All language subtitles for BBC Oceans Apart Art and the Pacific 3 of 3 New Zeland.1080p

This is Lake Taupo.

It is the largest in New Zealand.

Its calm, glistening waters are one
of the North Island's

great natural features.

But hidden away on its northern
shore, reachable only by boat,

is an unexpected creation.

A carving, 14 metres high,
chiselled into the cliff.

This is a portrait of a man called
Ngatoroirangi,

a crucial figure in the story
of this region.

He was a Polynesian priest and
navigator who, about 800 years ago,

brought his people thousands
of miles across the Pacific Ocean,

to settle here in Aotearoa,
otherwise known as New Zealand.

His face is adorned with symbolic
patterns denoting his high status,

his wisdom and insight.

His connection to the gods.

He looks like he has been here
for centuries

but he was created
just 40 years ago

by one of his descendants,
a Maori sculptor called

Matahi Brightwell.

It is a monumental expression
of Maori culture

and proof of
its continuing vitality.

In the second half
of the 18th century,

James Cook
voyaged across the Pacific

on a mission to explore one of the
last uncharted parts of the globe.

He set foot in places that
few Europeans had seen before.

And made contact
with entire societies

long hidden from the rest
of the world.

It was the beginning of a
remarkable encounter

between Oceania and the West.

Between indigenous people and those
who went on to colonise them.

In this series, I am exploring the
momentous impact of that encounter.

The extraordinary art
that arose from it,

how indigenous culture
was disrupted,

Western art was reinvigorated,

and the global imagination
irrevocably changed.

It is a story
I am not telling alone.

In these programmes,

indigenous people from all over
Oceania have their say.

Reflecting on the often
fraught legacy of encounter.

New Zealand means nothing to me.

It is a name that explorers
gave to our land.

It means nothing.

This episode tells the story
of the Maori.

Their first clashes with Europeans,

the collaborations and exchange
that followed.

How many Maori resisted colonisation
and went on to stage

an audacious cultural revival

that has made its mark
on many aspects of modern life.

It is usually believed that the
people and cultures of Oceania

were all but destroyed by contact
with Europeans,

through war, disease and religion.

But the Maori weren't passive
victims of these encounters.

They were a powerful
and versatile society.

So they adapted.

They fought back and, today,

Maori culture is not only an
integral part of modern New Zealand,

it is also famous around the world.

New Zealand, or Aotearoa,
its indigenous name,

was the last major landmass on earth
to be settled by humans.

About 1,000 years ago,

a group of Polynesian mariners

arrived here from the islands
around Tahiti.

This great migration still resonates
with today's Maori.

Europeans were voyaging 500 years
ago but, in the context of time,

it is a fraction of time
compared to the 7,000 years

that Polynesians have been voyaging,
discovering, and settling.

They settled all of the Polynesian
triangle from Hawaii to Rapa Nui,

Easter Island, down here
to Aotearoa, to New Zealand.

A Waka houra is a vessel

that our ancestors built
many thousands of years ago,

and this particular vessel
is modelled of those same vessels.

Our genealogy goes back
to the islands.

It goes back to Tahiti, it goes back
to Tonga, to Samoa,

talking thousands of years ago.

Those ancestors all connect us.

We have Kupe, who was a very
observant, adventurous person.

He was up in the islands
and he could see, each year,

the migrating birds come through.

So, one year, he decided
follow them.

And the birds eventually led him to
Aotearoa.

It was his wife that named Aotearoa.

When they were coming close
she saw this long white cloud

and that is what the name means.

The Land of the Long White Cloud.

Many consider New Zealand to be one
of the world's beautiful countries.

A land of mountains and volcanoes,
glaciers and waterfalls, forests,

fjords, and pristine beaches.

A land so improbably spectacular

that Hollywood films its fantasies
here.

And the Maori story of its creation
was no less spectacular.

One day, an audacious demigod
called Maui made a fish hook

from his grandmother's jawbone.

He threw the hook
over the side of his canoe.

The hook plunged to bottom
of the ocean and, very soon,

he felt a nibble.

Maui hauled an absolutely huge fish
out of the water

but, before he could stop them,

his greedy brothers cut up the fish

and it became the jagged outline
of New Zealand's North Island.

The Maori soon colonised
both islands.

They thrived in these fertile lands,
cultivating sweet potatoes,

hunting game, and forming
sophisticated trading networks.

The Maori lived in isolation
for a staggering 800 years,

and so developed a culture
unlike any other in Polynesia,

with its own dialects and myths.

But their particular genius
was for sculpture.

From the 15th century,

the Maori began constructing
large permanent households

often adorned with
elaborate carvings.

This tradition has since evolved
into the wharenui, or meeting house.

The communal space at the heart
of every tribe.

These intricate buildings
are testament to Maori creativity

and a powerful statement
of their identity.

The structure
is a symbolic representation

of an ancestor's body.

The rafters, which are likened to
the ribs of the ancestor,

are adorned with painted patterns
that symbolise life itself,

flowing through lines of descent.

The wall panels, made from
lattices of dried flower stalks,

vibrate with geometrical designs.

But the most striking features
of the meeting house

are its carved figures.

This sculpture, right in
the middle of the meeting house,

is a portrait of Rahuri.

Now, Rahuri
was a very important ancestor

to this part of northern
New Zealand.

Indeed, he was said to rule over

all of the people
of northern New Zealand.

And if we look at these
remarkable tattoos across his face,

we can get a really good idea of
what kind of a person Rahuri was.

These lovely spirals on both of
his cheeks,

these tell us
that he was a cultivator,

he was involved in horticulture.

The elaborate patterns
down here around his mouth,

they tell us that he was
an excellent orator.

He was a great speaker.

Which was a very important skill
if you were a tribal leader.

And up here,
the patterns on his forehead tell us

that he had three sisters
to the left

and three brothers to the right.

And then, exploding out of
this extraordinary crown of his,

we have his descendants. His sons.

We know they are his sons
because they all have penises

and they move in six generations
up from the past,

all the way up towards the present.

All around the meeting house
are wall panels called poupou

that depict ancestral history
and myth.

They have contorted bodies,

grimacing faces,
and lolling tongues.

Their eyes, made from haliotis
shells, flash in the darkness.

This figure represents
Mount Taranaki,

the most famous and sacred mountain
in New Zealand.

And this is the goddess
of the shoreline, Hinemoana.

Just as the sea provides
food and sustenance,

so she grasps her breasts

with which she nourishes
the people of New Zealand.

The meeting house is a microcosm
of the Maori universe.

It contains myth and religion,
family and history,

past and present.

But it's also a total work of art.

A testament to this society's
exuberant imagination

and extraordinary skill.

But in the 18th century,

the society's well ordered universe
would be fatally disrupted.

On Monday 9th October 1769,

a group of Maori living on the east
coast of the North Island

spotted something alarming.

Unusual people, in unusual clothes,
were marching across their land.

The Maori did what they always did
when they were threatened.

They gathered their strongest men
and performed a haka,

a terrifying war dance.

The invaders had never seen anything
like it before so they anxiously

retreated, but later they returned.

There was an exchange of words,
some trade, and, eventually,

a confused confrontation that ended
with one Maori being killed.

The invaders were not finished.

Later in the day, they launched
another unprovoked attack.

Seven Maori, most of them boys,

were innocently paddling a canoe
in these waters

when the unusual men arrived
in their own boats

and tried to kidnap them.

The boys, naturally, resisted.

They threw everything they had -

stones, even their own paddles,
at their assailants.

And that is when the invaders
loaded weapons

that looked like exploding spears,

shot four of them dead,
and took the other three hostage.

The invaders were, of course,

a group of British Marines
under the command of James Cook.

Cook, along with the crew
of his ship, the Endeavour,

had spent nine months
crossing the Pacific,

stopping at Tahiti
before finally reaching

what is known today as New Zealand.

And, in doing so, they became
the first known Europeans

to set foot on these islands.

Cook's primary mission was to
explore and map these new lands.

He had with him
a team of scientists and artists,

led by the botanist Joseph Banks.

But, despite ostensibly
peaceful intentions,

violence often erupted in the
uncertain moments of first contact.

It must be said that Cook
did feel guilty

about the unnecessary deaths
he had caused.

He was not a violent man by nature.

This incident was a sign of things
to come.

The Maori were not going to
roll over or run away.

They were going to fight back

and there would be a great deal
of violence to come.

Cook named this area Poverty Bay

and descendants
of the first Maori killed that day

are still living here.

His name was Te Maro and his death
is still mourned by his tribe.

MAORI CHANTING

250 years ago, my people, my people
here, our people, our hapu here,

we've sat and we've watched this
for 250 years.

We have always felt that the
actions of those visitors

was poorly judged and that
the life of our ancestor was wasted.

My name is Charlotte Gibson.

My hapu is Ngati Oneone
and this is my marae.

