Ngā Tānga Reo Māori: An introduction to the Books in Māori collection of printed Māori taonga

Speakers

Joan McCracken, Paul Diamond, Clare Butler, Emerson Vandy

Introduction

Joan McCracken: Kia ora koutou, ko Joan McCracken. I'm with the Alexander Turnbull Library's Outreach Services team, and it's my real pleasure to welcome you to Connecting to Collections Online today.

A little bit of housekeeping before I introduce today's speakers, Clare Butler and Paul Diamond. As you'll have seen when you joined the webinar, it is being recorded. And as this is a webinar, your videos and microphones are turned off. However, there's still an opportunity to interact with those of us in the room and with others in the audience.

If you'd like to share where you're joining us from, or have any general questions or comments, then please add those to chat. If you have any questions for Paul and Clare, then add those to Q&A. You'll find both buttons at the bottom of your Zoom screen. At the end of the presentation, I'll come back to ask our presenters any questions we receive.

I'm now delighted to introduce Paul Diamond (Ngāti Hauā, Te Rarawa, Ngāpuhi) curator, Māori with the Alexander Turnbull Library and Clare Butler (Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa) who is digitisation advisor, Māori, with the National Library's Collaborative Services team.

Kia ora ko reo.

Clare Butler: Te okooko o te reo; te ihiihi o te reo; te ihoiho o te reo; te ohooho o te reo; tārewa tū ki te rangi; e tau, e tau te mauri, hui e, tāiki e.

E ngā reo e ngā iwi e ngā kārangatanga maha, ngā hapū katoa o Aotearoa, o runga, o raro, o waenganui, o tēnei tai, o tērā tai, o te tuawhenua katoa, nei rā te reo karanga ki a koutou.

Koutou kua whakakao mai nei ki te are taringa mai ki ēnei manu e kawe ana i tēnei kaupapa o Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. Ka whakaaro tō atu ki te hunga kua taka ki tua o te ārai.

Haere koutou ki te kāpura mutunga kore, e okioki, e okioki atu rā. Huri atu, huri mai ki a tātou, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

Ko Claire Butler tōku ingoa, he uri ahau nō Airihi, nō Ngāti Kurahikakawa o Pāhauwera.

Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke and Te Hokioi

Paul Diamond: E te iwi e mātakitaki mai nei e whakarongo nei, tēnā koutou katoa. Ko Paul Diamond tēnei nō Ngāti Hauā, nō Ngāpuhi, nō Te Rarawa, me Ngāti Pākehā. E mahi ana ahau kei te whare pukapuka a Alexander Turnbull.

Stored in the basement of the National Library building in Wellington is a collection of wrapped pieces of metal, which saw service in the New Zealand wars of the 19th century. The pieces, which were cast in London in 1862 make up a printing press used by the government to print a Māori language newspaper, Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke, or in full, it was called Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke i Runga i te Tuanui, A Sparrow Alone upon the House Top.

The press, which was known as an Albion press, was held by the government printing office, which donated it to the Turnbull Library in 1958. In 1984, the library loaned the press to Te Awamutu Museum, where it was on display until 2014. Since then, it has been in storage at the Turnbull Library, where there are plans to reassemble it for display in the future.

Clare Butler: Why was the paper printed by the press? Why was the paper printed by this press named after a bird? The reason for the bird title becomes clearer when you look at the first paragraph of the first issue.

Clare Butler: E taku hoa, kowai ranei koe te kai titiro I tenei nupepa nohinohi, kauaka au e hengia, ae, he Holioi ahau. Ehara au i te Hokioi, horerawa. E rere ana tena manu ki runga riro, ruahue noa, iho te kapua : ko au ia, e rere kupapa ana i te mata o te whenua. Ko taua manu e tangi tioro ana, he whai tohu, whakaatu i te pakanga i te whakahekenga toto : — tena ko au, kahore aku tangi tioro ; noho mokemoke ai au ki te tuanui o te whare, korihirihiri kau ai.

Paul Diamond: My friend or whoever reads this small newspaper, make no mistake for I am a hokioi, but not te hokioi, not at all. That bird flies high in the heavens beyond the clouds, while I fly close to the ground. That bird screeches an omen predicting warfare and bloodshed. I, on the other hand, do not screech. I sit alone on the rooftop singing merrily.

Te Hokioi was the title of another paper. Te Hokioi e Rere Atu Na, the first Māori language newspaper produced entirely by Māori. This was also named after a bird, the Hokioi, an extinct nocturnal bird also known as the New Zealand snipe.

Now as John Gorst who produced Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke wrote, te hokioi was the spirit bird of ancient times. It was never seen, but its cry was known as an omen of war or disaster. The government choice of a different bird name Te Pīhoihoi, or the New Zealand pipit, was a sign of the rivalry between these two papers, which were printed during the conflict between Māori and the government.

And the newspaper's title alludes to Psalm 102 from the Bible verse 7, "I watch and am as a sparrow alone upon the house top”.

Papers Past website

Both of these newspapers were digitised by Waikato University and can be seen on the National Library's Papers Past website. These Niupepa, as they were known in Māori, are part of a collection of printed Māori known as Ngā Tānga Reo Māori or Books in Māori.

