Department of Māori Studies - Te Kawa a Māui

Collected Archives Appraisal and Acquisition Report

COLLECTION DESCRIPTION:

Department of Maori Studies Library and Resource Room. In May 2011, the JC Beaglehole Room was contacted by the Department of Maori Studies and the Corporate Record Services about a room which was to be cleared out for usage by Departmental Masters students. This room had originally been used for the Department of Maori Studies library but over the years had become also a general dumping ground for other information. Due to this, many of the resources within the room had effectively became very difficult to identify and locate.



The information within the room could on a very top level be divided into two types: 1) Corporate records. These are the records created by the Department of Maori Studies in the process of fulfilling its function of the provision of teaching services. 2) Non-corporate. This is basically everything else but can be best defined as the material that was gathered by the Department of Maori Studies to assist themselves and their students in the provision of teaching services. The Public Records Act 2005 includes all universities as entities which are required to make a full and complete record of their business and to have that information, where necessary, ready for transfer to Archives NZ. There is a legal instrument called the Universities General Disposal Authority which covers all these records and describes the disposal decisions of these records. Corporate Record Services had initiated a project to remove all the records from the room which pertained to the corporate records of the Department of Maori Studies and also undertook to sentence and destroy those corporate records which were no longer required under the Universities General Disposal Authority according to the Public Records Act. The original contents of the room included, amongst others, examples of the following material: 1) The photographic archive (incomplete) of the late 60’s to early 80’s including the Mervyn King series with Bernie Kernot of Maori Lintels and marae throughout New Zealand. 2) A pair of feathered Maori cloaks (provenance unknown) 3) Boxes of papers from lecturers of the Department who had since departed. 4) Teaching materials 5) Audio Visual material in many formats – reel to reel tapes, videos, cassette tapes, miniature tapes, films etc. 6) Governmental publications dating back many decades 7) Non governmental publications dating back many decades including information printed from marae, churches, protest groups etc. 8) Course notes dating back to the late 60’s. 9) A newspaper clippings collection including some scrapbooks, dating back to the 1970’s 10) Conference notes and hui details 11) Rare books and manuscripts that have been collected by various people and donated to the Department of Maori Studies library. 12) A large collection of books that formed the basis of the library, sub groups include education, law, religion, anthropology, classics, and art. 13) A large number of periodicals that have been gathered by the Department. 14) A large amount of corporate records which included curriculum development, basic administration, student records (these records were removed and dealt with separately be the Corporate Record Services section of Victoria University.) 15) A hand calligraphed facsimile of the Treaty of Waitangi provisionally dated in the late 80’s with accompanying sheets of signatures of supporters 16) A series of Ronald D. Woolf photos and other historic photos. 17) Posters and artworks. The posters include Te Maori posters, Michael Tuffery poster, and a Billy T James poster. The artworks include a framed drawing by Douglas Parry Ferris.. There are also two carved boards, one which is a demonstration board of different carving techniques.

Individual Appraisal Decisions

1) The photographic archive. This archive has been boxed up completely for the JC Beaglehole Room. There is one box which contains some photos and sets of negatives from 1969-1971. Many of the photos may be duplicated within the Mervyn King collection however this collection is a worthy addition to the JC Beaglehole Room. NB. There is also an envelope containing photos and negatives in the Association of Victoria University Women box (location Bay 71/3 shelf 6) of photos of the women of the Te Herenga Waka Marae. 2) A pair of feathered Maori cloaks .These cloaks were brought over to the JC Beaglehole Room archive as it is a better place to store them than the Department of Maori Studies. They have not been transferred to the JC Beaglehole Room, ownership has been retained by the Department of Maori Studies. According to recommended conservation advice from Te Papa, these cloaks have been laid on a sturdy bamboo framework covered by acid free archival quality cardboard, wrapped in acid free tissue paper, covered with light blocking silk and then stored in the archive. This should halt any deterioration until decisions are made re ultimate restoration and display. It is believed that the feathered cloak was given to the Department of Maori Studies in 1986, possible to commemorate the opening of the Te Herenga Waka Marae, and that the non feathered cloak may have been found in a basement of the Hunter Building around the same time.

