Ngā mihi o te Tau Hou! Happy New Year! We start 2019 in a reflective mood with a wide range of new items in our Māori Collection that examine our rich past. These include the newly knighted Sir Kim Workman’s fascinating memoir, Journey Towards Justice, a look at Māori and cartooning in New Zealand from Paul Diamond, an exploration of the 1864 battle at Pukehinahina/Gate Pā by Buddy Mikaere and Cliff Simons, and a wonderful new time-travel novel for young adults by Whiti Hereaka.
Journey towards justice / Kim Workman.
“Kim Workman is a central figure in the on-going discussion of justice and prison policy in New Zealand. This memoir tells his remarkable story: from early years growing up in the Wairarapa to working as a police officer during the 1960s and 70s, from his public service roles that included being head of prisons in the early 1990s to his emergence as a passionate advocate for radical justice reform. This is a fascinating and honest story dealing with struggle, spirituality, questions of cultural identity and the state and social forces that have helped shape contemporary New Zealand.” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)
Savaged to suit: Māori and cartooning in New Zealand / Paul Diamond
“In the earliest cartoons featuring Māori, they appeared as savages; today they are likely to be drawn in corporate-world suits. While concentrating on the period from the 1930s to the 1990s, this book also looks back to the first cartoons showing Māori and includes 21st century images. It looks at how Māori and Māori culture and life were seen by cartoonists in a succession of stereotypes over many decades of changing perceptions and attitudes and considers how these stereotypes criticised Māori and their culture to ‘suit’ cartoonists’ agendas.” (Adapted from cover)
Victory at Gate Pā?: the battle of Pukehinahina-Gate Pā: 1864 / Mikaere, Piritihana
“The Battle of Pukehinahina was a defining moment in New Zealand history. It brought together forces representing the British Empire’s military machine, political manoeuvring and settler land hunger, Māori notions of sovereignty and self-determination, Christian ideals, and death on a rainy afternoon in Tauranga in 1864. Here the story of the battle is told by two voices – Buddy Mikaere, who is a descendant of Māori who fought in the battle, and Cliff Simons, who has a PhD in Defence and Strategic Studies.” (Adapted from back cover)
Oceanic Art (World of Art)
“The colors and patterns of Pacific Island art have long entranced Western audiences and artists. This book looks beyond the familiar surfaces of spears and shields, carved canoe prows and feather capes to discover the significance of art, past and present, for the people of the Pacific. This second edition includes a new chapter on globalization and contemporary art, and shows how each region is characterised by certain art forms and practices.” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)
Ocean: tales of voyaging and encounter that defined New Zealand / Ell, Sarah
“Lying in the middle of a vast ocean, Aotearoa was the last habitable land mass in the world to be settled by humans. Our history represents the powerful coming-together of two great seafaring traditions, Polynesian and European. Ocean tells the stories of pioneers and trail-blazers, from the big names who left their mark on our history to everyday folk whose fates were dictated by time and tide.” (Adapted from our Catalogue)
Legacy / Whiti Hereaka
“Seventeen-year-old Riki is worried about school, the future, and his girlfriend. On his way to see her, he’s hit by a bus and life changes. Riki wakes up 100 years earlier in Egypt, in 1915, and finds he’s living through his great-great-grandfather’s experiences in the Maori Contingent. As he tries to understand what’s happening and find a way home, we go back in time and read transcripts of interviews Riki’s great-great-grandfather gave in 1975 about his experiences in this war. Gradually we realise the fates of Riki and his great-great-grandfather are intertwined.” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)
Galleries of Maoriland
“Galleries of Maoriland introduces us to the ways in which European colonists discovered, created, propagated and romanticised the Maori world and summed up in the popular nickname Maoriland. It could be seen in the paintings of Lindauer and Goldie; among artists, patrons, collectors and audiences; inside the Polynesian Society and the Dominion Museum; among stolen artefacts and fantastical accounts of the Maori past. The culture of Maoriland was a colonists creation and this book offers a new understanding of our art and our culture within that context.” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)
Filming the colonial past: the New Zealand wars on screen / Cooper, Annabel
“The New Zealand Wars were defining events in our history. This book tells a story of filmmaker’s fascination with these conflicts over the past 90 years. It discusses Rudall Hayward’s two versions of Rewis Last Stand (1925, 1940) and The Te Kooti Trail (1927), television drama (including The Governor), pioneering independent film (Geoff Murphy’s Utu), documentaries (notably the New Zealand Wars series of 1998) and feature films including Vincent Ward’s River Queen and Rain of the Children. In examining this history, Annabel Cooper illuminates a fascinating path of cultural change through successive generations of filmmakers.” (Adapted from our catalogue)
New Zealand Journal of History, Vol. 52, No. 2 October 2018
The latest issue of the New Zealand Journal of History has a fascinating item by Angela Middleton about Hariata Hongi (1815 – 1894), the daughter of Hongi Hika and wife of Hōne Heke. This article brings Hariata out of the shadows of her father and husband. It discusses her as an innovative leader who embraced new European skills and combined them with her skills from the traditional Māori world to engage in the political world of nineteenth century New Zealand.
Te papakupu o te reo matatini: a Māori language dictionary of literacy.
He pukapuka hei āwhina i te pouako e whakaako ana i roto i ngā kura reo Māori. Kei kōnei ngā kupu motuhake e hāngai ana ki ngā mata tini o te reo me te whakaako i te reo. This Māori language dictionary of literacy is a companion to Te Reo Pāngarau, Te Reo Pūtaiao, and Te Reo o Ngā Toi. It will invaluable to teachers in schools with a Māori language setting.