Clare Butler: This collection of printed Māori was listed in a bibliography compiled by Phil Parkinson and Penny Griffith and published by the Alexander Turnbull Library in 2004. Phil and Penny listed detailed information about 1,565 Māori printed items, as well as 303 newspapers and periodicals. This was the printed Māori they were able to identify in the Turnbull Library and other collections from the start of printing in Māori in 1815 up until 1900.

Paul Diamond: The National Library has started to digitise some of the more than 1,500 items listed in Ngā Tānga Reo Māori and make them available in a new section on the Papers Past website, and we are two members of the team working on this project. So, what you're looking at now is the shiny new Papers Past home page, which has only just been launched today.

This includes the first 107 items of printed Māori to be digitised. And right here at the top of the page Nau mai, rahiri mai ki Papers Past welcomes users who are in search of the spark of knowledge. It reminds them to carefully uplift the knowledge into the world of light and use it wisely as a link from the past to the future.

One of the many exciting changes in this website launch today is that you can now filter and search across all the different collections of content known in the Library as ‘buckets’: Newspapers, Magazines and Journals, Letters and Diaries, Parliamentary Papers, and Books using the same search. And this is only one—the first phase of Papers Past redevelopments and further changes will take place over the next year.

Clare Butler: The new book section of Papers Past lets you narrow your search to just Ngā Tānga Reo Māori as a collection. This interface was developed with help from scholars who already use Papers Past website. Te reo Māori has more of a presence within the website. The search boxes and section titles on the left-hand side have been translated.

A language switcher, which enables you to switch between te reo and English has also been added. An overview of the Books in Māori kaupapa titled He aha Ngā Tānga Reo Māori? above the Tātari heading has also been added to give users background information about the collection.

Finally, the Niho Taniwha design has been added, reminding users of the concept of transmission of mātauranga and storytelling. Today, Paul and I are going to show you some of Ngā Tānga Reo Māori to illustrate the kinds of things you can find in the collection. We'll look at who produced the items, why they were produced, and what they tell us, both about te reo Māori as well as the wider history of Aotearoa.

A Korao no New Zealand | The New Zealander’s First Book

Paul Diamond: Now as Clare mentioned earlier, the first item printed in Māori appeared in 1815. This was a Māori language grammar printed in Sydney, A Korao no New Zealand or the New Zealander's First Book. The one copy of this book known to have survived is held by Auckland War Memorial Museum, Tamaki Paenga Hira, and you can see a digital copy on their website.

Clare Butler: The Grammar, like others in this collection, has sample sentences. These give an idea of what was going on in the world of early contact between Māori and Europeans. Line one in section 45 is a translation of the English sentence, “What man gave that fishhook to thee”, written as you can see in the English of 1815, would now translate this as: “Nawhi ta tungata e homi tara māttou ke akoe”.

What you can see on the left-hand side of the page is a very early attempt to write down te reo Māori.

Paul Diamond: A Korao No New Zealand is credited as being written by a missionary called Thomas Kendall. But the story of its creation goes back to Tuai Ngare Raumati Rangatira from the northern part of Aotearoa. Tuai traveled to Parramatta in Australia in 1813 and lived with Samuel Marsden, the Anglican missionary and other northern Māori at the Christian mission station in New South Wales.
Tuai, on the left of the slide, taught Samuel Marsden and his fellow missionary Thomas Kendall the northern Māori language, helping Kendall prepare for the first book using the Māori language. Kendall had struggled to assemble the work, which was written after he had spent less than a year in Aotearoa. And his lack of linguistic training also made things harder.

In 1817, Samuel Marsden made arrangements for Tuai and another Ngare Raumati relation Titiri from Rangiahua in Northland to go to England and assist Kendall to produce a Māori language grammar. Tuai and Titiri spent time with Samuel Lee, a language expert at Cambridge University to form a complete grammar and vocabulary of the New Zealand language. Now unfortunately, both Tuai and Titiri fell seriously ill and needed to return back to Aotearoa. Samuel Lee realised that significant work still needed to be done before the work was publishable.

In 1820, Chiefs Hongi Hika and Waikato, both from the northern tribes of Ngapuhi travelled to Cambridge in England with Kendall to assist in compiling the first Māori grammar and vocabulary book. That same year, James Barry who painted the portraits of Tuai and Titiri also painted this image of Waikato on the left, Hongi in the centre, and Thomas Kendall seated on the right.

Missionaries in Aotearoa

Clare Butler: Books such as the Korao were needed because the missionaries who arrived in Aotearoa had decided to try to convert the New Zealanders, as Māori were then known, in their own language. In order to convert Māori, the language needed to be converted into written form.

This is a lantern slide, a painted image on glass, which would be viewed through a projector. The slide shows schoolboys writing a letter marking the Jubilee of the Church Missionary Society, The Anglican church group which began its work in Aotearoa in 1814.

Paul Diamond: But it was another early missionary group in Aotearoa, the Wesleyans or Methodists, who printed the earliest item included in the new Book section on Papers Past. This translation of some of the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament of the Bible appeared in 1837 and was printed by the Wesleyan mission priests in Mangungu in the Hokianga.

Clare Butler: It's interesting to compare the early translation, which is listed as number 32 in Books in Māori, or BIM 32 for short, with the 1868 translation of the same text. Looking first at the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis or Kenehi, in English this reads, "In the beginning, God created the heaven and Earth."