3) Boxes of paper from lecturers who have departed. These boxes are generally the most difficult to appraise. This is because the information is often unsorted and random, it may contain items which are extremely personal, and much of the context will generally have been lost. The largest groupings of these boxes belonged to Dr Ngahuia Te Awekotuku who was a lecturer at the Department for a time in the 90’s. Ngahuia has been contacted about these boxes and it is hoped that it will be possible to return them to her at her present employment in the Waikato. Though the information does contain items of high archival value, it also contains items of high personal value. Archives cannot be accepted into an archive by default, they must be freely given by the donor or their family. There would be no point in the JC Beaglehole Room retaining any of this information as it is best served being returned to Ngahuia and she can make the decision about where she would like here working papers to ultimately be deposited. The rest of the boxes were addressed on a case by case basis according to the information contained within. 4) Teaching Materials. The teaching materials can be sorted into different groups according to their format – audio visual, photos, course notes etc. These have all been covered or will be covered in more detail in other areas of the Appraisal Report. .There was a small section of teaching materials which were originally sourced from the Department of Education and these have been retained. It should be noted that some of the holdings appear to be unique as they do not appear with the rest of the relevant series at Archives NZ. 5) Audio Visual material in many formats – reel to reel tapes, videos, cassette tapes, miniature tapes, films etc. These audio visual resources cover a wide range of function, formats, usage, and provenance. There is a whole series of tapes from the times of Koro Dewes. A large section of these has already been sent down to the Oral History Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library where they have been progressively listed, catalogued, digitised and preserved. It is extremely difficult to know without the new lists which of the remaining tapes are originals and which are copies. There is the possibility of future collaboration with the Alexander Turnbull Library to ensure that a more complete transfer is carried out, and to identify which of the extant tapes are then therefore available for research use at the JC Beaglehole Room. There are a number of boxes of videotapes of relevant TV programmes which have been collected by the Department of Maori Studies. There are a number of boxes of videotapes, tapes, and micro tapes of different courses that the Department offers In all, there are 24 boxes of Audio Visual material and these boxes have all been labelled as such for potential identification, listing, and appraisal. This will have to be a separate project undertaken at some later date as it will require significant specialist resources. It should be noted that these resources are considered particularly important because of the oral traditions of Maori and the uniqueness of the collections. 6) Governmental publications dating back many decades. The Department of Maori Studies collected many publications from a variety of government departments and some of these publications date back to the 1930’s. There are a number of reasons why I would consider these records to be of high value. Firstly they are a unique set of documents which are often not kept during an appraisal process because of the perceived ease of availability of finding these documents in other areas such as referring back to the original departments or accessing Archives NZ’s holdings. However the reality is that it can be often problematic for a researcher to access these documents easily and the resource of the documents all being available in the one area cannot be underrated. Also many of the documents date from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s which is a time of great change and loss in government. Many of these documents may not have been preserved and transferred to Archives NZ and the Department of Maori Studies library may in fact be the only known repository. The uniqueness of the collection in so far as it recognises and reflects the changing nature of government departments during this time can also not be underrated. Organisations which are represented include the Department of Statistics, the Department of Education, the Department of Maori Affairs, Te Puni Kokiri, and the Iwi Transition Agency. An example of a government publication is shown below. It is a pamphlet produced by the Decimal Currency Board to explain the introduction of decimal currency in 1967.

It is recommended that great care is taken before disposing of many of these publications. Though some of them may be held by other departments of the Victoria University Library, care should be taken not to split the collection and lose the unique nature and context of their acquisition. 7) Nongovernmental publications dating back many decades including information printed from marae, churches, protest groups etc. The Department of Maori Studies also collected many publications from nongovernmental organisations. Many of these publications would not have been retained in any form by the publishers or the organisations that commissioned publication. Most of the reasoning behind retention of the government publications can also be applied to the Nongovernmental publications. Much of the value is in the collection itself and the ease with which a researcher would be able to access this information. It is a record of the social and cultural history of the Department of Maori Studies and should be preserved. It is also recommended that great care is taken before disposing of these publications due to their uniqueness, the ephemeral nature of their production, and their research value, particularly in social and cultural areas.



8) Course notes dating back to the late 60’s. The first Maori Studies courses ran at Victoria University under the Department of Anthropology before the stand alone Department of Maori Studies was formed. I was recommended by a number of people and concurred with the by the archivist that these course notes were a valuable addition to the Department of Maori Studies archive. They show the development of Maori Studies as a discipline in a time of great change and growth in the field. Some of the course notes have been written by the lecturer and evolved from year to year(Winifred Bauer – Maori 322 – Topics in the Structure of Maori Language), others are comprised of offprints and articles collated by the lecturer and department. The series runs from the 60’s through to the late 2000’s and can be considered an important unique research tool. 9) A newspaper clippings collection including some scrapbooks, dating back to the 1970’s. As with the Mary Boyd collection of Pacific Island newspaper clippings, it was decided that these collections hold significant research value. Even though it is possible to research at newspapers held at repositories such as the Alexander Turnbull Library, in reality it can be quite difficult and time consuming. Assiduous collecting of newspaper clippings results in a snapshot of life at that time which can be hard to replicate in any other manner. A present day search will not be able to encompass related items such as Letters to the Editor which provide important information about the thinking of the time. Of particular interest is a scrapbook which was created about the 1975 land march to Parliament 10) 11) 10) Conference notes and hui details. Also included are a series of conference notes and hui details. The conference notes date back to the mi 50’s and include titles such as ‘Report of regional Maori Leadership Conference’. There is also a full set of conference papers from the Treaty of Waitangi conference held at the Turangawaewae Marae. These papers have all been kept as they provide a unique record of these events and the participation of Victoria University staff and students in events such as these. 11) Rare books and manuscripts that have been collected by various people and donated to the Department of Maori Studies library.