He was a gardener and whilst,
on the face of things,

that might seem that he had
a very ordinary role,

when in fact, in those times,

being a gardener was a position
of very high standing

amongst the people.

THEY SING

You google Cook,

your screen is slathered with all
sorts of references to Cook.

If you google Te Maro,
you might get two.

And the only reference to him
is that he was the guy who got shot.

There's never been an apology
for that.

And, to some of us,
we don't think it's right

that we ask for the apology.

It's actually for the person who
needs to apologise

to figure that out.

Certainly, we were, and still are,
very much impacted on

by the death of Te Maro.

We hold a significant amount of
anxiety around the actions

of the Endeavour crew and the
leadership, or lack of leadership,

shown by Cook on that day
and the days that followed.

His death, his loss, was not an
insignificant moment

in the lives and the
history of our people.

After these tragic first encounters,

Cook and his crew sailed up the
coast of the North Island and their

relationship with
the Maori improved.

On the 12th of October 1769,

just a few days after first contact
had been made,

another group of Maori
met the British.

They paddled up to the Endeavour in
seven war canoes.

And, very soon, they began to trade.

The British were carrying some
beautiful Polynesian textiles

and the Maori were so desperate
to get hold of them

that they even offered the British
their own paddles.

and this is one
of those very paddles.

It's therefore one of the very first
objects to ever pass from Maori to

European hands.

Enough to send a shiver
down the spine.

It was a functional object,
of course,

but it was also an object
of great spiritual importance

and aesthetic complexity.

If you look at the paddle's blade

here you will see the faded remains
of a pattern.

Now, that is known as kowhaiwhai.

Kowhaiwhai was applied to
many Maori artefacts,

though each design was
virtually unique.

It might look abstract but it's
actually filled with references

and symbolic significance.

So this curving line here evokes

the flowing water as it passes by

the side of the canoe.

These designs over here,

these are based on the shape and the
movement of a hammerhead shark

as it barges its way through
the ocean.

And, on the other side,

these designs are based on a native
squid and its ink cloud.

But perhaps we shouldn't be too
literal, because these designs -

and indeed this entire object -
is designed to capture

a sense of speed and power
and energy.

Either way, it is stunning

and it astonished and delighted
every European who set eyes on it.

Indeed, when Joseph Banks examined
a pattern just like this,

he famously said that it was like
nothing but itself.

As Cook and his crew circumnavigated

the two great islands
of New Zealand,

trading continued with occasional
outbreaks of violence.

These early exchanges were
immortalised in this drawing

by the Endeavour's Polynesian
navigator, Tupaia.

It shows a British man,

who many believe is Joseph Banks
himself,

and a top-knotted Maori warrior

trading a piece of white cloth
for a bright red crayfish.

Their hands reach out to each other,
their eyes wide open with wonder.

This is art as first contact.

On the whole, the British wanted
fish and vegetables for the crew

and wood and flax for ship repairs.

The Maori, in return, demanded
textiles, beads, weapons

and, above all, anything made from
metal.

Like most Polynesian societies,

Maori culture had
a Stone Age technology.

Metal was almost unheard of.

And so something as basic as this -
a simple metal nail,

which was virtually worthless on its
own back in Europe -

was in huge demand
here in New Zealand.

But the Maori were canny traders.

They placed a high value on their
own products

and were often reluctant to
give them up.

This led to one of the
most fascinating objects

of the entire Cook era -

a genuine cultural fusion between
Oceania and the West.

Now this pretty little thing,

which is carved really
rather beautifully

from a jade-like green stone,

is called a patu.

Though it looks like an
ornamental shoehorn,

it actually served a rather more
violent function.

It was a weapon.

And you could use it in a number
of different ways.

You could either hold it like this
and beat someone around the head

with it, or you could hold it a
little bit more like this

and jab it into their ribcage
or jawbone.

Either way, it was
a highly effective,

highly portable tool for
hand-to-hand combat

and pretty much any Maori
warrior worth his salt

was in possession of one.

Anyway, when Joseph Banks came
to New Zealand,

he became fascinated
with these objects.

So fascinated that, when he returned
to Britain in the early 1770s,

he decided to make some of his own.

And so he went to a foundry
in Fleet Street

and had 40 patus cast in brass.

He then went down the road to the
Strand, where he had a man engrave

the finishing details. So you can
see here "Joseph Banks Esquire".