The text was translated in 1837 as, “He mea hanga nā te atua i te tīmatanga te rangi me te whenua.”

In 1868, the same verse was translated differently as 'he me a hanga nga te Atua e te tīmatanga te rangi me te whenua'.

BIM 32 the 1837 text uses Orokohanganga which means origin, beginning, creation or advent. The word is also used in the title ‘Ko te Orokohanganga i te Ao’.

Also note the use of ‘wenua’ instead of ‘whenua’.

Initially, Māori words we now spell with ‘wh’ such as whenua did not have the h. Another example is verse 3. Another well-known line from Genesis. In English, this reads, "And God said, let there be light. And there was light." BIM 32 in 1837 translated this as, “Mea ana te Atua, Kia marama ; a kua marama.”

Then, in 1868, this became “A ka ki te Atua kia marama, nga he marama.”

These examples illustrate how you can use the text and these digitised documents to trace changes in te reo Māori over time.

William Woon

Paul Diamond: The extracts from the Book of Genesis Claire's shown you now were produced to teach Māori how to read as well as for religious instruction. But as well as scriptures, missionaries were producing language learning material, like this. This is a Māori language primer, a first textbook to teach reading, also printed by the Wesleyan mission at Mangungu.

This was printed by a man called William Woon in 1836. What you're looking at is Woon's own copy with his own annotations written on it. So, if you read those annotations on the right-hand side from the top, Woon has written, "Book of the NZ language, WW” — those are his initials for William Woon — “alphabet, figures, numerals and syllables."

Clare Butler: The work produced by Woon and other missionaries can support research into tribal mita and dialects. As well as being stationed at Mangungu Mission Station in the North, Woon also spent time in Kawhia and Taranaki district, where he was exposed to different tribal dialects. These dialects were also observed by another missionary, Robert Maunsell, as he traveled the country. Maunsell, who also produced a grammar book, was more familiar with the Waikato dialect. The Korau, produced by Kindle, was influenced by the Ngāpuhi dialect.

In 1841, Woon printed a Māori language reader titled He Puka Ako i te Korero Māori, ‘Lesson Book in the Southern Māori’. This was written by James Watkin, a Wesleyan missionary who was invited to the region Waikouaiti by Karetai and Taiaroa, two Otakou chiefs. Watkins noted the dialectual variations from the North to that of the South. These two Chiefs, Karetai and Taiaroa, desired schools for their children in order that they might read and write like the Māori children of the North Island.

Armed with supplies printed by missionaries in the Bay of Islands, James Watkins soon discovered they were of little use, as the dialect spoken in the South was so different. This language reader, He Puka Ako i te Korero Māori, has particular significance, as in Kai Tahu Māori dialect, and will be included in a future instalment of material on the Papers Past website.

James Buller's lexicon

Around the same time as William Woon printed the primer, this humble little exercise book was being filled with writing for another missionary at Mangungu, James Buller.

Paul Diamond: This is a lexicon, or a word list, to help with learning the New Zealand language. The lexicon, which records 920 words with their meanings, was purchased in 2014 by the Turnbull Library and has been digitised. You can see words that are familiar to us, such as ‘Aroha’ on line 9, but also less familiar words, such as at the ‘Atawainga’ on line 12. Formed using atawhai as we know it today, but without an H to mean kindness. The words in the lexicon can be compared with those in printed Māori, which is a good reminder of how Ngā Tānga Reo Māori can connect with manuscripts and other types of collections.

Māori printed material by other faiths

Clare Butler: The Ngā Tānga Reo Māori collection includes Māori printed material produced by other faiths. Some of these missionaries use languages other than English. For example, Catholic missionaries who are in Aotearoa from 1838. People may have visited Pompallier House in Russell, or Kororareka, as it was known. This is where the first book from the Catholic mission led by Bishop Jean-Baptiste Francois Pompallier was printed in 1839. In 1849, Pompallier wrote a book in French which taught basic grammar and vocabulary in te reo Māori. All of the explanations were in French, written for the Marist order, to aid learning the language of the New Zealand people.

What you can see here is one of the coloured pages from a Catholic devotional work printed later in 1897. This was from a different Catholic mission in Otaki, and was thought to have been compiled by Father de Lach also known as Francois Delachienne. The text at the bottom, “E to matou Matua i te rangi” is the first line of the Lord's Prayer, “Our father who art in heaven”. And the phrase at the top, “Na, to whaea” can be translated as, “from your fire”, a reference to Mary.

Paul Diamond: Lutheran missionaries from Germany established a church in Martin in 1876. And just one year later, William Kowert and Jeff Goessling produced the school primer with stories in Lutheran catechism, which is a summary of religious beliefs. And this page is from the section of the book with reading lessons.

When you look at the words, you can see German words including “Deutsch”, for German, on the eighth line. And “Fla-sche”, the word for a bottle, at the top of the bottom section, mixed in together with Māori and English words.

And the book also includes six pages of hymns. And when you look at the first page of this section of the hymns, there's a hymn by Luther Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her — From heaven above to Earth I come, is used by the number two there to indicate the tune of the hymn text. Which is actually a completely different hymn written in Māori, but obviously sung to the tune of a famous German Christmas hymn, written by Luther.

