I LOVE your comments! Let’s celebrate who we are and invite the rest of the world to share our wonderful culture. And let’s help them to get it right like you’re doing!

Aroha mai.

and the greenstone nipples- not liking that thats bit too far fetched. umm but i love the piupiu /flax skirt . i love the hei tiki on her. its just a bit wrong is all having a male ta-moko on her face and her arms fully tattoed with uggly patterns that look not very maori. i think that if you make another one. put a female tamoko on her chinn because i believe it will DO GREAT ON THE MARKET IN NZ. there are many tourist and hello kitty fans in nz. and would Buy many of these on the store shelve,s i for one have no problem with the doll expect the male tamoko looks so wrong on this doll. and remembering also the meaning behind ta-moko and the understanding that my people wear them with respect and mana.

handed down from generations long gone. those are the things to keep in mind. befor putting hello kitty out there to the world. keep doing your good works but do a bit more research., the doll should have a tipare on her cheast aswell and a piupiu/grass skirt we dont runn around toppless anymore that was the 18th century and then we always coverd up. cheers

Well, this is an interesting one. I have written papers on this exact topic that have been published in NZ and Japan and it is a pity that this picture was not around when I presented my paper to an International Syposium on Intellectual Property Law and Traditional Knowledge in Japan – I couldnt have asked for a more perfect example of the misappropriation of our cultural heritage.

I have forwarded it to a fellow researcher at the Japanese Patent Office as an example of how recent amendments to NZ IP laws are ridiculously inadequate to prevent misappropriation of Maori traditional knowledge – HK will make a great poster girl for the new regime that many of us have been advocating for some time.

Joseph, as a fellow artist and lover of Hello Kitty (I brought 6 back from Japan), I can understand where the inspiration came from. In Japan they have regional Hello Kitty with local animals as outfits that can only be purchased in that particular area. I suppose this is a somewhat bastardised version of the same concept.

The problem as many others have pointed out is your lack of understanding and research into the culture that you have “borrowed” from. Many others have pointed out various issues such as the use of the male moko on a female entity (which you say was a deliberate artistic tool), but what concerns me most with this particular example is the lack of respect for the deep spirituality of the ta moko – as a person who has taken the moko I am greatly offended by this. A moko is not an appropriate “adornment” for a childs toy.

I am not saying that you can never use Maori designs or create new art without being offensive. As one artist pointed out earlier, the problem is that you did not understand the meanings and complex relationships in what you have stolen. You cannot simply take one aspect of a culture and rip it from the context that gives it meaning and not expect to offend people – ask the guy who drew the cartoons of Mohammed.

The point that I fear many, including many uneducated or uninformed Maori, do not understand is that we are responsible for the protection and preservation of our cultural heritage for our children and our children’s children yet to come. I for one refuse to be a member of the generation that stood by and let our sacred traditions and knowledge become fodder for foreign artists, marketing campaigns and fashion labels who dont have the decency to find out about the people they are stealing from. We can and we will fight this exploitation and misappropriation of our culture.

All I have left to say to you Joseph is that if you consider yourself a true artist, inform yourself on the debate, inform yourself on the medium you have chosen to work in, and once you have I believe you will understand why we are offended.

You obviously have talent, it would be a pity to waste in on creating art that belittles our culture, rather than celebrates it.

It was partly done to intimidate, and was partly a statement of identity. Every tribe had its own distinctive patterns so warriors knew friend from foe and spies were easily recognized.

Oh yes… And very scary… Actually I find the whole body traditional painting of the Maori people a bit intimidating but cool at the same time.. But HK? It’s really tacky

I’ve been watching aspects of our Maori heritage misunderstood by the ignorant but well-meaning for over 60 years. Believe me, Kiwis in general are a lot less ignorant and much more genuinely interested in our culture than they used to be. If you listen to audio from 50 years ago on National Radio’s Sunday night “Sounds Historical” you will cringe at the appallingly bad pronunciation of Maori words that was almost universal back then, not to mention the superficiality of what was said about us. Look at the accommodation ads in a 1950′s issue of the NZ Herald and notice how many bluntly said “No Maoris”! Younger Maori only see the remaining injustices and don’t realize how much things have improved in just one lifetime. You can’t legislate for better understanding – it comes from direct experience, and that only comes from one culture reaching out to the other. Maori have been doing exactly that for a long time. It’s a slow process, but it seems to be working.

Try telling the All Blacks to stop doing “our” haka and you will only attract stinging criticism. Offer them a new haka and while there will be a few critics, most people will welcome that as one culture sharing its treasures with another.

I value our culture too, but let’s be careful our grumbles aren’t alienating good people with a genuine interest in things Maori. As long as people are saying “Wow, that’s great!” I don’t mind too much that Hello Kitty Maori got a few things wrong, but please Joseph get your next bit of Maori artistry checked by someone who knows what’s authentic and what isn’t!