The date, 1772, which was the year
it was made and, in the middle,

Joseph Banks's coat of arms,

which, I must say, is a little bit
premature,

because Banks didn't actually

gain an official coat of arms until
ten years later.

So why did he do it?

Well, he hoped to bring these
beautiful brass patus

back to New Zealand on
a second voyage

and then to either offer them as
gifts to influential people,

or to trade them for other objects.

And he was hoping that the idea of

having a familiar object in an
improved material - metal -

would prove irresistible
to the Maori.

Now, what I find so interesting
about this object is it is

a hybrid object.

It's a product of an encounter

between two opposite sides
of the world -

between Maori traditions
and European manufacture.

The British were clearly fascinated

by this unusual
and isolated society.

That fascination was perhaps best
expressed in drawings and paintings

made by one of the Endeavour's
young artists.

Sydney Parkinson was probably only
23 years old

when he came on board
the Endeavour

and he was not an
adventurous type.

He was a small, frail,

pale-skinned Quaker from Edinburgh,

who barely had the ability to grow
stubble.

Now, he'd been employed
as a botanical artist, but,

when the expedition's
figure painter,

a man called Alexander Buchan,
died of epilepsy

before he even made it
to New Zealand,

Parkinson was tasked with
painting people, too.

With his workload doubled,
Parkinson sketched,

drew and painted
at a ferocious pace.

He depicted New Zealand's jagged
coastline,

its plants, birds and fish

and the Maori's fantastical
war canoes.

But one thing captured his
imagination more than any other.

Tattooing was a common practice
across the Pacific,

but the Maori alone
applied them to their faces

and called the designs moko.

Parkinson had never seen anything
like it before and reproduced

these elaborate spiralling shapes
with exquisite attention to detail.

This is a portrait
of a Maori chief's son.

His face is adorned with stripes,

crosshatchings and kowhaiwhai curls.

It is art of the highest quality -

a tradition that continues
to this day.

New Zealand means nothing to me.
It's a...

It's a name that a Dutch explorer

by the name of Abel Tasman gave
to our whenua - our land.

And it means nothing.

our traditional moko is to remind
people,

remind the world,
that the Maori culture -

our culture, our language,

our traditions, our art,

er, our songs, our dances -

is alive and well.

Because there was a misbelief that
Maori people were dying,

a dying race,

a dying language, dying art forms,

and that's not true.

In the 1990s, a group of us called
Mana Motuhake o Tuhoe

decided to revive ta moko

to let the world know that
our culture, our stories,

is alive and well.

The design on my face comes from
the tribe I come from - Tuhoe.

So these patterns are
specific to Tuhoe.

A Tuhoe person would recognise
the patterns and go, "Oh, yeah,

"he's one of my relatives."

So we have proverbs in our culture.

We call them whakatuaki -
words of wisdom.

And each design has a meaning to it.

It's not just a picture.

It has a genealogy,

it's a long...long lineage.

And so we wear our stories,

we wear our culture.

The head is the most sacred part
of the body,

so to choose to wear ta moko from
where I am,

it's... It's deep.

It's deep. The whole world
is looking at you.

We're about revival,

maintaining mana.

Our mana is honour - honouring
the ancestors,

honouring the present
and honouring the future,

so that our culture survives.

In the decades following Cook's
arrival in New Zealand,

European visitors were few
and far between.

There was no rush to start a British
colony on these islands,

in part because the Maori had
developed a fearsome reputation.

In December, 1809,

a group of British mariners were out
looking for some timber

when they were ambushed
by Maori warriors.

The Maori, who were seeking revenge
for an earlier insult,

beat the men to death, dismembered
them and ate them.

They then put on
their victims' clothes,

snuck onto their ship and
murdered almost everyone on board.

New Zealand was dubbed
the Cannibal Isles

and Europeans were warned off
coming here.

Yet, by the early 19th century,

European traders and whalers began
to arrive with increasing frequency.

And one Maori chief offered them
a particularly warm welcome.

His name was Hongi Hika.

Hongi Hika was a valuable interface
between these two clashing cultures.

He encouraged Europeans to settle
in New Zealand

and he protected them
while they were here.

But he also travelled to Britain
in 1820,

where he met King George IV

and helped compile the very first
Maori-English dictionary.

But this apparent generosity of
spirit was by no means altruistic.

Hongi Hika befriended Europeans

because he wanted something
from them.

He desired something that would
bring him immense power,

but would also wreak immense damage.

GUNSHOT

This is a double-barrelled
muzzle-loading percussion shotgun.

