When we remember the Armistice, remember what happened here too. The ‘two-worlds’ analogy retains its stubborn hold. Two worlds mapped onto Niu Tireni, sharing space, differently placed. You say Raowmati, I say Raumati; You say Oohtackie, I say Ōtaki. Or as poet Robert Sullivan put it: You say Treaty and I say Tiriti, … Read more
Book of the Week: Jane Stafford reviews a vast, thought-provoking study of late colonial New Zealand, when European portrait artists romanticised Māori culture. I have long regarded Roger Blackley as a living taonga, an unfailing resource for anyone working in the field of Aotearoa New Zealand’s colonial culture. There is no enquiry too recondite, no … Read more
Were a group of Māori men from Parihaka in Taranaki really held in a Dunedin cave in the late 1800s? New research by museum curator Seán Brosnahan seems to have finally revealed the truth. Shore Street, on the Dunedin harbour, marks the turning point of two different worlds. On one side, the busy machinations of … Read more
As we enter the third phase of summer, the pōhutukawa are flowering and mullet are leaping. Want to know more? Check out the maramataka for November. Hopefully you picked fun activities from last month’s column and maybe even started your veggie garden. For those who did and planted on the maramataka dates your garden should be … Read more
Horatio Robley witnessed the most famous battle of the New Zealand Wars, he fathered a child with the daughter of a sworn enemy, his sketching helped end a war and his book helped save the art of Māori tattooing. But mostly he’s famous for his grotesque collection of nearly 40 human heads, writes William Ray for RNZ. If … Read more
Social scientist Lucy Carter says people’s resilience and generosity during the 2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes spurred her to look at how Māori and indigenous communities respond to disaster. When I tell people I’m a disaster researcher, I tend to get a range of reactions. Some take the opportunity to share with me their personal … Read more
A tool of colonisation or liberation? Te Paipera Tapu (The Holy Bible) turns 150 this year, with the first full translation being published in 1868. Dr Hirini Kaa shares some of the cultural and historical significance of this book. The late, great Māori academic Ranginui Walker, in one of his memorably powerful phrases, once described Christianity as ‘total … Read more
To mark the anniversary of women’s suffrage, we republish this essay from International Women’s Day 2018 by Ātea editor Leonie Hayden – how Māori women can find their way back to equity through the stories of the past. 1893 was the first time New Zealand women were given access to the Westminster vote, but traditionally Māori … Read more
After Europeans arrived, moa were used a metaphor for the feared extinction of Māori themselves, write the authors of a new study. Tracing extinctions that happened centuries ago is difficult, but our collaborative analysis of ancestral sayings, or whakataukī, found that early Māori paid attention to their local fauna and environment and recognised the extinction … Read more
Māui Street editor Morgan Godfery with an exclusive look at the internal rift threatening the Māori Women’s Welfare League. A remit to expel controversial Māori Women’s Welfare League members will go the League’s AGM this year, National President Prue Kapua confirmed in a statement to Māui Street. The remit is aimed at expelling Pauline Rewiti, a South … Read more
This Sunday, five wāhine Māori are telling stories at Te Papa museum about the women who have inspired and shaped them. Author and researcher Helen Brown (Ngāi Tahu) remembers Mere Harper (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Huirapa) – midwife, porter, wahine toa. Mere Harper was part of the mixed-descent community that burgeoned around the shore- whaling station established … Read more
Hobson’s Pledge and their ilk argue for a culture that treats everyone the same. Anthropologist Haimona Gray looks at what’s actually at stake when we embrace multiculturalism. Go look at a wall! Is it very different to say, dirt? It is, because a wall is not a natural phenomenon. A person made that wall, but … Read more
The go-to argument for many people spouting anti-Māori sentiment often starts with ‘… but Māori killed all the Moriori’. Researcher Keri Mills is eager for fellow Pākehā to do some reading before reaching for this lazy argument. Firstly, the myth. You’ve heard it before. There were a pre-Māori people in New Zealand, called the Moriori. … Read more
Welcome to the Cheat Sheet, a clickable, shareable, bite-sized FAQ on the news of the moment. Today, we look at the meaning of Matariki. Matariki is the Māori name for the Pleaides star cluster. It rises during mid-winter and marks the beginning of the Māori new year. The word is an abbreviation of Ngā Mata … Read more
