Ehara toku maunga Hikurangi i te maunga haere, engari he maunga tu tonu.[i]
– Te Kani-a-Takirau (Ngāti Porou)
With a prodigious repertoire of publications from a burgeoning career in the field of history, Dr Nēpia Mahuika (Ngāti Porou) steadfastly seeks to resist the perpetuation of colonizer-controlled nation state history and unravel the continued misconstrued myths influenced by Western-focused narratives in Aotearoa history. As well as being involved with the New Zealand Historical Association (NZHA), the National Oral History Association of New Zealand (NOHANZ) and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA), he also officiates as chair of the National Māori History Collective in Aotearoa.
Considering his expertise in a wide array of New Zealand, Oral, Māori, Indigenous, and the workings of theory and methodology in the field of history, his work evokes an informative foundation for scholars seeking to step into the kōrero of Aotearoa history from an indigenous perspective. Whether they themselves are Māori, tauiwi or Pākehā.
I found myself stepping into his lecture on the first day of my undergraduate career only to discover my entire worldview, aspirations and insight both simultaneously annihilated and reconstructed in the space of two hours. Dr Mahuika’s mahi, specifically, in the field of oral history is an inspiring and informative guide regarding the ethics – how, why, and who – of testimony collection, equipping oneself with an indigenous lens as well as experiencing the multisensory envelopment of Aotearoa’s rich, living, histories.
As keepers of our history, driven by our oral practices, language, and forms, there is little room to allow others to dictate the meaning of the past and orality or to impose their language and definitions of oral history upon us in the context of indigenous determination and empowerment today.[ii]
Speaking from an exclusive Ngāti Porou perspective, Dr Mahuika vividly captures the colonial imposition that has crept into academics by benevolently seeking to provide indigenous ‘determination’ and ‘empowerment.’ He reminds us that there exists many ‘conflicting epistemological differences that fail to account for the dynamic interactions between the text and voice, cultural negotiation, and the sophisticated ways in which oral history is nuanced in local contexts.’[iii]
In this way, we are encouraged to step outside our comfort zone and immerse ourselves in a rich ‘mnemonic archive’ that encompasses not only the standard Western-centric biographical narrative used in recording oral history but to take in the multisensory experience encompassing: ‘whakairo (carvings), kakahu (clothing), rāranga (weaving) ― which feature prominently in oral performance such as haka (dance), waiata (songs), wānanga (collective oral discussions) and whaikōrero (formal speeches).’[iv]
After all:
Oral history was a native public practice well before the advent of audio recording equipment, the arrival of British colonists, and the imposing of western historical methodologies.[v]
Oral history should be situated and experienced in the form it has always existed and was transmitted in. I find this especially powerful in regards to the prospective study of tikanga, history and pūrākau surrounding the mining, trading and carving of pounamu (greenstone) pre and post European arrival ― one of the main focus points or my prospective rangahau. Māori history is very much situated in a visceral oral culture. As tauiwi myself, it can be considered an intimidating obstacle to overcome without first arming oneself with the language, ethics and methodology of its practice.
I wish to see, hear and interact with the history of pounamu from an indigenous perspective, to cast off the Western shackles of academia that perpetuates colonialism and undermines Māori agency and self-determination. I realise this path will inevitably lead to living, hearing and experiencing the oral histories of Ngai Tahu and many other North and South Island iwi. Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s in-depth analysis and carefully crafted methodology which should be considered when placing oneself in indigenous research ― found in Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples; was definitively refined and intersected with oral histories by Dr Mahuika. Specifically in the localised history of Ngati Porou.
Dr Mahuika’s mahi provides a methodological and practical guideline to not only the practice of indigenous history through its oral roots, but also creating space to re-establish, empower and deepen native determining.[vi] Accordingly, he notes that the indigenous truth of oral history illuminates itself as ‘a diversely political endeavour, a multidimensional practice, and multisensory product, exceedingly more complex than the narrow perceptions evident in today’s popular literature’.[vii]
He encourages his students and fellow scholars to step away from the strict dichotomy of solely textual and oral sources and situate oneself in and amongst the community when doing oral history. In context, he notes ‘the sophisticated tapestry of oral history and oral tradition for indigenous peoples like Ngāti Porou are complex and complementary. The indigenous truth of oral history in living practice is that they are not simply aural, but multisensory productions.’[viii] This multisensory experience draws the researcher not only into the community as a part of it but highlights the ethical parameters of tikanga and the Māori worldview through genealogy (whakapapa), tribal memory, mana and the self-determination of the iwi. This can dictate who is permitted to know the knowledge and who is not, how it is understood, portrayed and later disseminated to the world. I find this most important, giving agency to the researched rather than placing the outcomes and decisions solely in the hands of the researcher.