Notices

Clare Butler: Missionaries were not the only group of pakeha producing printed Māori material. In 1842 Edward Jerningham Wakefield, son of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, arranged for several hundred copies of this notice to be printed. Addressed to all Māori, “Ki nga Maori Katoa”.

The notice was related to Wakefield's belief that Māori should produce muka, flax fiber. The notice says that the price for a large basket of muka is 6 shillings, “E ONO NGA HERENGE e utu ki Poneke mo tetahi kete muka”.

It's interesting to see the use of transliterations, or loanwords, something you will see in Ngā Tānga Reo Māori. For example, “Herenge” for shilling, and “Poneke” for Wellington or Port Nicholson. And “Tiraweke” Saddleback, now known as Tieke, which was Wakefield's Māori nickname.

When we think about muka now, it's usually in connection with weaving, but it was a big part of the economy in 1842. Other notices in Māori tell us about different things going on within the economy.

Paul Diamond: For example, this note is printed in Nelson, or Whakatū, in 1844 urging Māori to grow wheat or “witi”.

Clare Butler: As the text at the top explains, this was not only a healthy food, “He painga mo te tinana” but wheat grown for food could be sold, “wakatupu i te witi, hei witi kai, hei witi hoko.” And used to buy things like clothing.

Paul Diamond: The bottom part of the text explains how wheat growing happens between January and May. But in June, Māori should, according to this little poster, be thinking about sheep farming. The wool from sheep can be used to make woollen clothing. And if you look at the fourth line on the section headed Ko Hune, you can see, “Mo te paraikete nui kia rua hipi” — two sheep for one blanket. And as the notice goes on to explain there are no end of things that can be made from wool: “E oti te tarautete” — trousers. “Te hakete” — jacket. “Te kaone” — gown. “Te aha te aha” And so on, “I te huruhuru o te hipi” — from sheep's wool.

Māori dictionaries

Clare Butler: The same year as the notice about wheat appeared 1844, the first Māori dictionary was produced by Reverend -- later Bishop -- William Williams. At this time, an apostrophe was used in front of the W as a ‘f’ sound. The book marked the start of an incredible family dynasty of dictionary production.

William Williams produced the second edition, in which he started to use the W and H to represent the ‘f’ sound within the dictionary. His son, Bishop William Leonard Williams, produced the third and fourth editions. Then his son, Herbert William Williams, produced the fifth edition published in 1917. This was used as the basis for the sixth edition, and finally the seventh edition, which language learners use today.

Paul Diamond: As well as being the grandson of William Williams, on the left of the slide, Herbert Williams was an advisor to Alexander Turnbull about his own Māori collections. Herbert Williams was a skilled Māori linguist and in 1924 produced a bibliography of printed Māori to 1900. And it's this book that Ngā Tānga Reo Māori, Books in Māori, followed on from.

Clare Butler: Going back to the first Williams dictionary by Herbert Williams' grandfather, this looked a bit different to the dictionaries we are familiar with today. It had a grammar, listing the singular, dual and plural forms of Māori still used today.

Paul Diamond: The first Māori dictionary also had a section headed, A Selection of Colloquial Sentences. Now this starts at the top with “No hea koe?” or where are you from? Which would be familiar to learners of Māori today. But there are other sentences, which would be less familiar such as “Ko wai to Mihanere?” Who is your missionary? These sentences are really interesting as a window into the world of Māori missionary interactions in 1844, and you'll see there that someone — perhaps the owner of this dictionary — has added their own sentences at the top of the page.

Māori printed material by the government

Clare Butler: Together with missionaries, the government was the other major producer of printed Māori in Ngā Tānga Reo Māori. This poster from 1861 is offering a reward of 300 pounds for information leading to the conviction of anyone who had helped Māori obtain gunpowder, “Paura” or other munitions, “Mea Whawhai”. The poster has used “Utu” as the word for reward.

Paul Diamond: And as many people will be aware, the 1860s were a time of conflict between the government and Māori. This was when Te Ua Haumēne founded a church called Hau Hau, named after the Hau or breath of God, which carried news of deliverance to his followers. Between 1864 and 1867, Hau Hau followers were drawn into armed conflict with government forces and loyal Māori soldiers. And one of these conflicts happened in 1865 at Pukemaire pa in Tikitiki on the Waiapu river.

News that the pa had been captured was too late for the Māori language newspaper, Te Waka Māori o Ahuriri, so the paper printed the small notice as a supplement. And the notice also mentions that 550 Māori prisoners were being brought to Napier. According to the Books and Māori publication, this is the only known copy of this item. And I'm mentioning this because it highlights that as well as providing access to this collection and the language within it, digitising these items also plays a role in preserving them for the future.

Clare Butler: The conflict with the Hau Hau Paul mentioned also featured in this government publication called Ko Te Kahiti O Niu Tireni. This was a Māori language version of the New Zealand Gazette, which was used for official government notices. The pānui at the bottom of the page is offering a reward of 100 pounds for information about the murder of a police officer on the 21st of September, 1865.
Ko Te Kahiti O Niu Tireni was published from 1865 to 1931. The first part up until 1900 has been digitised and is available on Papers Past.

Māori printed material by Māori

Ahakoa he iti he pounamu. As we've explained, much of the printed material in He Tānga Reo Māori was produced by churches and the government. There are, however, some items produced by Māori. Some of these are to do with hui and events, such as this invitation to a gathering at Awamate. This is the text at the top.

