Full Description
A landmark book about four remarkable museum expeditions that contributed to a recovery of Maori society.
From 1919 to 1923, at Sir Apirana Ngata's initiative, a team from the Dominion Museum travelled to tribal areas across Te Ika-a-Maui The North Island to record tikanga Maori (ancestral practices) that Ngata feared might be disappearing.
These ethnographic expeditions, the first in the world to be inspired and guided by indigenous leaders, used cutting-edge technologies that included cinematic film and wax cylinders to record fishing techniques, art forms (weaving, kowhaiwhai, kapa haka and moteatea), ancestral rituals and everyday life in the communities they visited.
The team visited the 1919 Hui Aroha in Gisborne, the 1920 welcome to the Prince of Wales in Rotorua, and communities along the Whanganui River (1921) and in Tairawhiti (1923). Medical doctor-soldier-ethnographer Te Rangihiroa (Sir Peter Buck), the expedition's photographer and film-maker James McDonald, the ethnologist Elsdon Best and Turnbull Librarian Johannes Andersen recorded a wealth of material.
This beautifully illustrated book tells the story of these expeditions, and the determination of early twentieth century Maori leaders, including Ngata, Te Rangihiroa, James Carroll, and those in the communities they visited, to pass
on ancestral tikanga 'hei taonga mo nga uri whakatipu' as treasures for a rising generation.
Contents
Hei Wahi Ake | Wayne Ngata Page 8
Mihi | Arapata Hakiwai Page 10
Introduction | Anne Salmond, Conal McCarthy, Amiria Salmon Page 12
Chapter 1: Kia Ora Te Hui Aroha | Monty Soutar Page 76
Chapter 2: E Tama! E Te Ariki! Haere Mai! | Anne Salmond, James Schuster, Billie Lythberg Page 116
A Pouhaki for the Prince | James Schuster Page 146
Chapter 3: Toia Mai! Te Taonga! | Anne Salmond Page 154
Like He's Sitting Here and Talking | John Niko Maihi Page 188
My Tupuna are revealing themselves | Sandra Kahu Nepia Page 192
Where There Was an Astronomer There's a Pohutukawa | Te Wheturere Poope Gray Page 194
The Knowledge Inside the Words | Te Aroha McDonnell Page 196
Chapter 4: Oh Machine, Speak On, Speak On | Anne Salmond, Billie Lythberg Page 200
Chapter 5: The Eye of the Film | Natalie Robertson Page 218
Chapter 6: Alive with Rhythmic Force | Anne Salmond, Billie Lythberg, Conal McCarthy Page 278
Appendices Page 304
Reconnecting Taonga | Billie Lythberg
The Terminology of Whakapapa | Apirana Ngata, Wayne Ngata
Relationship Terms | Apirana Ngata
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Image Credits
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
Index