It was made in the mid-19th century

by an English gunsmith
called William Morter

and it's made from walnut
and steel.

It was originally designed to shoot
the birds and other animals

on English farms, but then it was
sailed all around the world,

where it was sold
to a Maori warrior,

who no doubt considered it to be a
significant step up from a patu.

And we can see how important this
weapon was

to the person who
acquired it, if we look here.

Because this stock has been adorned

with typically wonderful
Maori carvings.

Right down here are these
extraordinary wave-like forms

that remind me of
the kowhaiwhai patterns

on rafters in meeting houses.

And, in the middle, this very, very
detailed,

diamond-shaped pattern that's been
divided up in very complex segments.

And right up here on the grip is an
extremely fine piece of carving

that looks like snakeskin

and was clearly designed to help its
user grab hold of this weapon

in the wet forests of New Zealand.

Now, I must admit,
I'm not much of a gun person,

and it does feel strange holding in
my hands what was probably once

a murder weapon used to kill
other Maori warriors,

or indeed even other Europeans.

But it is, nevertheless,
a fascinating example

of hybrid culture,

of Maori culture and European
culture coming together

in a beautiful,
but, admittedly, explosive way.

Hongi Hika used guns to conquer
rival tribes

and they acquired guns
to fight back.

An unprecedented arms race followed
that killed 40,000 Maori

and left many communities shattered.

While guns undermined the fabric
of Maori society,

a new religion challenged
traditional beliefs.

The first Christian missionaries
in New Zealand

struggled to convert the Maori.

In the first 15 years,
they didn't save a single soul,

but they eventually established
a foothold in the country.

This is Christ Church, in Russell -
the oldest church in New Zealand.

Missionaries bought the land from
Maori chiefs in 1834

and a certain Charles Darwin was
among the donors

that funded this
simple clapboard chapel.

Services began in January 1836,

conducted in both English and Maori.

WOMAN PRAYS IN OWN LANGUAGE

When the Maori embraced
Christianity,

the missionaries naively thought

they would abandon their old beliefs
completely.

But the Maori didn't see it as
a choice between one thing

and the other. They simply took the
Christian ideas they liked

and incorporated them into their
own cultural traditions.

This cross-pollination had some
startling artistic consequences.

This, believe it or not,
is the Madonna and child.

The Virgin Mary and the infant
Christ as, well,

I've certainly never seen before.

In some ways, of course,
it's deeply familiar.

This artist, whom we know nothing
about,

but was working probably in
the 19th century,

had clearly seen lots of Catholic
images of Mary

cradling her very special child

and had simply decided to recreate
their pose.

But it's the treatment of
the figures that's so different.

Christ has the broad, angular
features of the Maori,

with these almond-shaped eyes
made from Haliotis shells.

And the Virgin, well,
for one thing, she's naked -

something you don't often see
in European art.

She is also standing
on a severed head

and her face is covered in moko.

Her face is covered
in Maori tattoos.

Now, when the Christian missionaries
first saw this sculpture,

they must have thought it was deeply
disrespectful.

What could be more inappropriate
than a tattooed Virgin Mary?

And yet, those tattoos were the
Maori way of understanding Mary

and Christianity on their own terms.

In Maori society, the first-born
daughter of a high-status family

was treated as a kind of Princess
and deemed too sacred, too taboo,

for any man to touch.

And these women were identified by
the full facial moko -

a tattoo that was traditionally
reserved only for men.

So this is perhaps this artist's way
of telling his viewers that Mary,

as a pure, special person,

who is deserving of their respect

and indeed worthy
of their adoration.

As more and more white settlers
arrived in New Zealand

through the 19th century, the Maori
tried to fight back.

But against the might
of the British Empire,

the odds were stacked against them.

The last Maori surrendered in 1872.

By the beginning
of the 20th century,

the Maori population had dwindled
to 40,000.

They now accounted for just one in
15 New Zealanders.

For many, the Maori were a dying
race, soon to become extinct.

And at least one artist sought
to memorialise them.

Charles Goldie was born in Auckland
in 1870.

In his early 20s, he travelled to
study painting in Paris.

On his return, he applied French
techniques to local subjects.

He spent years in the company
of elderly chiefs,

became fluent in the language

and painted a series
of elegiac portraits.

This is a portrait
of a Maori chief

called Te Aho-o-te-Rangi Wharepu.

He was in his mid-90s when
this painting was made,

so his life spanned much of New
Zealand's colonial history.

He had once been a brilliant, indeed
ferocious, warrior.

