He Korero-words between us: First Maori-Pakeha conversations on paper

Abstract

First Maori-Pakeha conversations on paper. First contacts with personnel from visiting ships, with missionaries, schools in Australia, and travel to Australia and England were important milestones.

He Korero-words between us: First Maori-Pakeha conversations on paper. Alison Jones & Kuni Jenkins. Wellington, New Zealand: Huia Publishers. 2011. 242 pp.

This book reached out to me. I was urged to touch, to feel, to breathe in its secrets. I had to read it. It is a beautifully designed book, and won the 2012 Pearson book design award for Best Educational Book. Jenkins brings an acute Ngäti Porou insight to a scholarly partnership with Jones for the interpretation of images and documents that trace Maori willingness and adaptability to create relationships with Europeans in order to access their culture and writing technology. To assist in their meticulous examination of early artifacts from Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, England and France, Jones and Jenkins scope a wide range of literature (there are extensive endnotes, as well as a full bibliography of primary sources, newspapers, and other documents), in particular the work of noted Maori and European historians Patu Hohepa, Hugh Rihari, Anne Salmond, Judith Binney and Phil Parkinson. Their findings guide us through early Maori encounters with writing. Jones and Jenkins note that the development of social relationships was vital to those experiences, as was awareness of the different expectations of Maori and Europeans about these encounters.

In 16 chronologically arranged essays from 1769 to 1826, Jenkins and Jones investigate archival material to carefully describe the linking steps trodden by Maori and European in writing encounters. First contacts with personnel from visiting ships, with missionaries, schools in Australia, and travel to Australia and England were important milestones. From the earliest Maori engagement with writing via the creation of a word collection during one of Captain Cook's voyages, Jenkins and Jones record Maori realisation that the power of pen and paper privileged certain Europeans. However, Maori were envied for their knowledge of flax use. To gain that information Europeans kidnapped and shipped two young male Maori, Tuki and Huru, to Norfolk Island in 1793. On Norfolk generous hospitality and social relationships framed the establishment of their friendship, trust and cooperation with the governor, Phillip Gidley King. Tuki and Huru perceived that this friendship held possibilities for future relationships to the advantage of northern Maori. Together King, Tuki and Huru developed a written vocabulary of Maori language, and shared practical and political knowledge.

By the early 1800s written messages as objects were becoming more familiar to northern Maori via the documents on visiting ships, Maori 'postal' delivery of written messages, and Maori involvement with 'signing' various papers. Anchored in this time is the amazing story of Maui from the southern Bay of Islands who became an accomplished, independent writer and scholar of English. He was schooled on Norfolk Island, at Parramatta in New South Wales whilst living in Samuel Marsden's home, and went on to study and teach Sunday School in Londonall before the first European settlers came to New Zealand. Another key figure was Ruatara, a northern rangatira who had returned home after spending time in Parramatta, having requested Marsden to provide a teacher for the children of his iwi. Marsden responded and sent Thomas Kendall. Jenkins and Jones' account of the welcome pöwhiri to Marsden, Kendall and the settlers on Christmas Day 1814 and the day before it, illustrates the huge gap in understanding between European and Maori. Europeans did not understand the importance and political nature of the occasion, or Maori nuances of language, meaning, intention and reciprocity. But, Maori now did have a schoolteacher.

Between 1815 and 1830 Maori writing progressed rapidly. Signature marks of Maori were appended to land deeds. The Church Missionary Society required Kendall to devise a standard written form of language for local teaching purposes. A Korao no New Zealand: or, the New Zealander's First Book Being An Attempt to compose some Lessons for the Instruction of the Natives was written by Kendall with the assistance of Tuai from the southern Bay of Islands, and published in Sydney in 1815. Kendall opened the first school in 1816 where rolls noted not only attendance, but also visits of fleets of canoes by a number of interested chiefs and their people from as far south as Thames. After two years of internal disputes amongst the settlers, lack of support from Marsden, and Maori trade restrictions, the school closed. However, Maori had been successful in having tutored Kendall in Maori language, Maori ways, and he was acting powerfully in Maori interests.

In 1818 during the industrial revolution, Tuai and Titere, young men from the Bay of Islands, travelled to London courtesy of the Church Missionary Society. They returned in 1819 when Tuai diverted his abilities in English to the advantage of Maori negotiation and trade with Europeans. In 1820 an expanded Maori and European collaborative work entitled A Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand was published in London. By 1826 more schools had been established, and the European technology of writing as a negotiation medium in Maori hands was significantly alive and well.

Through their archival investigation, coupled with Jenkins' Ngäti Porou and Anglican background, the authors offer interesting interpretations concerning Maori expectations, adaptability, tenacity and optimism in their desire to acquire and use new knowledge. Whether by chance or design, Jones and Jenkins somehow seem to share cultures with the participants as they go back in time to revisit MaoriEuropean social relationships and early Maori encounters with the technology of writing, reminding us of the value of alternative versions of Maori and European educational histories. To immerse oneself with an open mind in this easy-to-read account is to engage optimistically in contemporary conversations, and to consider, as Wally Penetito (2010) put it, "the implications of a selection of knowledge outside the asymmetrical power relations between Maori and Pakeha" (p. 14).

This book is an exciting journey with Jenkins and Jones through the realms of early Maori experience with writing and reading that will be closely scrutinised by Ngäpuhi, Maori and Päkehä scholars. It is a highly significant text about difference that should be required reading for those engaged in teacher education, and made available in every school staffroom in Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as read by policymakers in education.

References

References

Penetito, W. (2010). What's Maori about Maori Education ? Wellington, NZ: Victoria University Press.