The Heart Trap.

My dream cannot be taken by you - E Kore taku moe e riro i a koe

Omens for good luck in fishing. From Te Rangi Hiroa, the Maori Craft of netting. P.H. Buck 1924.

Dreams were regarded as omens. The lucky omens were to dream of cooked food, old torn garments, being bespattered with mud and dirt, or embracing a woman. As the luck indicated by a dream was personal, the dreamer kept it to himself. The luck could be taken by anyone who put his arm around the dreamer. The dreamer would then catch about two fish whilst the other obtained a big catch. The dreamer therefore aside concealing his dream would keep away from too close a contact with anyone, lest any demonstration of affection would rob him of his luck. This action often defeated its purpose, because non-dreamers kept a lookout for anyone who avoided them. The dreamer however could save his luck by immediately striking with his open hand the person who embraced him and saying “E kore taku moe e riro i a koe.'' (My Dream cannot be taken by you.) On the fishing-grounds the dreamer caught all the fish while the others looked vainly on. 

From Toi Te Rito Maihi. Weavers, Christchurch Art Gallery 2022.

Traditional Maori society had no word for art, because in the old world art was everywhere, not separated from daily life and so unable to be contained in a single word. There are many words for beauty, however and even the most mundane items expressed beauty-everything was made to be satisfying to the eye and pleasing to the ear and touch. Raranga satisfies these intimate human needs, including smell.. ….. A line between heart, mind and hand is understood. In the circles of Raranga traditional knowledge is kept in constant use. 

Notes on the work, Anna Dalzell 2022.

My heart is tangled in a thousand knots, being pulled under, deep under Sub Antarctic nostalgia. Here where longing and loneliness reach their crescendo. Lost to time and place invigorated at one with the natural world once more. The oppressive darkness of our Te Wai Poumanu, forest shade and early winter night, close in the cave about me. And what are we doing to you dear land! 

I am trapped in longing for this other place. The peace you bring, the exhilaration. Tie some knots to stop thinking of you. Island’s you've created a great and grand illusion. 

A pondering of thousands of knots tied in sequence to make sense of things. 

A craft, traditional, skillful, nurturing, once essential for our very survival. Now at risk of being lost in the debris of time. Traded in favour of plastic, convenience and massive bottom trawlers. I have tied these knots thinking of the Albatross swallowing plastic and ingesting hooks. Thinking of the reach our impact has over the planet and how even in the most remote of places we can be impacting the survival of species. Such sacred species. 

I think of the hands of my mother and father, never idle, always making. The hands of my grandparents and great grandparents and the making skills they possessed. The skills they had were a matter of survival. That way of life. Now we are losing the skills necessary to make what we need and sustain ourselves. These busy hands of the makers and doers that came before me did not have idle and unhappy minds. The making lends to satisfaction and fulfilment. 

Their dreams were as full as the nets. Our land and its waterways were abundant. 

My dreams cannot be taken by you.