He was also an expert
in Maori folklore

and, by all accounts, a
distinguished canoe builder to boot.

Charles Goldie painted and
photographed Te Aho many times

in the early 1900s,
paying him a small fee

for each time he modelled
in the studio.

And here, he has shown the great
man in great detail.

He is wearing this korowai cloak

in which each tassel
and each shadow of each tassel

is individually painted.

He has got to this extraordinarily
elaborate full facial moko,

or tattoo.

And, on his right arm,
he has the name of his second wife

who had been killed in a battle
in the 1860s.

But this isn't simply
a portrait of him.

Goldie saw it as a portrait
of the entire Maori people

and a metaphor for
their decline.

It is filled with
symbols of downfall.

Here sitting in front of what looks
like a dilapidated meeting house.

He is holding a walking stick.

He looks weak and dejected.

And then there is of course
the title -

The Calm Close of Valour's
Various Day.

This is a picture about
the end of a day,

the end of a life
and the end of an era.

And you know, looking at it now,
I can't help thinking about

Sydney Parkinson's pictures of Maori
that he had made

not even 150 years earlier.

Because where Parkinson had seen a
young, powerful,

swaggering society - a society that
seemed almost invincible -

Goldie depicts a people who have
already been defeated

and have little
life left in them.

And yet, as Charles Goldie mourned
the passing of the Maori,

an indigenous renaissance was
already bubbling into existence.

At the end of the 19th century,

New Zealand's now famous tourist
industry was just getting started.

Well-heeled visitors flocked to the
geothermal landscapes around Rotorua

Many Maori made their living
from such demand.

Adults became tour guides
and dancers

and children performed hakas in
the streets for a penny.

Tourism also unwittingly created one
of New Zealand's finest artists.

Tene Waitere had been born in 1853.

His mother was a slave,
taken by Hongi Hika.

He learned to carve as a boy
and, in the 1890s,

he got a job in Rotorua at
the aptly named Geyser Hotel.

Tene Waitere carved buildings
in Maori design.

He also made souvenirs, like pipes
and walking sticks,

for tourists and collectors.

But he was by no means a purveyor
of tourist tat.

His work combined the traditional
and the modern,

the Maori and the Western,
with exquisite success.

Tene Waitere's most famous work
is the Ta Moko panel.

This is one of the masterpieces
of New Zealand art

and, in my view, it's also one of
the masterpieces

of 19th-century sculpture.

It was carved at exactly
the same time

as Rodin was making his celebrated
sculptures back in Paris.

But I'll be honest with you.

I would take this over those
any day of the week.

Amazingly, it originally functioned

as a kind of three-dimensional
information leaflet.

It was commissioned to illustrate
different Maori tattoo patterns

for a book that was published
in the 1890s.

And you will see here that Tene
Waitere has presented us

with three human faces. Two men with
full facial moko

and, down here, one
woman with a moko kauae.

And yet, it is so much more
than illustration.

I find it really quite difficult to
put my finger on what makes

this sculpture so profound
and so gripping.

Obviously, it's beautifully carved,

and Tene is showing us that he can

do the traditional,
stylised Maori patterns,

but he can also do modern,
Western style, naturalistic faces.

And these faces aren't
simply naturalistic.

They contain a kind of psychological
reality and complexity to them.

It's difficult to know what's
going through these men's minds,

but down here in particular, this
face is absolutely exhilarating.

The closed eyes create all these
questions in the audience's mind.

And there is this wonderful
counterpoint

that races across this sculpture -

a counterpoint between the men
and the woman,

between the frontal faces
and the oblique face.

And, above all,
between these wide-open eyes

and these closed eyes down here.

To look at this sculpture

is to almost feel like
you're being hypnotised.

Tene Waitere was perhaps the most
important Maori carver

of his generation and no-one knows
more about him

than his great-great-grandson,
Jim Schuster.

So, Jim, what is this space?

It's our family home.

We, er, use it as a...

Well, really it's really a museum
of the family history in here.

These are tokotoko.

These are the sort of things
that he carved for the

English gentry who came,
these sort of canes.

And what's this inside there?

That's a paua shell.

See, that's a little figure.

That's his nose, that's his mouth.

And that's the eyes on it,

so that they...
These are like little kaitiaki,

they look out for you. So they can
see that way. Ha.

See out to the side. You will
see this one here's looking forward.

So...

I mean, when I was growing up here,

we'd find, in the tool shed, all
the shovel handles -

right at the top end
of the shovel handle

was a carved little
kaitiaki on the end of it.