There is a collection of old books, manuscripts and pamphlets which have been collected or been donated to the Department of Maori Studies. These have been boxed separately for later cataloguing. Included is a book which originally belonged to Maui Pomare when he was a student at te Aute College. This collection is a worthy addition to the JC Beaglehole Room holdings. 12) A large collection of books that formed the basis of the library, sub groups include education, law, religion, anthropology, classics, and art. These books are being appraised by the relevant subject librarians and being assimilated into the VUW Library collections where appropriate, with formal acknowledgement in the cataloguing to the Department of Maori Studies. 13) A large number of periodicals that have been gathered by the Department. Again, these periodicals are being appraised by the relevant subject librarians. Many of the periodicals are related to Archaeology and date back to the 70’s and 80’s. These may have little relevance now. The set of Journals of the Polynesian Society have been given to the new Pasifika Navigator at Victoria University Library to help build up his reference library. 14) A large amount of corporate records which included curriculum development, basic administration, student records (these records were removed and dealt with separately be the Corporate Record Services section of Victoria University.) These records have all been sorted, removed and stored with the Corporate Records Services of Victoria University. Under the Public records Act 2005, Victoria University is required to create and maintain relevant corporate records for each of its departments. A worker fro Corporate records spent many weeks painstakingly sorting through all these records and the transfer is now complete. These records remain accessible to the Department of Maori Studies through the Records manager, Victoria University. 15) A hand calligraphed facsimile of the Treaty of Waitangi provisionally dated in the late 80’s with accompanying sheets of signatures of supporters This facsimile seems to have been commissioned by the Department of Maori Studies sometime in the late 80’s. One of the signatories, Graham Butterworth was contacted and he thinks that it was originally commissioned as a promotional exercise for the Department to promote the Treaty. 16) A series of Ronald D. Woolf photos and other historic photos. Ronald Woolf took many photos for Victoria University and there is asset of 4 photographs taken by him which have been wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a photograph box along with some other photos. Some of the photos are reproductions of Alexander Turnbull Library photographs, some are photos of past students and classes, some photos are teaching materials. As some of the provenance is lost it is recommended that these photos are possible viewed again with some of the marae staff and extra provenance can be gained. It should also be noted that the marae may want have some of these photos on display at the marae. 17) Posters and artworks. The posters include Te Maori posters, Michael Tuffery poster, and a Billy T James poster. The artworks include a framed drawing by Douglas Parry Ferris.. There are also two carved boards, one which is a demonstration board of different carving techniques. Many of the posters arrived rolled up and these posters have been left rolled up and placed inside an acid free cardboard tube. The posters which are flat have been placed inside an acid free cardboard folder. The artwork by Douglas Parry Ferris and the two carved boards are currently on display in the reading room of the JC Beaglehole Room. Again, it may be that the marae would want to have some of these items for display at the marae.

J C BEAGLEHOLE ROOM HOLDINGS: The JC Beaglehole Room has other holdings which have been received at different times which complement the Department of Maori Studies holdings. These include 1) Te Maori filing structure and films from the exhibition, both overseas and in New Zealand. This accession was received by the JC Beaglehole Room in 1989 and it comprises the working file structure of Sid and June Mead in the preparation and implementation of the Te Maori exhibition. This was a seminal time in the emergence of not only Maori arts and culture but also occurred during a seminal time in the development of the Department of Maori Studies. 2) Ngati Porou oral histories and waiata gathered by Kapunga Matemoana ('Koro') Dewes in the 1960's-1970's for possible PhD work. These are DAT tapes many of which have been digitised and are held by the Alexander Turnbull Library. 3) Handwritten songbooks in English and Maori from Koro Dewes plus some manuscript pages. 4) Photos from the state of Mervyn King, university photographer which contain some of the photos taken of the tour by Bernie Kernot and Mervyn King in the late 1960’s plus some other historic Department of Maori Studies photos. 5) Sid Mead’s working file from his days as a representative of the National Geographic Board concerning the proposed name change from Mt Egmont to Mt Taranaki. This was a controversial issue and all associated papers have been retained. These papers have never been processed so they will be amalgamated into the Department of Maori Studies holdings for research purposes. 6) An accession from Bernie Kernot of the photos taken with Mervyn King in the late 60’s.

CONSULTATION:

People consulted include: Current Department of Maori Studies staff. Department of Museum Studies staff Waitangi Tribunal records and library staff Ministry of Education Staff Victoria University corporate staff

CONCLUSION :