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EFFIGIES
Once the mokomokai-inspired artefacts had been completed, exhibited and photographed, I found that
the small mokomokai-inspired artefacts could be made into other forms of sculpture of a funerary
nature. They became a work in progress and the opportunity to create and develop a collection of
effigies. There is a personal attachment to these markers of loss that encourages a desire to recall and
remember losses of land, resources and people suffered by Ngati Hau. There has been discussion
amongst the extended hapu, Te Waiariki and Ngati Wai about their disposal in the event of my death.
Two possible options are to smash them all into smithereens or to have them placed with me if I‟m
buried. When they were exhibited in the small forest, on a Te Maruata property privately owned by
Murray Gibb, his son and friends, accidently broke several of the exhibits because of where I had
placed them. I consider the effigies to be part of my grieving for the loss of Maori garments and
personal adornments of wood, bone, feathers, flax and stone.
Figure 19: Maxwell H. (2011). Red painted stakes 71.12cm x 3.81cm. Gathering of dressed effigies on the Whakapae Land
block beside the Ngunguru estuary.
Mixed media made up of stakes painted red, cross stake for shoulders. Left to right [1] korowai with brown and white feathers, [2]
korowai with blue and white feathers, [3] plain kahu paake, [4] plain kahu paake with black and red feathers, [5] korowai with green and
yellow feathers [6] Cape made with red flax dyed taura with black and red feather border.
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