He was just...

"Oh, that's a piece of wood, I'll
carve something in that."

He carved smoking pipes,

rifle butts.

Anything of wood, he had to carve.

He was probably the most prolific
carver of his time.

And it was how he fed his family.

It was how he earned his living.

So, Jim, these are his chisels.

What is this implement?

This is... This is what we call
a patu file.

Patu file is...

Patu means to hit,
file is a chisel.

This one here is made of whalebone.
Whalebone?

And I'd say it's from...

The heaviest bone in a whale
is from the jawbone.

And so when Tene was carving,
for such a small implement,

it just needed a light tap.

You don't have to...

Because it's such a dense material?
Yeah.

This up there, is that
of Tene himself?

That's the young Tene. He was a
good-looking man, wasn't he?

Even in his old age, he still had
that moustache. Hmm.

That is how we sort of see him

in a lot of the photographs
on the book shelf.

But I like the fact that
he is here, pride of place, looking,

looking out over so many
of the things that he has created.

This is his house,
his palace, his, er...

..his Buckingham Palace.

At a time when so much traditional
culture was under threat,

Tene Waitere's extraordinary career
was an inspiration to many.

And today, Maori sculptors all over
New Zealand

are keeping the old
methods alive.

I can trace my heritage back to
the canoe builders 800 years ago.

It's my role, as a tribal artist,

is to teach or re-educate Maori
of the origin,

and that's what the purpose
of my art is.

This piece is off my war canoe
my son and I built.

It's traditional.

I am honouring my teacher,

who taught me the style.

So that style is only done with
a straight-edged chisel

and with the hands.

The effigy of my teacher is
seated on a kotuku, the white heron,

and that signifies the white heron
bringing the basket of knowledge

to man with Tane on his back.

So I've put my teacher bringing
the basket of knowledge to me,

and that's a traditional concept.

I use only Maori wood, totara,

and that's the only wood I will use.

I take trees between 800
and 600 years old.

And, because of their quality,

has its own natural resin
that preserves the wood,

and that's a rare wood.

I am bound by tradition to use
a straight-edged chisel

sharpened the Maori way

and I have depict each shape
according to the form.

We are not born out of institutions,

we don't go through
the school system.

It's a Maori concept
on retaining our knowledge.

So I have to represent
the genealogical history of my race

in my artwork and that's what
I've been trained for.

The Maori cultural revival continued
to grow throughout the 20th century

and proved so compelling that white
New Zealanders, known as Pakeha,

were also inspired
by indigenous motifs.

And some started to use them.

In the 1950s, artist Gordon Walters

was in search of a style
that was both contemporary

and traditional, international
and unmistakably New Zealand.

His solution was to combine
geometric abstraction

with old Maori designs

in a series
of eye-stretching canvases.

This is one of Gordon Walters'
largest paintings.

Now, like any good artist,
Walters was a perfectionist

and he went to extraordinary lengths
to create it.

He produced innumerable sketches
and collages

to arrive at this composition.

He then transferred a full-scale
drawing onto the canvas

and painted it in a mixture
of acrylic and PVA paint.

And it's thought he used as many as
five coats of paint

to produce this clean, hard effect.

And, I must say, the precision of
the paintmanship here

is really quite breathtaking.

Even if you lean in
really, really close,

it's almost impossible to believe

that this painting
has been handmade.

It is built from the most
fundamental pictorial forms -

circles and lines,
dots and dashes.

And it's all about rhythm -

between black and white, horizontal
and vertical,

between positive and negative.

And that rhythm makes it thrilling
to look at.

It vibrates on the retina.

I've only been here a few minutes

and I'm already beginning
to feel giddy.

At first sight, this might look like
an impeccable piece

of geometrical Western-style
abstraction.

But it was also
inspired by Maori design.

These line circle forms here

originate in an indigenous
decorative motif called the koru,

which is based on the shape
of an unfurling fern frond.

So this is perhaps Gordon Walters'
attempt to make a form of modern art

that is nevertheless rooted
in the culture of New Zealand.

Walters' paintings proved
controversial.

A number of Maori critics condemned
him for cultural appropriation.

They argued that he had colonised
the koru

just as white settlers had
colonised their land.

And yet Walters' koru patterns
spread.

They appeared on the front of
journals and books and, in 1981,

they became the logo of the New
Zealand Film Commission.

A logo that's still
being used today.