In this instalment of Black Sheep, the RNZ series about the controversial characters of New Zealand history: Kimble Bent, the American soldier who fought – and switched sides – in the Taranaki Land Wars of the 1860s. It’s reasonably common knowledge that large numbers of Māori fought on the side of the government during the … Read more
If someone pitched you the idea of using a contentious event in New Zealand history that resulted in land confiscations, hundreds of deaths and years of intergenerational trauma as a marketing idea, what would your response be? Down in Wellington at the Hurricanes rugby HQ, the answer was ‘great idea, go with it!’ Let’s examine … Read more
The University of Waikato’s dean of Māori and Indigenous Studies takes a moment to tautoko his colleague Professor Pou Temara in the wake of a petition to strip Sir Bob Jones of his knighthood. Last week a colleague, University of Waikato’s Professor of Tikanga and Reo, Pou Temara, hand delivered a 68,000 strong petition to parliament demanding … Read more
In 1879, the Whakatane meeting house Mataatua was taken apart and put on a ship bound for Australia, then England: “And so began the wanderings of New Zealand’s most-travelled wharenui…” Seeing Mataatua today, one is struck by its beauty. It is easy to imagine a government official being similarly struck in times past, and thinking … Read more
How Māori women can find our way back to equity through the stories of the past. In 1993 a group of Māori women filed a claim to the Waitangi Tribunal, now known as the Mana Wahine Claim. The claimants included a list of dream dinner party guests – all of the Māori Women’s Welfare League, Lady … Read more
Essayist Nadine Anne Hura goes looking for one ancestor’s story, and asks what really lies underneath our monuments to war. Small towns have big stories. I go around reading the plaques on top of rocks and plinths, memorials to the chosen, trying to decipher the story beneath the story. As I read, I almost feel … Read more
For 20 years, the second Māori King, Tāwhiao, governed Rohe Pōtae (the King Country) as an independent state. Tāwhiao also sailed to London in an attempt to see the Queen; the mission is described in this extract from a new study of that 20-year reign. Going to London to see the Queen was a rare … Read more
In the wake of negative te reo Māori stories this week, a hashtag has appeared that centres the conversation back on the positive. It’s said that in politics, once you’re in opposition conciliatory gestures are no longer required and the aim is to stay in the spotlight however you can. National Party leader Bill English … Read more
Māori historian Dr Danny Keenan explains why it is highly unlikely William Hobson ever made his famous ‘pledge’. Great play has been made by anti-Māori Pākehā on a statement attributed to Lieutenant Governor Hobson at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, that new settlers and Māori ‘were now one people’. But did Hobson ever … Read more
Nadine Millar writes a love letter to her beloved Porirua, and asks ‘What’s in a name?’ A few years ago, in 1994, a local businessman started an unsuccessful campaign to change the name of Porirua. Chris Gollins, a real estate consultant and media personality, felt that businesses were put off coming to the city because they baulked … Read more
On Wednesday the Spinoff Review of Books published a negative review of historian Anne Salmond’s latest work, Tears of Rangi, which claimed Salmond reduced her Māori subjects to ‘cardboard caricatures’. Here’s her response. This is a very interesting review. As Ranginui Walker used to urge, scholarship is like a marae, and one must be ready … Read more
Buddy Mikaere finds bias and misrepresentation in Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds, an otherwise acclaimed history of early New Zealand by Anne Salmond. Anne Salmond’s new book Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds is broadly divided into two parts. Part one revisits the already well traversed history of the early contact years between Māori and … Read more
Indigenous peoples throughout English-speaking countries have had their children taken away by the state for generations. Most countries have faced up to this legacy but New Zealand has been in denial about its own Stolen Generation – a group now known as Ngā Mōrehu (The Survivors). The new Labour government has agreed to set up … Read more
One of the stand-out chapters in Chris Bourke’s new best-selling history of New Zealand music in World War One is about the contribution and legacy of Māori music. He expands on the subject for the Spinoff. Māori popular music is the most crucial gap in the expanding bookshelf of New Zealand music histories. When researching Blue Smoke, my … Read more
As well as being the official NZ Wars commemoration date, October 28 is celebrated by Northland iwi for the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a document that recognised Māori sovereignty, explains Miriama Aoake. In 1835, 34 rangatira signed He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tīreni, the Declaration of Independence of the United Tribes … Read more