'Our Old Friends and Recent Foes': James Cowan, Rudall Hayward and Memories of Natural Affections in the New Zealand Wars

Cooper, Annabel

doi:10.26686/jnzs.v0i14.1753

“…66 Many of those who appeared in the 1940 version were descendants of Māori and Pākehā veterans of the Ōrākau conflict (Ramai Te Miha, later Ramai Hayward, the star of the remake passed away in July 2014, aged 98). 67 But the 1940 film, which later became part of the School Film Library catalogue and hence was shown to large numbers of New Zealand children, remained very much in the tradition of Ōrākau as a chivalrous and noble conflict (even if the death of the central heroine, Ariana, at the hands of a Forest Ranger hinted at a grimmer reality). 68 "Today," an opening foreword declares, "the slowly blending races of white men and brown live in peace and equality as one people … the New Zealanders."…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“Recording the Incident with a Monument”: The Waikato War in Historical Memory

O’Malley¹

2015

JNZS

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This paper charts changing perceptions of the Waikato War in national memory and consciousness. The recent sesquicentenary passed by most New Zealanders largely unnoticed. Historical memories of the war that once (in part thanks to James Cowan) fed into larger nation-building narratives cut across them today. A century ago it was possible for Pākehā to believe that the Waikato War had given birth to fifty years of peace and that mutual respect forged in battle had provided the basis for “race relations” of unparalleled harmony. By the 1970s such a notion could no longer be sustained, leaving a kind of uncomfortable silence about one of the decisive events in New Zealand history.

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“…The body of literature on Rewi is divided with some overlap into the areas of production record (Evans 1994;Martin and Edwards 1997;Pivac 2011), biographies of Hayward (Horton 1973;Edwards and Murray 2007), biographies of Ramai Hayward (Wharerau 1989;Amoamo 1993;Ramai Hayward 1986Shepard 2005), and critical cultural analyses based on The Last Stand (Sklar 1971;O'Connor 1979;Campbell 1986;Mita 1992;Blythe 1994;Perkins 1996;Babington 2011;Fox 2011;Cooper 2013). This thesis further aims to contribute to the body of critical work on Rewi, promote dialogue between New Zealand musicologists, media scholars, and cultural historians, and more widely, to add to the understanding of music's part in the colonising of the screen.…”

Section: Figuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

Cross¹

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<p>Alfred Hill’s songs based on collected Māori musical materials and narrative themes are artefacts of cultural colonisation that represent individual identities and imagined communities. They are tangible evidence of the site of identity formation known as Maoriland within which Pākehā construct imaginings of ‘Māoriness’ to create their own sense of indigeneity and nationhood. Although early twentieth-century Maoriland has been discussed widely in the arts and literature, scholars have not addressed the music of Maoriland, perhaps because it is heard today as the cultural form that most clearly expresses racialised sentimentality and colonial hegemony. However, Maoriland music can tell us much about New Zealand society if it is recognised as inhabiting an ‘in-between’ place where Pākehā fascination for the racial other was often inseparable from an admiration for Māori promoted by a knowledgeable group of Māori and Pākehā cultural go-betweens. This thesis presents a critical cultural analysis of the ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities represented in Hill’s ‘Māori’ songs, viewed through the lens of his use of these in his score for Rudall Hayward’s film Rewi’s Last Stand (1940). This analysis shows that these popular songs contributed, and continue to contribute, to the nexus of Māori, war, and music in Pākehā narrations of the nation. By applying a bicultural approach to the study of Hill’s Maoriland songs, this research also shows these ‘in-between’ songs represent individual, tribal, and national Māori identities too. While this work adds music to the discourse of Maoriland, and Maoriland to the discourse of New Zealand music and national identity, Hill’s ‘Māori’ music, early twentieth-century New Zealand music, and New Zealand film music all remain severely under-researched areas of New Zealand music studies.</p>

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The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

Cross¹

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

<p>Alfred Hill’s songs based on collected Māori musical materials and narrative themes are artefacts of cultural colonisation that represent individual identities and imagined communities. They are tangible evidence of the site of identity formation known as Maoriland within which Pākehā construct imaginings of ‘Māoriness’ to create their own sense of indigeneity and nationhood. Although early twentieth-century Maoriland has been discussed widely in the arts and literature, scholars have not addressed the music of Maoriland, perhaps because it is heard today as the cultural form that most clearly expresses racialised sentimentality and colonial hegemony. However, Maoriland music can tell us much about New Zealand society if it is recognised as inhabiting an ‘in-between’ place where Pākehā fascination for the racial other was often inseparable from an admiration for Māori promoted by a knowledgeable group of Māori and Pākehā cultural go-betweens. This thesis presents a critical cultural analysis of the ethnic, racial, gendered, and national identities represented in Hill’s ‘Māori’ songs, viewed through the lens of his use of these in his score for Rudall Hayward’s film Rewi’s Last Stand (1940). This analysis shows that these popular songs contributed, and continue to contribute, to the nexus of Māori, war, and music in Pākehā narrations of the nation. By applying a bicultural approach to the study of Hill’s Maoriland songs, this research also shows these ‘in-between’ songs represent individual, tribal, and national Māori identities too. While this work adds music to the discourse of Maoriland, and Maoriland to the discourse of New Zealand music and national identity, Hill’s ‘Māori’ music, early twentieth-century New Zealand music, and New Zealand film music all remain severely under-researched areas of New Zealand music studies.</p>

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'Our Old Friends and Recent Foes': James Cowan, Rudall Hayward and Memories of Natural Affections in the New Zealand Wars

Cited by 3 publications

References 6 publications

“Recording the Incident with a Monument”: The Waikato War in Historical Memory

“Recording the Incident with a Monument”: The Waikato War in Historical Memory

The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

The Forgotten Soundtrack of Maoriland: Imagining the Nation Through Alfred Hill’s Songs for Rewi's Last Stand

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