Makereti taking Maori to the World by Paul Diamond. Random House
KEY POINTS:
Te Arawa's Makereti, Guide Maggie, or Maggie Papakura was a woman who made the world her own and nearly eight decades after she left her mark on the world she still remains an enigma.
She was one of the most famous women of her time in New Zealand and her life was followed by newspapers here, in Australia and Britain. In her middle years she married into English gentry, divorced out of it, and late in her life became the first Maori woman to study at Oxford.
Born in 1873 to an English father and a Maori mother, she made her name as the pre-eminent guide at Whakarewarewa in the early 1900s.
Author Paul Diamond makes it clear she understood early the power of images.
It was Makereti's face which sold New Zealand as a tourist destination. She was photographed in romantic portrayals of Maori life - shots of her sitting outside intricately carved houses such as Nuku-Te-Apiapi, sitting contemplatively in traditional Maori kiwi cloaks or reclining, mere in hand, for other promotional material.
But she was more than a pretty face on postcards, more than a passive actor being photographed. Makereti was a business woman who commissioned and handed out the pictures to clients, building her own myth and brand.
She was successful in capitalising on European and even some Maori attitudes - in a time of rapid social change for Maori, hers were pictures that captured what visitors wanted to see, the spirit of the noble native, the dying race, the old-time Maori before it was too late.
And when the world wouldn't come to Makereti, she took Maori to the world, organising commercial ventures such as concert tours and exhibitions of working Maori villages complete with whare in Australia and London.
She was a force of nature. When Makereti's own people disagreed with her she forged on regardless. Sometimes life can get a bit difficult for a big fish in a small pond which is probably why she uprooted to Britain when she was 38.
Diamond says on a trip to the Rotorua Museum of Art and History he was drawn to Makereti's striking portrait but what saddened him while reading the photograph's caption was that a Maori was buried so far from home.
She died aged 59 in 1930 before she completed her Oxford degree thesis and, from a Maori point of view, too far from her people.
Her resting place in Oddington, Oxfordshire is a lonely one but it was where she wanted to be buried.
You can't help thinking she would have been a great person to yarn to. She stood easily in both worlds - she spoke perfect Maori and perfect English - a rare combination then, as it is today.
Interesting and astute, Makereti would have rubbed a few people up the wrong way, even as she fascinated others.
There are few books on Maori women and Diamond has picked an excellent subject to research.
If the story doesn't draw you in the beautiful pictures will.
