August 05, 2016
Papers Past help Hawke’s Bay researcher discover tipuna’s voices from 150 years ago
A Hawke’s Bay man has explored historic Māori newspaper collections brought online this year in his research for the upcoming 150th Commemoration of the Omarunui battle.
Ngāti Paarau historian, Mat Mullany, used the newspaper collections which have been digitised by the National Library’s Papers Past team for the Niupepa Māori Project.
The team processed over eighteen thousand individual pages from twenty-five separate historical newspapers and periodicals, and added them to the Papers Past website (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/). This collection was based on images supplied by the New Zealand Digital Library Project, at the Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato.
It includes the Hawke’s Bay title Te Waka Māori which Mullany used for his research. Mullany said the service had been a great resource.
“It provides insight into my tipuna's thinking leading up to the battle,” Mullany said.
“My tipuna (Tareha Te Moananui) had a vision of Māori and Pākehā working together for the common good. For various reasons not all Māori had the same vision. To read Te Waka Māori helped me to understand Tareha's foresight to establish Napier.”
Mullany is one of a growing number of researchers who can now easily access niupepa Māori and open up a view into the Māori world of the past.
Also digitised was the Hawkes Bay Times, which includes the Māori language column Nga Hua Mohiotanga.
Niupepa Māori has made valuable resources more available for researchers that are interested in whakapapa.
It also offers a unique source of Māori language text as well as unique historical records of New Zealand from a Māori perspective.
National Library’s online manager Sam Minchin said the glimpse into the past was significant and works towards preserving and growing the language.
“It’s part of our continued commitment to getting more material in te reo online, and it’s encouraging to see researchers like Mat using it to discover more about our history.” Minchin said.
He said the Papers Past team is excited that new audiences are discovering this resource and looking forward to seeing how else the niupepa will be used and what other insights can be gained from them.
The Papers Past updated site has been re-launched and is now live. It brings together digitised newspapers, letters, diaries, magazines, and parliamentary papers in one easy to search, digital environment. With the previous version of the site reaching the end of its life, this new edition of Papers Past is easy to navigate on any device and keeps the service running and accessible, both now and well into the future. To find out more, go to https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/
From left: Paul Diamond, Alexander Turnbull Library curator, Māori, and researcher Mat Mullany look through the issues of the niupepa (Māori Language newspaper), Te Waka Māori o Ahuriri on the Papers Past website. Photo: SUPPLIED.
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