Local tales grown on fertile ground

Maoriland Stories by Alfred A. Grace, ed. Anne Maxwell. Photo / Supplied

The late 19th century saw the cultivation of "Maoriland" as an alternative name for New Zealand. It was a fertile theme for local literature, moving one poet to begin his enthusiastic tribute by wondering: "Maoriland, my mother! / Holds the earth so fair another?"

The so-called Maoriland school of writing also included Auckland-born Alfred A. Grace, who was educated in England and returned to settle and write in Nelson. His first major publication was his 1915 collection, Maoriland Stories, which has reappeared in a near-facsimile edition.

Grace was the son of a missionary and had first-hand experience of the world of the Maori, then a fascination for Europeans. His stories dealt with the inter-relationship between the two races, and he opened with a European artist contemplating the subjects at his disposal: "the grizzled, tattooed old warrior; the lean and bent old hag; the stoutly built, muscular Maori of middle age; the ponderous Maori matron; the lithe, agile youth, and the beautifully rounded, graceful girl."

Unsurprisingly, he chose the latter, the beautiful and determined Hinerau, a chief's daughter who wore down the painter's resistance to marriage by means of a marathon swim.

Cultural assimilation is explored in another tale of romance, when Hira is spurned by an English surveyor and exacts a terrible vengeance. These stories are distinguished by dramatic turns of events and tragic outcomes, and none more so than when a third beauty, Reta, evades the designs of an elderly polygamous chief by consigning herself to a leper colony.

Four stories deal with Pakeha on the frontier, their predicaments at the edge of settlement and social acceptability. The lure of gold causes a sanctimonious Christian to make an unscheduled trip to the Promised Land, while authority is overlooked in favour of mateship when escaped convicts meet up on this side of the Tasman.

The transplanted English class system comes in for scrutiny when a dishonest suitor's marital hopes are dashed. Grace also exposes the puritanism that follows an unplanned pregnancy in small-town New Zealand. Marriage cannot salvage this situation and the would-be groom is banished, his misery compounded when the young woman dies in childbirth. A century on, Grace's style can appear quaint and otherworldly, like his shepherd who wore "habiliments [which] were diversely unpicturesque".

Characters can be two-dimensional and stereotyped, and plots unfold with the aid of a narrator. In her introduction, editor Anne Maxwell notes the important part such literature played in the forming of opinions on race relations. Grace was one of the country's most accomplished writers at that time, and the return of his book provides a startlingly original perspective on a pivotal period in our history.

Maoriland Stories
By Alfred A. Grace, ed. Anne Maxwell (Ngaio Press $24.95)

* Richard Wolfe is an Auckland writer.