“He panuitanga: ki nga iwi, ki nga hapu, ki nga reo, ki nga huihuinga tangata, ki nga rangatiratanga i roto i te rohe pooti o te Tairawhiti. Tena koutou katoa i roto i te aroha o to tatou ariki.

He powhiri atu tenei i a koutou katoa, katoa, katoa, kia haere mai ki te Awamate, wahi o te Mahia, a te 24 Tihema, 1897, e haere ake nei, ki te whakamahara i te Ra i Whanau ai to tatou Ariki, e karangatia nei taua Ra, ko te Ra o te Kirihimete.

Na o koutou hoa, na Epanaia Whaanga.

Awamate, Akuhata, 23, 1897. “

This is an invitation dated 8th of July, 1897 to a Christmas gathering at our Awamate, near Wairoa, Hawke's Bay. Signed by Epanaia Whaanga and 19 other tipuna from Nūhaka.

This invitation was printed in 1897 by H W Williams at Te Rou Press, Gisborne. That's the same Herbert Williams we were talking about earlier who was a printer, as well as a linguist. As you can see, the document makes extensive use of ornaments and decorative typefaces — one reason this writing appeals to me.

As well as being beautiful, these examples of writing are a great way to learn te reo. You can utilize the structures and change the context to apply and make it applicable for different kaupapa.

Paul Diamond: Here's another poster. This is thought to have been printed in 1887, and was about a horse called Clansman, Ko Karanimana in Māori. “He Tariona tino pai, he uri no nga tino hoiho pai rawa o mua” — A very fine stallion with an outstanding pedigree. Nine years old and 16 and 1/2 hands high.

And at the end of a very extensive explanation of Clansman's illustrious whakapapa, the poster tells readers they can approach the owner, Mr Karau or Te Kerehama at Puketapu.

Renata Tama-Ki-Hikurangi Kawepō and William Calenso

Clare Butler: We thought we'd finish our talk with a couple of our favourites. I have many favourites, but one that I'm fond of has a lot to do with these two people: Renata Tama-Ki-Hikurangi Kawepō, was a Ngāi Te Ūpokoiri, Ngāti Hinemanu, Ngāti Kahungunu leader and missionary.

During the land wars Ngāpuhi took Kawepō to Nukutaurua where he remained with them for more than 10 years. In 1837, he was taken to the Bay of Islands and lived at Waimate North for several years. Whilst there, he was converted to Christianity and baptized Renata Leonard. One of the missionaries Renata Kawepo worked with was the man on the right, William Calenso. Calenso began his missionary work for the Church Missionary Society in Hawke's Bay.

This is a list of 158 Māori who had given up smoking in 1847 and 1848. Headed by Renata Kawepo and arranged by area, 70 tipuna signed from Heretaunga, one from Manawatu, 27 from the Takutai, the East Coast, and 60 from Wairarapa.
“Ko te hunga tenei o weretanunga, o te Takutai anga atu wakarunga puta nou ki Turakinae,
O Wairarapa, o hea, o hea, ka mahue i a ratou te kai Tupeka, I enei tau, 1847, 1848.

No weretanunga enei,
Renata Kawepo
Noa Hene
Aperahama Powa

No Waitangi, Heretaunga, i taia ki te perehi, a te Koreneho, 1848. “

Printed at Waitangi Mission Station Press Hawkes Bay in 1848. The mission station stood not far from the current star compass at Clive.

I love this writing because it's a reminder that our tipuna took control of their lives and their hauora. They pledged as a rōpū and would have had support from kaitoko from each other to stop smoking. This writing shows the priorities of the tipuna of those days. I showed this writing to a koroua from Ngāti Kahungunu and he saw the name of his tipuna whai. And with a giggle he said, “Oh, nan, thank you for showing me the way. I'm not sure if he's still smoking, but there's definite inspiration to be drawn from this writing.”

Another interesting book written in te reo by Calenso and printed by the government press was Ko Te A-Nui A Wi.

Willie's First English Book, written for young Māori who can read their own Māori tongue and who wished to learn English language. Printed in 1872, this book highlights that teaching Māori English was the concern of the missionaries and the government of that era.

Paul Diamond: And the images we've got on the slide there were actually put on the internet by MTG in Hawke's Bay, and that's just to acknowledge that we aren't the only institution that's been digitising this material. We showed you images from Auckland Museum. And other institutions in New Zealand and overseas, actually, have been digitising the material and the Books and Māori collection.

Dr. John Theo Hatzopulos

Now, when it came to thinking of one of my favourites, I can never go past this one, which is a poster. And this is printed on two sides. Technically it's called a handbill, apparently. But it's from when the champion Herculean wrestler and weightlifter, Dr. John Theo Hatzopulos, visited New Zealand in 1899. His Gisborne appearance was promoted in Māori as well as English. Hatzopulos claimed to be able to allow three persons selected haphazardly from the audience to break with sledgehammers a stone weighing 200 pounds resting on his bare head. He was known as Professor Greek George, Kiriki Hori, in the poster's Māori version.

This is another illustration of how words are transliterated into Māori. Well, how they used to be transliterated into Māori. Creating loanwords using the Māori alphabet, which as people know has fewer characters than English.

Clare Butler: Our last image is this beautiful Māori alphabet printed in 1833.

