November 06, 2023
Rokirokitia digital kit captures korero from past
A project to save thousands of hours of amateur Māori sound and video recordings is being hailed as a major success.
Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision chief executive Paul Meredith says over the past two years the Rokirokitia project has saved some amazing material that might have been lost forever.
The archive is also encouraging people to access the material, as it did with a tape of a kaumatua speaking from 1969.
“Someone phoned up the son – said ‘oh look got your father he’s been recorded’ – so he came down and listened to it. And we saw the smile on his face, the tears, you know? So, it’s definitely a lot of times when we share a lot of these taonga – it’s why we do what we do,” Mr Meredith says.
Rokirokitia involved sending kits out to iwi and communities allowing kaimahi to digitise old audio cassettes and video tapes, with the originals returned to the iwi or whanau.