Celestial Portraits

‘The Maori people have, by virtue of long residence in a temperate climate, diverged considerably from the other branches of the Polynesian Race in their arts and crafts,’ wrote anthropologist, museum director and politician Sir Te Rangi Hiroa in his 1923 paper ‘The Evolution of Maori Clothing’. ‘This divergence is particularly marked in the manufacture of clothing, for the Maori has evolved a variety of garments which are peculiar to New Zealand. A different environment with different material stimulated entirely new inventions or led to the adaptation of a known technique to new requirements or a combination of both.’ The most significant difference that Te Rangi Hiroa identifies between Maori and other Polynesian textile histories is the lack of a sustained tapa-making tradition in