An Important Guide To Patterns For Traditional Māori Designs Comes Back Into Print After Many Years

Scoop

8 hours ago

In the more than 80 years since Māori Rafter & Tāniko Designs first saw the light of day, the book's clear text and sumptuous colour patterns have served legions of readers and craftspeople.
Now Oratia Books is bringing this classic work by W.J Phillipps back into print, enabling a new generation to access a work that until now had been hard to source. The handy guide provides a detailed exploration of important patterns used in Māori architecture and textiles, focusing on the intricate designs of rafter carving, tāniko weaving and tukutuku panels.
With an all-new layout, updated text elements including macrons, and inclusion of new colour illustrations, the new edition aims to help readers easily access the designs. That supports the aim Phillipps outlined in his introduction, namely 'to analyse Māori rafter patterns and discuss their component parts in such a manner that a clearer understanding and a greater appreciation of them will be the result.'
Māori Rafter & Tāniko Designs goes on sale in June in good bookstores nationwide.
The author
William John (W.J.) Phillipps was born in Oamaru in 1893. In 1915, he joined the staff of the Dominion Museum (now Te Papa Tongarewa), Wellington, where he worked as an ethnologist, ichthyologist, ornithologist and scientific illustrator. During a career that spanned five decades, he published some 200 scientific papers and authored several books in the fields of zoology and anthropology. He passed away in 1967.