Hemi Pomara
1846 daguerreotype of Hemi Pomara by Antoine Claudet
Borncirca 1830
Chatham Islands Edit this on Wikidata
Diedunknown

Hemi Pomara (born c. 1830; sometimes spelled Pomare) was a Māori man of chiefly status, from the Chatham Islands. In his youth, he was taken to Sydney, and then London, before returning to New Zealand, via Barbados, where he was shipwrecked. A daguerreotype of Pomara is the oldest known photograph of any Māori person. A novel and a planned film are based on his life.

Early life

Hemi Pomara was born in around 1830, the grandson of Wiremu Piti Pomara, a Māori chief of the Ngāti Mutunga,[1] an iwi (tribe) on the Chatham Islands (Māori: Wharekauri).[2] His family were massacred by a rival tribe,[2] leaving him an orphan.[3]

Sydney

Portrait by George French Angas, (painted 1844–1846), now in the National Library of New Zealand

In late 1844, Pomara was taken on the brig Coolangatta to Sydney, the capital of the then Colony of New South Wales, by the artist George French Angas[lower-alpha 1],[3] who became his guardian.[2] While there he attended an English boarding school.[1][2] Angas took Pomara with him as he gave lectures in New South Wales and the neighbouring Province of South Australia, and painted a watercolour portrait of Pomara to use as an illustration in a lecture series called "Illustrations of the Natives and Scenery of Australia and New Zealand together with 300 portraits from life of the principal Chiefs, with their Families".[2] This portrait survives, and is now in the collection of the National Library of New Zealand.[4] Pomara is depicted wearing a traditional Māori cloak, or korowai, befitting his high status.[2]

London

Departing on the Royal Tar on 10 September 1845,[5] Angas took Pomara to England,[1][3] via Rio de Janeiro.[6] They arrived at Gravesend on 23 February 1846.[6][5] Angas documented the voyage in his 1847 book Savage Life And Scenes In Australia And New Zealand,[5] in which Pomara is mentioned but once, and briefly, as "My young New Zealander, Pomara".[lower-alpha 2]

Pomara attended the March 1846 opening of an exhibition of Angas's watercolours at the Egyptian Hall in London.[1] He was then exhibited there, alongside Angas's paintings.[2] On 3 April 1846 he was introduced to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, during a private viewing.[1][2] A woodcut depicting Pomara was published in The Illustrated London News, 18 April 1846 edition, where he was named as "James Pomara" who "has been educated in New South Wales, speaks English fluently, and is a very intelligent person."[lower-alpha 3].[2][7]

In late March or early April, he attended a meeting of the Royal Society, where he was presented to an audience including Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, and Antoine Claudet.[2] The later was a pioneering French daguerreotypist, working in London.[2] Pomara sat for Claudet, wearing the same cloak that he wore for the Angas portrait.[2]

Shipwreck

Later in 1846, Pomara sailed on the Caleb Angas, which was shipwrecked off Barbados.[2] He survived, and put to sea again, on the Eliza[lower-alpha 4].[2] During that voyage, he was assaulted by the ship's first mate, who was later prosecuted as a result.[2] By 1847 Pomara was in Auckland.[2]

Later life

Little is known of Pomara's activities, after his arrival in Auckland.[2]

In 1864 Hare Pomare, his wife Hariata, and baby Victor Albert visited London was part of a Māori delegation.[2][8] It is possible that Hare and Hemi were the same person.[2]

Legacy

The title character of The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke, a 2018 novel by Tina Makereti, is based on Pomara.[2] As of July 2020, a film version, produced by Taika Waititi, is planned.[2]

In 2020 Claudet's hand-tinted daguerreotype was identified in the National Library of Australia,[2] having been purchased for the library in 1960, by Eric Keast Burke.[2] It is the oldest known photograph of a Māori person.[2][9]

Contrary opinion

An unnamed writer in New Zealand doubted Angas' story regarding Pomara's origins:[10]

Advertisements and flourishing paragraphs have been going the round of the London Journals, calling upon all the curiosity hunters to visit the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in order to feast their eyes with the sight of Mr. G. F. Angas' young New Zealand Chief. This ruse of Mr. Angas (who it will he recollected is the young artist who perambulated some of the districts of this Colony) is probably profitable, but certainly is not very reputable. We happen to know the history of this young man, whom Mr. Angas is palming upon the English public as the son of Pomare. He is a half-caste, the adopted son of Mr. David Scott, by whom he was maintained, and at whose expense he was educated at Sydney. The young lad knows as much about the real character and habits of his mother's race, as the fools who go to see him. He was committed to the care of Mr. Angas we believe, on the understanding that, he was to be taught the profession of an artist. His present occupation is perhaps the initiatory process by which Mr. Angas proposes to fit him for the labors of the easel. "0 tempora, o mores!"

Notes

  1. ↑ deCourcy & Jolly, 2020,[2] say he was "kidnapped" and "seized" by a British trader, and that Angas first encountered Pomara in Sydney, but no source, other than those quoting or regurgitating them, agrees
  2. ↑ Angas, Savage Life And Scenes..., Volume 2, 1847, page 247:[5]
    The number of Cape pigeons that follow in the wake of the vessel is astonishing. They appear very hungry, and are perpetually in danger of being sucked down by the little whirlpools that eddy in the vessel’s wake, whilst diving and scuffling for the morsels of food thrown overboard. My young New Zealander, Pomara, caught a great many of them with a hook and line, and sent them away again with canvass collars round their necks.
  3. ↑ The Illustrated London News, 18 April 1846, page 253:[7]
    But the living attraction of the Exhibition is a New Zealand youth, about fourteen years of age, and named James Pomara; he is a grandson of Pomara, a chief of the Chatham Islands; has been educated in New South Wales, speaks English fluently, and is a very intelligent person. He was present at the last soirée given by the Marquis of Northampton, where he excited considerable Interest among the savans.
  4. ↑ see Eliza (ship) for possible vessels

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hemi Pomara.
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Pomare, Hemi, 1831?-". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 deCourcy, Elisa; Jolly, Martyn (1 July 2020). "How we uncovered the oldest surviving photograph of a Māori person". The Spinoff. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 "Angas, George French". Taonga. New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage Te Manatu. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  4. ↑ "Angas, George French, 1822–1886: Hemi, grandson of Pomara, Chief of the Chatham Islands [Between 1844 and 1846]". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Angas, George French (1847). Savage Life And Scenes In Australia And New Zealand Vol.1 and 2. pp. 244–270.
  6. 1 2 Falconer-Gray, Catherine (2014). George French Angas and the Creation of Colonial Knowledge in New Zealand (PDF) (MA). Victoria University of Wellington. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  7. 1 2 "The New Zealand and South Australian Exhibition". The Illustrated London News. 18 April 1846. p. 253.
  8. ↑ "Mayall, John Jabez (London) fl 1810–1901: Hare Pomare and child Victor Albert Pomare". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  9. ↑ Roy, Eleanor Ainge (30 June 2020). "Oldest surviving photograph of Māori discovered in Australia". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  10. ↑ "Gullability of the English People". New Zealander. Vol. 2, no. 82. 26 December 1846.

Further reading

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