Writer delves into forest legends
Papatūānuku and Ranginui look at each other, pushed apart by Tāne Mahuta.
“I thought that was such a wonderful way of starting the book, the creation story of how the forest God separated the parents,” author and illustrator Ned Barraud said.
The Nelson writer has just had Rākau, a new book on the evolution and habitats of New Zealand forests, published by Te Papa Press.
The powerful image from the Māori pūrākau (ancient legend) is painted by Barraud in the opening page of his children’s book.
Last year, he moved back to his home region after living in Wellington for over 20 years.
Barraud said moving back into the family home and his wife selling her building business were the two main reasons why they decided to come back.
“It just felt like the right time to make the move and to be here for my my parents.”
The 49-year-old lived in Dunedin and overseas for some time, where he met his wife.
“We met in Ireland and she came home with me,” he said.
Barraud worked for Wēta FX as a texture artist for 15 years, and wrote and illustrated around 30 books on New Zealand wildlife, including one on the prehistoric moa.
His writing and illustrating process starts the old-fashioned way, with a pad and a pencil, as he creates the storyboard of the book, but he then scans the drawing and finishes it off on a graphic tablet, where he does the colouring.
For Rākau, he has depicted giant kauri, ferns and goblin forests, while blending the botanical description of the trees and canopies with some historical events and ancient myths.
He grew up hearing the story of Ranginui, the deity of the sky, and Papatūānuku, the deity of the earth, torn apart by the forests and the plants ‒ and that fitted quite well as a way to start a book on ancient trees.
Barraud also tells the story of the first colonisers from the Pacific Ocean and then the arrival of the European settlers.
“Tangata whenua were the first and they made a big impact on the country before Europeans arrived, just by bringing fire.
“And by the time Europeans had arrived, vast areas had already been cleared, often not on purpose.”
“When Europeans arrived, it was just all out destruction, and so much of the forest was destroyed.”
Before people arrived in New Zealand, around 80% of the land was covered by forests, according to the Ministry for Primary Industries, today, only 38% of the land was covered by plantation and native forests.
Along the details of the ngahere (bush, forest) of New Zealand, Rākau depicts the stories of how the tōtara trees were used for making waka taua (war canoe) and kererū’s hunger for the ripe cones of the miro trees.
“Sometimes [kererū] gorge themselves on the fermented berries and get drunk, and fall out of trees,” Barraud said.
The Nelson writer used many Māori words in his book and he did not think the recent decision by Minister of Education Erica Stanford to cut Māori words from future junior books was a good idea.
He said making children familiar with te reo Māori from a young age was the best way forward.
“The more it’s introduced at a young age, the more natural it will become, and those words will become more familiar, and they’ll be used more often.”
Caption: Ned Barraud with his latest book Rākau, which was about the evolution and habitats of New Zealand trees and forests. Photo: Martin de Ruyter/Nelson Mail
By Warren Gamble, Nelson Mail
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