Wrapping up

Paul Diamond: And we're going to finish with a quote from a colleague and friend of ours that we've been struck by since we first saw it, really. The legal scholar from Victoria University, Mamari Stephens, who wrote that these early publications we've shown you today illustrate how Māori was a language of civil engagement and discourse. And they're an inspiration for how this could happen again.

The collection of Māori language material has also been described as arguably the largest of any Indigenous language in the world. We're excited about the potential for these printed taonga to be a resource for researchers, students and those interested in language revitalisation.

Clare Butler: 'Kia ora ai te reo, ko te reo te mauri o te mana Māori, ko te kupu te mauri o te reo Māori. E rua ēnei wehenga kōrero e hāngai tonu ana ki runga i te reo Māori. Ko te reo nō te atua mai.' Nā Tā Hēmi Henare.

Before we wrap up, I'd like to touch on the consultation process, which had taken place within this pilot project. We had contacted all of the various churches and their responses being very welcoming and enthusiastic about the project. About the kaupapa Ngā Tānga Reo Māori. And we've also been very fortunate to be in contact with descendants of those who produced this printed material. It's been very special. As in some instances, the whanau had no knowledge that their tipuna had written material, and this project has reconnected descendants with these writings. The various iwi rūnanga have also been very helpful in putting me in contact with descendants, and also in regards to seeking consent.

We have acknowledged the whanau or iwi who have helped with the consent process within the acknowledgment section for each piece of writing.

In closing, we must mention our work colleagues who have utilized their pūkenga, their skills, their contacts within this project to ensure that it is a success.

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari taku toa he toa takitini.

Paul Diamond: ika tāu. ō reira tātou mā, kua tae ki te pito whakamutunga o tēnei kawenga kōrero e pā ana ki ngā tānga reo Māori. I roto i ngā kupu a ngā pakeke o Te Wairoa, e kī ana ngā kupu o te mauhanga kōrero, Bin 1499; Kia paiherea tātou hei paihere kotahi i roto i te aroha.

Kia ora

Question 1: 'NG'

Joan McCraken: Ngā mihi Claire and Paul. Thank you so much for such a fascinating presentation. We do have some comments to share with you. I'm going to start, though, with one from me and one we were discussing a little earlier. In the slide that we've got up at the moment, the NG looks rather odd. Would you like to say a little something about that or what you know about it?

Paul Diamond: Well, again, the first thing I do when I have this sort of question is I tend at the book. Very little is known about this item. It's not even completely certain exactly when it was printed. It's thought to be from that year in the 1830s. But what it is is some digraph That's that a combination of two letters representing one sound. So that's what the missionaries identified. That there was this WH, that was this NG. And they're not just the same as those two words combined. They have a different sound as we know in Māori.

Now, maybe this was unfamiliar to the printer, in that printers wouldn't have been used to printing this. Or perhaps they were just trying to signal that it is different. That's why they printed it the odd way that they have. But you see, the beauty of what's happened today with this material going online, is that there could well be people in the world who've got a bit more knowledge about this. And it makes it easier for people to see this material, and get in touch with the library with their own whakaaro. So who knows? I think there could well be more information to emerge about these.

Question 2: English Māori names

Joan McCracken: Kia ora, in our questions, we have one from Waitangi pepa. Do you know if there's an extensive list of all English Māori names? Common first names and surnames. Transliterations that you know of. Makarini for Maclean. Ormana, Ormond. I know that Taiuru has one for the most common translation of names. Are there others? From Waitangi.

Paul Diamond: That's a good question, because I think there have been attempts actually at the back of this edition of the Williams dictionary, which is still the one that we all use. The one we mentioned. The seventh edition. There is a list. A book that we use a lot, Te Aka, I think it's called. John Moorfield produced this, a dictionary of loanwords. That has a lot of them that has things like Makarini and things. But I think actually there's a lot of scope to— You see, with this material being on Papers Past, it means people can kind of collate that much more easily now. They can just-- These are sort of data sets.

So, Waitangi, you're right. We could sort of build on the work of these other dictionaries. And another thing to mention is that as of today, this is one of the books that's also gone onto that interface on Papers Past. It was there but as a PDF, but every time I downloaded it, it almost blew up my machine because it was so big. So now you can actually access the parts of that book that you want to. And you can do word searches. What did Calenso produce? This book was so well done. And it's got a beautiful index. But this sort of opens up other possibilities. So yeah, I think those are great sort of projects for students, and things to think about working on.

Question 3: How many Māori books are going to be on the website?

Joan McCracken: Kia ora, some wonderful comments in the chat. I'm not going to attempt to read them all out to you. We will save the chat for you for later. Another question that we had was about how many books in Māori are going to be on the website from today?

Clare Butler: OK, so going live today, there are going to be 107. And there's many more. I think 700 to come in the next two years. So it's quite a lot of awesome readings for you, whanau. So Me ruku i te puna mātauranga o Aotearoa.

Paul Diamond: And remember, that's in addition to what's already there with the Niupepa. So the great bulk of the Niupepa collection is already there, and that began with the work the Waikato University did. They were the first to digitise the sets of microfilm material, so that's there. And also things like Ko te Kahiti.

That's part of the magazine and periodical section. So there's already that material there as well. So today you've got the other material that wasn’t a newspaper or magazine starting to come on the first installment.

