Introduction

The starting point of this chapter is the contested history of a small South Pacific nation where state institutions hold, and administer, significant archival collections belonging to indigenous Māori. Many of these records were appropriated through processes of colonisation: war, theft and the dispossession of land, language and culture.

Pre-colonisation, Aotearoa New Zealand's indigenous Māori exercised sophisticated ways of storing and disseminating knowledge: oration, song, performance and crafts. The arts of remembering and passing on traditional knowledge are highly valued. Māori knowledge focuses on connection between people and place, voyaging stories and ancestors, creation and gods. Traditionally, transmission takes place within an information hierarchy carefully established to allow the receiver simultaneously to attain both the content and the context of what is being shared. Each fragment of traditional knowledge – a story or song, a piece of writing – is layered with clues and codes guiding correct sharing and usage.

One of the notable impacts of colonisation in this country is the number of taonga Māori (ancestral treasures, tangible and intangible) historically coveted by tau iwi (non-Māori) collectors and ‘gifted’ to national and international collecting institutions. Historical donation or deposit by traditional owners – with or without stipulated succession – has likewise rendered Māori archives inaccessible to intergenerational successors. At worst, those with ancestral ties may be granted the same access right as tau iwi (non-Māori) researchers walking in off the street.

While acknowledging the primacy of these treasures and their status as ancestors, this article focuses on the traditional indigenous knowledge they hold and how it is presented, and represented, in two comparative modes of contemporary archiving practice in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The story moves now to Taranaki, a region on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is named for the tupuna (ancestral) mountain of the region's tribes. In 2008, we were asked to establish a pan-tribal community archive of Taranaki mātauranga (traditional knowledge) for language and cultural revitalisation.

In 2012, we wrote: