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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...