Ahead of Waitangi Day, UK schools and education companies tried to engage with Māori culture. But a string of examples, ranging from ignorant cultural appropriation to harmful and inaccurate depictions of history, show colonial attitudes remain entrenched. After 200 years, Aotearoa is finally incorporating what’s hoped to be a more accurate and nuanced teaching of … Read more
This week, the National MP said the proposed compulsory history curriculum for New Zealand schools lacked ‘balance’. Historian Lydia Whiting believes his concerns hint at a deeper anxiety. On Wednesday, speaking from the site of the battle of Ruapekapeka, prime minister Jacinda Ardern announced the rollout of the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum. The curriculum … Read more
Most of them commemorate early Pākehā arrival. Some are based on obsolete provincial borders. One celebrates an A&P show. But most importantly, none of them have any meaning to the vast majority of us, writes historian André Brett. Last Monday, January 25, was the Wellington Anniversary Day public holiday. Today, residents of Auckland, Buller, Nelson, … Read more
Summer reissue: History warns that we should be wary of the misuse of power in the name of public health, writes Scott Hamilton. First published on April 2, 2020. Content warning: This feature contains distressing descriptions of racism against Māori. In the winter of 1913 a group of Māori appeared in the office of Arthur … Read more
Charlotte Muru-Lanning lifts the lid on an intriguing legacy. First published December 9, 2020 When Māori Party MPs Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi were sworn into parliament last week, both wore impressive hats. Their top hat and cowboy hat drew mostly praise, but also some criticism and confusion. In fact, some responses bordered on horror. … Read more
Scottish historian Hamish Dingwall is working on a book about New Zealand suffragist Mary Ann Müller and wrote this essay as bait, basically. If you have any sort of archive (letters, photographs, a diary) regarding Mary or her life, no matter how small the snippet, Dingwall would love to hear from you. Email books editor … Read more
To stamp out rampant rumours, we must turn to fearless and fastidious scholarship – and writers, says Jared Davidson. On a spring morning in March 1906, people making their way to work along Oxford Street in central London were alarmed to see well-built men wearing Prussian army uniforms prowling up and down the pavement. From … Read more
History warns that we should be wary of the misuse of power in the name of public health, writes Scott Hamilton. Content warning: This feature contains distressing descriptions of racism against Māori. In the winter of 1913 a group of Māori appeared in the office of Arthur Manning, the mayor of Hamilton. The visitors had … Read more
A group discovered to be digging for proof of a giant pre-Māori race in the limestone caves of Waikato have not lost their minds all of a sudden, but are continuing a legacy of religion-based racism in the area, writes Scott Hamilton. Earlier this month, RNZ’s Susan Strongman reported that amateur archaeologists were digging for … Read more
Fresh off another Ockhams nomination, here’s one of New Zealand’s foremost historians on the realities of research – and the end of a golden era at our national archive. It felt like I had finally reached the inner sanctum of New Zealand historians. In January 1993 I arrived in Wellington on a three-month contract researching … Read more
Another giant bird has been torn from its grave: the ancient Rēkohu/Chatham Island penguin. Just how big was it? Standing at just over a metre tall, Kupoupou stilwelli was a big bird. It was as large as the giant Otago parrot, or as tall as a metre ruler. Sixty million years ago, long before any … Read more
An extract from Benjamin Kingsbury’s The Dark Island, about the history of the leprosy patient colony on Quail Island, in Lyttelton Harbour. Books editor Catherine Woulfe writes: There are certain passages of Benjamin Kingsbury’s new book The Dark Island that make the reader wince and turn away. But then you turn back again, you can’t … Read more
On the 250th anniversary of Captain James Cook arriving in Aotearoa, Tina Ngata looks at the whakapapa of colonisation in Aotearoa – the 15th and 16th century laws issued by the Catholic church that gave British and European monarchies permission to oppress and enslave indigenous people. This year’s TUIA250 Cook commemorations are New Zealand’s response … Read more
Compulsory New Zealand history in schools is an exciting opportunity but it’s crucial we’re critical of the stories we tell ourselves, writes historian Aroha Harris, co-author of Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History. History is not simply an assemblage of facts and evidence. History is also the interrogation of those things. This may be unsettling news … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Native Son: The Writer’s Memoir by Witi Ihimaera (Penguin Random House, $40) Stand by for a review from Essa Ranapiri! … Read more
Finally, New Zealand history will become a compulsory school subject. So what’s so good about that? New Zealand history will be a compulsory primary and secondary school subject within the next three years, Jacinda Ardern announced today. The decision has proved popular to campaigners and academics like Vincent O’Malley who have battled for years to … Read more
When the University of Otago was founded 150 years ago the interests of local Māori were disregarded. But now, in the last 50 years, engagement with tangata whenua has become an essential part of the university’s identity. New Zealand’s first university was co-founded by a controversial Scottish politician determined to make something of himself in … Read more
As a proposed new law to protect the Parihaka name makes its way through parliament, Rachel Buchanan reflects on the shifting legacy of something that is so much more than a set of GPS coordinates. In 1848, my kuia Arapera Rongouaroa Parai gave birth to Tāre Warahi (Charles Wallace) at Te Aro Pā, in what … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Bloomsbury, $35) Long may they reign. 2 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Bloomsbury, $35) “Taddeo writes like it’s all brand new. Like she’s high, perfectly high, punching … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Three Women by Lisa Taddeo (Bloomsbury, $35) Fucking nailed it. 2 Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi (Sandstone, $27) Winner of the … Read more
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Moonlight Sonata by Eileen Merriman (Penguin Random House, $38) Prolific, terrific writer of YA pivots to adult fiction with a … Read more
The memory of Sir Edmund Hillary is still fresh, but as the years roll by it may not stay that way. Josie Adams ranks the ways future generations could learn about our national hero. As we head into winter and ski season I’m reminded of our country’s biggest snowbunny, Sir Edmund Hillary. We know … Read more
Extract: In a new book about censored letters in New Zealand, the author tells the strange story of a German woman who dressed as a man and may have established a “lesbian network”. Letter from Katherine Early to Hjelmar Dannevill, November 1915 I don’t know whether it will be possible to see you again, I … Read more
When even the ‘woke’ are ignorant about Te Tiriti o Waitangi, it’s clear we need to make teaching its history compulsory in schools, writes Liam Hehir. Sometimes something happens in the news that shakes you out of a bubble. I thought that making New Zealand history a compulsory part of the curriculum was more heavy-handed … Read more
An ex-colleague of Linda Astor, who tricked her way to becoming the head of clinical psychiatry at Nelson-Marlborough Health, has spoken out for the first time about working with the fake psychiatrist. Tracy Neal of RNZ reports. The Medical Council says the chances of a pretend doctor working in New Zealand are not impossible, as … Read more
When musician Anthonie Tonnon started to research the history of Dunedin’s railway system for his new music video, it grew into a consuming, Aotearoa-wide investigation – and the inspiration for the tour that kicks off this week. If you live in a large city with a passenger rail network, a railway underpass will not be … Read more
The Single Object is a series exploring our material culture, examining the meaning and influence of the objects that surround us in everyday life. In the fifth part of the series James Dann explores Christchurch’s ties to the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, and embarks on his own journey of discovery in pursuit of a … 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