The researched, Ngai Tahu, in my case, should be given agency over the oral histories I wish to interlink and understand. For me, this is the most vital point of Dr Mahuika’s mahi ― to open ourselves to the multisensory experience of indigenous history, to listen and return agency to indigenous communities and prove oneself as a trustworthy individual. It all comes down to understanding one is being granted a gift by witnessing unfolding oral history from the perspective of the indigenous.
[i] ‘My mountain Hikurangi never moves, but remains steadfast.” – spoken by Te Kani-a-Takirau after being offered the first Māori kingship. Used today as a whakataukī and source of pride for Ngati Porou. See: Nēpia Mahuika, ‘Re-storying Māori Legal Histories: Indigenous Articulations in Nineteenth-Century Aotearoa New Zealand’, NAIS: Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, 2.1 (2015) 40-66 <https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A435002555/AONE?u=waikato&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=4b508f1f> [accessed 5 April 2023] (p. 47).
[ii] Nēpia Mahuika, Rethinking Oral History and Tradition: An Indigenous Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019) (p.167).
[iii]Nēpia Mahuika, ‘An outsider’s guide to public oral history in New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of Public History, 5.1 (2017) 3–18 <https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12795> [accessed 2 April 2023] (p.4-5).
[iv] Mahuika, New Zealand Journal of Public History, p.6.
[v] Ibid.
[vi] Nēpia Mahuika, Rethinking Oral History and Tradition: An Indigenous Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019) (p.177).
[vii] Mahuika, Rethinking Oral History and Tradition: An Indigenous Perspective, p.166.
[viii] Ibid., p.171.
Bibliography:
Mahuika, Nēpia, ‘A Brief History of Whakapapa: Māori approaches to genealogy’, Genealogy, 3.2 (2019) 32–32 <https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy3020032>
——, ‘An outsider’s guide to public oral history in New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of Public History, 5.1 (2017) 3–18 <https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12795> [accessed 2 April 2023]
——, ‘‘Closing the Gaps’: From Postcolonialism to Kaupapa Māori and Beyond’, New Zealand Journal of History, 45.1 (2011) 15-32 <https://www-nzjh-auckland-ac-nz.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/docs/2011/NZJH_45_1_02.pdf> [accessed 3 April 2023]
—— and Tahu Kukutai, ‘Introduction: Indigenous Perspectives on Genealogical Research’, Genealogy (Basel), 5.3 (2021) 63-70 <https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5030063>
——, ‘‘Kōrero Tuku Iho’: Reconfiguring Oral History and Oral Tradition’ (Unpublished Thesis: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Waikato, 2012) in University of Waikato Research Commons Thesis Collection <https://hdl.handle.net/10289/6293> [accessed 2 April 2023]
——, ‘New Zealand History is Māori History: Tikanga as the ethical foundation of historical scholarship in Aotearoa New Zealand’, New Zealand Journal of History, 49.1 (2015), 5–30 <https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12539> [accessed 2 April 2023]
——, ‘Re-storying Māori Legal Histories: Indigenous Articulations in Nineteenth-Century Aotearoa New Zealand’, NAIS: Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, 2.1 (2015) 40-66 <https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A435002555/AONE?u=waikato&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=4b508f1f> [accessed 5 April 2023]
—— ‘Revitalizing Te Ika-a-Maui: Māori Migration and the Nation’, New Zealand Journal of History, 43.2 (2009) 133-149 <https://hdl.handle.net/10289/6398> [accessed 4 April 2023]
——, ‘Telling “us” in the “days destined to you” (Letter to the Editor)’, Biography, 39.3 (2016), 328-333 <https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A473635067/ITOF?u=waikato&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=2aa78853> [accessed 5 April 2023]
――, ‘The Indigenous ‘Truth’ of Oral History: Decolonizing Oral History in Presence, Practice, and Politics’, Our Histories, Our Way: Indigenous Oral History (Perth, Australia. 5 May 2016). Keynote.
——, ‘The Presence of the Past: Māori History in Contemporary Reflection’, in MO’NA: Our Pasts Before Us: 22nd Pacific History Association Conference (Guam, Mariana Islands: University of Waikato Research Commons, 19-21 May 2016) 1-11 <https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12525>
—— and Tahu Kukutai, ‘Introduction: Indigenous Perspectives on Genealogical Research’, Genealogy (Basel), 5.3 (2021) 63-70 <https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy5030063>
—— and Rangimarie Mahuika, ‘Wānanga as a Research Methodology’, AlterNative: an International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 16.4 (2020), 369-377 <https://doi-org.ezproxy.waikato.ac.nz/10.1177/1177180120968>
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