Question 4: Will there be a way to browse the subjects?

Joan McCracken: Thank you both for that. Mercer Bryant is asking a question, too. In time will there be an option to browse the subjects? I tried a few ways to search by subject, and finally realised I had to use English. But without seeing what the options were, I was still flying a wee bit blind. Is that a question that you can answer or have we got an answer from Emerson? Oh, Emerson's raised his hand. I understand that-- Zekun, can we turn it on? Is it worth?

Emerson Vandy: Kia ora korua, kia ora koutou,

Joan McCracken: Emerson, can you answer that question for us?

Emerson Vandy: Yeah, I can. We've drawn the subject metadata from the catalog, and we can really just surface up the subject headings that are there, because there are so many of them.

Long story short, we have so many subjects that we can't provide a full list to browse. You'd have a page that you'd be scrolling down for hours. We had to provide a way to browse the subjects that was unfortunately, you just type in a subject that you're looking for, and it starts to match words that match that. So if you have a think about a subject you're interested in, start typing letters and look at the other subjects that populate on the list that appears. That's really the best we could do with handling the subject data. We're looking at bringing in some refinements to it, but we don't have the final answers to it yet. But what's in place now is a good first crack at it.

Question 5

Joan McCracken: Ka pai Emerson. Because I couldn't hear your response, because we've got our sound turned off here, I wonder if you also had an opportunity to look at Gerald Jones's question. Also in the Q&A. Mel?

Mel Lovell-Smith: Kia ora koutou, In terms of Gerald Jones's question, so the OCR, our vendor, does that automatically. It's not corrected for accuracy. So that is going to be interesting. We'll see how it goes. We correct headlines. We correct tables of contents. We correct authors' names, but we don't correct the bulk of the text. In terms of your second question, I think Claire talked a bit about that in terms of how we're trying to involve the Māori community in the digitisation of these materials.

How does the [INAUDIBLE] digitisation of these [INAUDIBLE] materials?

Clare Butler: Tēnā koe, So, first of all, I make contact with whanau. With a total effort to get to whanau, if that's possible. I go through runanga, different networks. To try and reach out to descendants of the people who have written these documents. So that's one way that we're reaching out to whanau. We've had some real success with certain writings. I'm thinking of one in particular, where the hapu decided they'd like to put it into the Hapu Newsletter, and show others, show the descendants. So that's a really awesome way to get the message out to many people.

Paul Diamond: And as Claire mentioned, we got from every single faith we contacted, they were really, really enthusiastic. We're now in touch with the archives, the archivists. And of course they're all conscious of the need to preserve these taonga as well. And quite a lot of the faiths are already thinking of how to digitise some of their material. And remember that Books in Māori only went up to 1900, so there's of course Māori language material being printed after that. So there's that whole other set of material that we need to be conscious of as well. So yeah, it's a hugely rich resource there that we've only-- This is just an exciting day to just have this first 107 items coming online.

Clare Butler: Ka pai, and just to add whanau, hapu, iwi that I've been in contact with are really very excited about how they don't have to come to the library physically. They can research from home. In fact, you don't even need to be in Aotearoa. You can do it global. So it just opens things up to everybody, which again is about connection. Connecting uri to these writings.

Paul Diamond: And there are examples of Books in Māori and overseas. The National Library of Australia and Canberra has got some of the only copies of some of the items in collection. And there's even some in Austria. The two Māori men who went to Austria and worked in the printery of the emperor, and they brought back that press that produced Te Hokioi, they printed a special address to the emperor before they left. And that's in German and Māori. And the only copy of that is in Austria. And that would be wonderful to have that digitised. And so that that's part of this sort of set of material that people can access, as Claire says from whether you are.

Question 6: Donald Maclean papers

Joan McCracken: A number of people have mentioned, Emerson for a start, that there is other Māori material on papers past, including Niupepa but I wondered if, Paul, you'd like to say a little bit about the Donald Maclean papers as well? Because that's another fantastic resource for Māori.

Paul Diamond: That's right. It's one of the sets of material, manuscripts material. At the moment the only collection there is the Makarini, Donald Maclean, who isn’t Māori. But that's hugely significant, because I understand that it's the largest set of Māori language letters that the Turnbull has. It might be the largest in the country, actually. So that was also transcribed and translated.

Well, they're working translations, by a team of translators that were led by Jane McCray and Ngapare Hopa and others. And that's an amazing resource, because we have a lot of historians. History students. And I mean, anybody can access that. They don't actually need to be fluent in Māori. But that's a corpus they can access. And I've got other collections I've got my eyes on as well. But I'd quite like to build that up. And of course when it's on Papers Past, it means it's text searchable, because these same letters are in Tiak and the National Library website – our other platforms. You can open the Word documents and things, but being on Papers Past, it's designed to help you search it as a group of text.

So we would always like to hear if there are collections that people think we could consider for that. We're aware there's a lot of collections here that are on microfilm. Microfilm is getting a little bit difficult to use, because even if we could get that microfilm to you, your local library might not have a reader anymore. We really need to be thinking about either digitising the microfilms, or going back to the original letters and digitising those. So there's a lot of work to do.

Question 7: How long will it take to add all the writings?

Joan McCracken: I think, Claire, that you mentioned that there are another 700 at least to go on to this website in time. Is this project another year, another two years. Do you have a feel for how long it's going to take?

