The forgotten soundtrack of Maoriland : imagining the nation through Alfred Hill's songs for Rewi's Last Stand : a thesis submitted to Massey University and Victoria University of Wellington in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music in Musicology
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Date
2015
Open Access Location
DOI
Authors
Editors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Massey University
Abstract
lfred
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.
Description
Keywords
Alfred Hill, Rewi's Last Stand (movie), Movie music, Maoriland