Weaving Magic – Diggeress Te Kanawa
If you’ve ever been the child of a well known personality or even a sibling who has done well then you’ll understand that it can be daunting because you’ll live in their shadow and hate it or you’ll step out from it and shine anyway.
Dame Rangimàrie Hetet must surely have cast a long and deep shadow yet her daughter Diggeress Te Kanawa became just as well known for her nurturing and tutoring of the more mature and the very young in the arts of raranga and whatu, kete weaving and cloak making. Her work is known throughout the world.
Diggeress Te Kanawa then, walks beside her mother in my mind as one of my three inspirational traditional Maori weavers. “She was raised in the pa harakeke the flax plantations of her elders particularly her mother, Dame Rangimarie Hetet. For more than fifty years Diggeress Te Kanawa had been at the forefront of the promotion and revival of Maori weaving.
“In the old days”, she says, “we were told if we shared our knowledge we would lose it. I wanted to share what I had with whoever wanted to learn. I was told if I thought I could carry it, then I had the permission to do so …” And carry it she did.
Her Story
Born in 1920, she is the daughter of Dame Rangimarie and Tuheka Taonui Hetet. Diggeress grew up as part of a close-knit community that has continued to treasure its traditions. This upbringing led her to embrace the proverb, “Puritia nga taonga a o tatou tupuna: Hold fast to the treasures of our ancestors” which, she said, was personally significant to her life.
She belongs to a family of significant weavers taking up the craft at an early age herself, learning the sophisticated weaving techniques from her mother and other local kuia. Her father named her in honour of the WWI troops referred to as “diggers”. In 1940, Diggeress married Tana Te Kanawa and together they raised twelve children.
Over the years Diggeress Te Kanawa has worked with many weavers, sharing her expertise and knowledge; from her early work in the 1950s with the Maori Women’s Welfare League to the continuous involvement with Aotearoa Moananui a Kiwa Weavers, which later became Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa, the National Maori Weavers Collective of New Zealand.
Te Whare Pora: The House of Weaving
She was described as an example of the proud tradition of the whare pora. Te Whare Pora means ‘The House of Weaving’. Hineteiwaiwa is the principal goddess of Te Whare Pora. In some iwi or tribes she is said to be the daughter of Tāne and Hine Rauamoa. She is known to the peoples of Polynesia as well as to Māori.
Hineteiwaiwa represents the arts pursued by women. Along with this, she is a guardian over childbirth. In the past, all female children were dedicated to her. Hineteiwaiwa also began the important office of ruahine where a woman takes a critical role in the ceremonies lifting the tapu or sacred restriction from newly-built houses.
She is the head of the aho tapairu, an aristocratic female line of descent. Sometimes this goddess is referred to as Hina the female personification of the moon. Te Whare Pora has been described as a ‘state of being’ as well as a place. Weavers who were initiated into this house had their levels of consciousness raised to be in a state of optimum readiness to receive knowledge. This was achieved through karakia or prayers and initiation ceremonies.
It was believed that the karakia endowed the student with a receptive mind and retentive memory. They would become possessed with quick understanding and a thirst for deeper knowledge. Initiated weavers became dedicated to the pursuit of a complete knowledge of weaving, including the spiritual concepts. Very few weavers today experience this initiation ceremony. The practice was discouraged by missionaries, who considered it anti-Christian.
Ngā mahi a te Whare Pora or the products of the House of Weaving include tāniko, a technique used to decorate the borders of fine garments, as well as bird cages, bird traps, and eel baskets. Tāniko is similar to European twining. These days tāniko is used to make belts, purses, bodices, armbands, headbands, and bandoliers.
Arapaki or tukutuku is ornamental latticework, usually found adorning the walls of wharenui or meeting houses. Piupiu is the art of making a flax garment worn around the waist while Whatu is the weaving technique known as the ‘cloak weave’, used to produce fabric. Whiri is the various forms of plaiting used to make poi, waist girdles, and headbands and Raranga is one of the weaving styles used to make kete or bags and baskets.
Awards
Diggeress was awarded a C.N.Z.M. (Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit) in the 2000 New Year Honours and the ‘Nga Tohu a Ta Kingi Ihaka/Sir Kingi Ihaka Award’ from Te Waka Toi for her contribution to Māori Art in 2001.
She also received Te Waka Toi Māori Art Board of Creative New Zealand Premiere Award, ‘Te Tohu Tiketike o Te Waka Toi’ for a Lifetime Commitment to Māori Weaving in 2006 and received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waikato for her dedication to keeping alive the traditions of fine weaving in 2007.
Maintaining Māori Weaving Traditions
Diggeress and her family have played an important role in maintaining Māori weaving traditions and, as members of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, were instrumental in their resurgence during the 1950s. Although weaving had been maintained in some areas in New Zealand during the 19th century, many skills had been lost and there was an urgent call for their revival.
Diggeress has inspired innumerable others by passing on her knowledge through wananga, workshops, lectures and exhibitions. Her dedication to the maintenance of Māori fibre art led to the publication of the book Weaving a Kakahu (1992), which is the formal expression of a life committed to weaving.”
Together with her mother, Diggeress has cast a longer and deeper shadow yet there is more. Tomorrow let me introduce you to the personality and work of Erenora Puketapu-Hetet.
