Springtime

It seems that my motivation to photograph went into a state of hibernation last autumn. Fortunately my motivation to paint did not! Yesterday I took the time to make photos of all the stuff I have painted since summer.

British
An Overview of the British and a few Buildings in the background.

Grenadiers of the 65th (2nd Yorkshire/North Riding).
The regiment arrived too late to play a role in the Northern War but was active in the Wellington and Whanganui campaigns in 1846-47. The 65th distinguished itself in the Taranaki and Waikato campaigns in the 1860s and finally left in 1865. No British regiment served longer in New Zealand. The Māori called them hikete piwhete (“sixty-five”) which turned into the regimental nick name “Hickety Pips”.
If you want to learn more about the Hickety Pips, you can visit Bruce Cairns’ web site http://hicketypip.tripod.com/a>

58th (Rutlandshire)
Nicknamed the “Black Cuffs” the 58th is the regiment most closely associated with the First New Zealand War. They fought in all three campaigns in the 1840s.

Light flank company

One of the main pictorial sources of the First New Zealand War are the paintings of Major Cyprian Bridges and Sergeant John Williams of the 58th. You can see some their paintings here http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~jray/gordon/moir/war-pics.htm

Field officer of the 58th (maybe Maj. Bridges on the lookout for a new motif …)

96th Regiment of Foot
The 96th had no county affiliation or title at the time of the New Zealand Wars. The old title “Queen’s Own Germans” was not reinstated until 1874. The name refers to the swiss prisoners of war that formed its predecessor, the Minorca Regiment, in 1798. The Regiment was disbanded in 1818 and re-raised in 1824. At the time of the New Zealand War it was rather inexperienced and poorly equipped. The soldiers still used the old “Brown Bess” flintlock musket while the 58th and 65th already used the 1838 pattern percussion musket.

Auckland Volunteer Militia
When the Māori under Hone Heke and Te Ruki Kawiti attacked Kororareka on May 11th , 1845 and cut the British flagstaff down for the fourth time, the British abandoned the settlement and evacuated the citizens to Auckland. A lot of the displaced men joined the Auckland militia and even volunteered to serve outside the 25 mile zone required for militia. These volunteers often served in special roles such as pioneers or artillery crew. They received their equipment from the 58th regiment apart from the red shell jackets and a different type of caps.

Māori
Overview of the Māori. Following a discussion on the Maori Wars Yahoo Group I have recoloured the palisade with a a wash of greyish colour. 

A chieftainess  amidst the warriors. The tattooed lips and chin – a moko kawae and the black feathers with white tips of the now extinct huia bird display her high social rank.

Hone Heke, the famous chieftain of the Ngapuhi tribe, with his trademark: the peaked cap of a merchant navy captain. His cloak is brimmed with kiwi feathers. He is accompanied by warrior who is blowingconch-shell trumpet called putatara. He wears a red wooden hair comb in front of  the hair knot.

A few more pictures of the warriors.

A warrior brandishing a whalebone club of the violin-shaped kotiate form. He is wearing a tartan blanket of acquired from european settlers.

I tried a checkerboard pattern on the piupiu kilt of this warrior as a variation from the common striped pattern. A  piupiu is made of scraped down flax fibres that were partly dyed and plaited together.