Walters' art was part of a broader
diffusion of Maori culture

across all aspects of New Zealand
society,

with traditional motifs appearing
on stamps, banknotes,

buildings and even New Zealand's
most fashionable beverage -

the flat white.

It's really rather difficult to go
anywhere or do anything

in modern New Zealand without
bumping into Maori culture.

There's the koru, of course, which
is everywhere.

Case in point.

But there's also the now world
famous haka

and the increasingly
ubiquitous Maori-style tattoos.

You don't have to be in this country
for long to realise

that Maori culture has become

an integral part of national
identity here,

for both Maori and non-Maori alike.

And that is surely as it should be.

Since the time of Charles Goldie,

New Zealand's Maori population
has increased more than tenfold.

The Maori language is spoken
by more people every year

and, over the last three decades,

Maori cultural capital
has grown significantly.

In New Zealand, perhaps more than
anywhere else in Oceania,

a genuine coexistence of indigenous
and settler communities

has become a reality.

And now, at least one artist of
Maori descent is re-colonising

European visions of the Pacific

and tackling the mythology of
Captain Cook himself.

TRADITIONAL SINGING

This is a masterpiece of
contemporary Pacific art.

A monumental meditation on this part
of the world's

difficult first encounter
with the West.

It is a 26-metre-long video
installation by the artist Lisa
Reihana,

and it's called
In Pursuit Of Venus.

As the screen gradually scrolls
from right to left,

actors and dancers stage encounters
between Captain Cook's crew

and the
indigenous people of Oceania.

There is no dialogue
and no narrative -

just a dizzying stream of moments
from a decisive period in history.

This is a breathtaking work of art.

It is so full of beauty

and so replete with incident

that it really is quite difficult
to know which way to look,

because there is something
familiar in every single direction.

There is Cook, there is Banks, there
is Tupaia,

there is Parkinson over there
trying to paint a picture.

There are Aboriginal Australians,

there are Maori,
there are Tahitians.

This entire moment of encounter
from 250 years ago

has been reimagined
with a vividness

that is state-of-the-art
in every way.

There are moments of genuine
exchange and collaboration.

We see Sydney Parkinson
being tattooed in Tahiti.

But there is violence here, too.

The brutal treatment
of indigenous people

and, of course, Cook's own death
in Hawaii.

I liken the experience
to bearing witness.

I'm not explaining everything
that's happening

in these historical events,

but, collectively, it gives
you a sense of what is

this kind of precolonial
colonising moment.

In Pursuit Of Venus was inspired
by seeing a French scenic wallpaper,

which was inspired by the
illustrations and stories

of the Western and French explorers,

such as De La Perouse
and Captain Cook.

Um, it was kind of a eureka moment,
really.

I was searching for some kind
of storytelling device

and I was reminded of seeing this
particular wallpaper

and decided that I wanted
to remake it,

but replacing the images of Pacific
Maori people

with real living, breathing people.

And what they are describing
initially

are Pacific people going
about their business.

And, then, this space is sort
of interrupted

by a series of encounters.

And as you're sitting watching
and encountering these encounters,

you start to get a picture of what
it may have been like, initially,

at this time.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

What makes this piece so audacious
and also so important

is the way it turns the tables,

the way it challenges
conventional history.

For too long in the West, we have
been told a story

about Captain Cook, how he sailed
heroically into the South Seas

and discovered all these islands
and people.

But this piece shows us that those
places were already discovered,

indeed, inhabited by Polynesians
and Aboriginal Australians.

And it also tells us that those
discoveries weren't one-way.

This isn't a story
of European people discovering

indigenous people.
This is a story of encounter.

It's a story of everyone
discovering each other.

When Captain Cook began voyaging
across the Pacific,

the cultures of Australia, New
Zealand and the Polynesian islands

were largely unknown
to the rest of the world.

Cook's early encounters
set the tone for what would follow.

In Australia, Aboriginal people were
displaced and marginalised.

In Tahiti and Hawaii,

indigenous traditions were crushed
by Western fantasies.

But, in New Zealand,
the Maori clung onto their art forms

which are now famous
around the world.

And, today, indigenous culture
all over Oceania

is finally enjoying a long
overdue revival

and the fragile promise
of a brighter future.

Captain Cook's voyages initiated
a collision of cultures

all over Oceania.

The encounters that followed them
were destructive, without doubt.

But they were also creative,

because when these different
societies, once oceans apart,

were thrown together, they produced
a kind of artistic alchemy

and that story, one of both conflict
and collaboration,

has shaped the global imagination,

and it is a story that is still
unfolding to this day.