The Huia & Our Tears is a treasure house in which Ray Ching has stored his beautiful paintings, photographs of huia skins and feathers, stories and fables of this beautiful bird. It is sadly is no more. But it still holds a special place in the hearts of many Kiwis.
In his prologue, he reflects on how, when his great-great-grandfather and his wife established their homestead in Nelson in 1842, huia still moved freely in the forests of Aotearoa.
Perhaps they saw them flicking over leaf litter under fallen fronds on some forest floor, the pair with wattles glowing yellowy-orange; the unexpected shapes to their beautiful ivory beaks and the spectacle of twelve great tail feathers tipped milky-white.
Ray Ching has never seen a huia. It has been extinct for more than a century. But he did know a man who did. He recounts his meeting with Clarence Pointer, an old taxidermist, in his Petone workshop. He told Ching how he had seen a family group of huia while out pig-hunting with his uncle in 1912 in Gollan’s valley.
As well as Ching’s own exquisite huia paintings, which are featured throughout this book, he devotes a chapter to the works of other artists, including a selection of stunning portrait paintings of Rangatira (high-ranking Māori chiefs) adorned with huia feathers by both Lindauer and Goldie. Ching makes some pertinent comparisons and judgments about the paintings of these two artists.
He also frankly admits that his own efforts at painting huia haven’t always been successful, which may surprise readers as he is an internationally renowned bird painter. Ching wanted to bring huia to life in his paintings, showing it flying through the forest. But as he had never seen huia, this presented him with a huge challenge.
Ching is a talented writer as well as a renowned bird painter and in one of his previous books he pretended that he was Aesop, that fabled teller of tales who had travelled to Aotearoa. In many of these whimsical fables the huia appears. We can enjoy reading these fables again in this book although predictably the huia always comes to a sad end.
For many years Ching has worked in a studio in his cottage in the medieval village of Rye on the Sussex Coast. He includes anecdotes about some distinguished visitors to his studio including an amusing story about a visit by David Attenborough.
Books have long fueled Ching’s love for the huia. He has kept a copy of Eilleen Duggan’s children’s book New Zealand Bird Songs (1929) in his studio for many years. She was a New Zealand poet, once very popular but largely forgotten now. Her lament for the huia, reprinted in this book, is especially poignant.
Another book that greatly inspired him was The Book of the Huia by JB Phillips, now out of print. It came into his hands just after its publication in 1963.
It fixed the romance of the huia firmly in my mind. Perhaps most of all it is the chapters where Phillips collects conversations and correspondence remembered by then early settlers from their childhood when they had seen the huia as forests were being cleared to make way for farmland. They had heard the birds calling from far off and trapped them to keep as pets.
Phillips also sheds light on the huia’s role in Māori culture. The Book of the Huia, in its entirety, has been added to Ching’s book.
Throughout his life Ching has searched out huia skins and feathers to help him in his work. Huia skins have been collected by museums all over the world. In his appendix he has listed where all of these are to be found.
This stunning book, so richly illustrated with Ching’s beautiful huia paintings and fascinating stories, will greatly help to keep the memory of the beautiful huia alive. It would make a very special Christmas gift.
Reviewer: Lyn Potter
Bateman Books