Clare Butler: So, like anything, there's no definite time frame, because it all depends on creating relationships, nurturing relationships. That's one part of the project. But we are looking at another 700 writings to go on Papers Past within the next two years. So definitely watch this space.

Paul Diamond: And I think how this plays out will have a lot to do with the feedback we get from the community. So that's what we're really keen to-- not just the audience who've tuned in today, but all of the people you know in your networks. And we do have this kind of core group of people that have been involved with us from the start. And we're sort of working outwards from there, because I think there is just scope for lots of connection. You know people who are interested in their own whanau history. Historians, but also the people-- the language revitalisation community. And we're having some great conversations with them. We're talking to people who are looking at using data sets, and can see the potential of this as sets of data. That even though it's giving you snapshots of Māori at different times, it can be used to help us do things like generate a Māori version of Siri. Which is one project that's underway in the country at the moment.

So it'd be really exciting if this historical material could be helping us with the future of our language. So, I think that's a big message from us both, and on behalf of the rest of the team, is that we're really, really keen to get the feedback. And now, as of today, people can do their own tūtū-ing and start to explore this the set. And give us their feedback.

Question 8: Challenges

Joan McCracken: Thank you, Paul. There is one last question and it's quite a complex one. So perhaps it's a great way to finish the [INAUDIBLE] He asks, what is some of the challenges that the team faced for this kaupapa especially in relation to te au Māori and tikanga. Claire has mentioned that there have been in-depth consultation with the hapu, whanau but are there any other tikanga that was carefully considered?

Clare Butler: Each writing, each document has their own context.

He rerekē ia tuhinga, ia mauhanga kōrero. Nō reira ka whai whakaaro ki tērā, tēnā āhuatanga o tērā tuhinga. Ko te mea nui ki a mātou, pēnā kāore te whānau e whakaae, kāore mātou e whakairi i runga i te pae tukutuku.

If the family, for whatever reasons-- we're not here to judge their reasons-- if they don't allow it, It will not go online.

Nō reira i te mutunga o te rā, kei a rātou te kōwhiringa whakamutunga, ko tā mātou he whakaatu he whāriki i te kaupapa.

So that's one way that we are definitely bringing their considerations into account. If the whanau don't want it to go online, it won't go online. But in terms of tikanga?

Paul Diamond: We've sort of been exploring. Each time this has come up, it's sort of given us new challenges. And I think Mel had some feedback. This is-- you're hearing Melanie Lovell-Smith who's part of the project team.

Mel Lovell-Smith: Yes, I just put in the chat. One of the practices we've developed talking with Clare and Paul and Dale and so on within the library is, once the items are captured, we send the digital images off to be OCRed. And what we're doing is saying, a karakia of protection over the hard drive before it leaves the library, and hope we've got a little welcome back ceremony as well when the data comes back. And before it's copied over to the servers and stuff.

Paul Diamond: Yeah, we're very lucky, as we said. We're just two. You're only seeing two people of a much bigger team. And then there's also people across the library that have supported this kaupapa as well. The other point I'd say in terms of my role with this material, is that it's really, really important to give people context. Because I don't claim to understand everything about the items we've shown you today, but you do your best to try and put it in its historical context. Just like we'd hope that people who were looking at things that we wrote in 2021, that they saw in another 100 years, were sort of seeing it and trying to understand the world that we're living in and what we're going through at the moment.
So I think that really helps as well. And that's what I'm also keen for the groups that Claire's making contacts with. But thank you for the question and all of the feedback.

Clare Butler: And just want to pay special mention, because I see a name on here. Tēnā koe, Matua Frank Thorne. And so it's been the power of the kumara vine, to be able to get to whanau has been really, really, really special. Because that's where it's at for me. And a lot of networks and people out there in the community have really helped this process. SO--
nui te mihi ki a koutou, kua tautoko nei i tēnei kaupapa.

Ending

Joan McCracken: Kia ora Paul and Claire. Thank you to everyone who's joined them today. And to all of you who have asked questions and put your comments in chat. We'll make sure that all of you get to see that. When you leave the session today, you should receive a short survey. Just one question. We would appreciate it if you have time to respond. If you want to revisit this presentation-- and this is a question we have had already-- or you want to share it with friends and colleagues, it will be available in a few weeks on the National Library website.

If you'd like to hear about future events being held at the library on site or online, and you're not already on our WhatsOn mailing list, please do sign up. You can subscribe on the events page on the National Library website. Celia has added our address to chat.

On your screens now, there's a photo of a recent publication Te Kupenga. This includes 101 stories from the collections of the Turnbull Library, including articles by today's speaker, Paul Diamond.

The book was published by Massey University Press is available from the sponsors, the Turnbull Endowment Trust-- their address is on the slide-- and many bookshops. Make a marvelous Christmas present.

Before we finish today, I just want to add my congratulations to the Paper's Past team for making this amazing resource available to us all in Aotearoa and around the world. And we look forward to the next time you can join us. Ka kite ano.

Karakia whakamutunga. Kia hīkina tēnei kete kōrero ki te tāhuhu o te whare. Kia tārewa tēnei mauri o te kaupapa nei, hui e, tāiki e.

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Any errors with the transcript, let us know and we will fix them. Email us at digital-services@dia.govt.nz