranga development, interrogation, and play. The tiny pāua shell hearts sewn to the back of the aute. Compositional freedom and pattern crafting of tiki, mata, and pātiki. A colour palette that subverts tradition. A space where she can express her vision of te ao Mārama with fibre. A beautiful, floating, cloaking dream. Striking and soft.

Distinct to Atarangi’s practice alone is this kupu, whakamauāhua. It is the name for her embossing technique, perfected by the artist through the balance of time and water. It is the namesake for this show, applied in this context to both whenua-based mediums, uku and aute. Whakamauāhua - to hold, to carry, to remember a shape or essence. The medium hardens and holds its shape, moulded by hands to fit a visual dream or pattern.

Naming is important in te ao Māori. Our people recognise the mana inherent in a title and in the choice of one. Whakamauāhua - to hold within that which might otherwise be lost or forgotten. The name is relevant in all aspects of Atarangi’s work. Her technique for holding the aute in a fixed form. The wairua tīkanga purpose of the cloth in its utilitarian context. Her continued dedication to reviving a threatened mātauranga. There is mana in a name. Mana in the name of Aute. Mana in the work.

I’m standing in the backroom at Blue - crying. We’re fully in the shit. Surprise double shift, people calling in sick left, right, and centre, running out of bread … bread. I am more burnt out than I’ve ever been. It must be what having a baby is like, starting a business. No sleep, constant nursing, bouncing, feeding, changing. I’m skin to skin with Blue, so she doesn't have bad attachment issues when she grows up. I feel a weird mix of nothing at all, rage, and tearful hurt.

I am eye to eye with pāua shell mata - hands pressed against the wall, either side. Atarangi’s work has been here for a few weeks. Georgia’s candelabra, built for Blue because she knows how much we love candlelight, sits on the table to my left. I carry it like a baby in my arms from table to table each day. Placed delicately so as not to scratch the table top - the one we spent hours and hours sanding, oiling, oiling again.

A tiki, suspended in aute. She stares me down. She’s been watching me try to birth this thing. Watching me scrape wax from the tables, scrub yoghurt from the curtains, smiling all the while - pretty and polite. I stare back. I swallow the rage and hurt. Kia kaha, my love. Anei au, tō pou whirinaki.