Topic: Collections of the National Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library

Topic type:

• Topic

The National Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library hold published and unpublished material about Māori people, history, language and culture, written by both Māori and non-Māori. Māori resources in the collections can be used to research the many aspects of te ao Māori (the Māori world) from whenua (land), whakapapa (genealogy), and te reo (the Māori language) to tikanga (culture). Some of these collections have now been digitised and are available online. Collections containing material of significance to Taranaki include:

Sir Donald McLean Papers - The Manuscripts & Pictorial website presents digitised copies of selected series from the papers of Donald McLean held at the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Te Ao Hou (The New World) online - The Māori magazine Te Ao Hou (The New World) was published from 1952 to 1975 by the Māori Affairs Department. All 76 issues of this journal are available online.

Timeframes - Timeframes is an online database containing digital copies of heritage images from the Alexander Turnbull Library collections. These include portraits of Māori and representations of tikanga Māori.

Te Puna Web Directory - Includes links to Māori resources on other websites using the Te Puna Web Directory.

Index New Zealand - find Māori resources in magazines and journals - Index New Zealand describes over half a million articles published in or about New Zealand over the past 20 years, including in magazines and journals like Te Ao Hou and Te Kaunihera Māori: the New Zealand Māori Council Journal. Many publications are also held in the General Serials Collection and the Turnbull Library’s New Zealand Serials Collection.

Māori Reference Collection - The Māori Reference Collection contains published Māori material across all subject areas, including the Journal of the Polynesian Society and the Index of Maori names compiled by H J Fletcher in 1925.

Family History Collection - The Family History Collection holds Māori birth, death, and marriage indexes, and other resources relevant to whakapapa research such as the Māori Land Court Minute Books Index.

New Zealand and Pacific Book Collection - The New Zealand and Pacific Book Collection includes many rare books in te reo Māori (the Māori language), and the world’s most complete collection of printed Māori material. Look at Books in Māori, by Phil Parkinson & Penny Griffith, 2004, to find out about around 1600 items in the collection dated pre-1900.

Manuscripts Collection - The Manuscripts Collection includes the records of:

• Māori families, individuals and organisations
• early missionaries, and other European travellers who observed and described early Māori society
• Pākehā (non-Māori) politicians and administrators involved in Māori affairs (often containing letters from Māori)
• scholars and organisations interested in Māori history.

National Newspaper Collection and Niupepa Māori - The National Newspaper Collection contains niupepa (Māori language newspapers) on microfiche from 1842 onwards. Digital copies of selected niupepa from the collection are also available online at the New Zealand Digital Library website.

Oral History Centre collection - The Oral History Centre holds collections of Māori oral history recordings, and is often involved with projects carried out by Māori groups New Zealand-wide.

Turnbull Library Pictures - These include portraits of Māori and representations of matauranga and tikanga Māori; images of art, events and places relevant to Māori. Some images have been digitised and are available on Timfames online database, but many more are held in the Turnbull collection and can be viewed at the Library in Wellington.

Cartographic Collection - This map collection contains information such as:

• Māori place names and pā (fortified village) sites on early maps and charts from traders, sailors, explorers and surveyors
• Māori land block names on published boundary maps from the 1880s
• land ownership and boundaries on private survey maps, and
• Māori tracks and waterways in the New Zealand Historical Atlas collection, corrected by Sir Āpirana Ngata and Pei Te Hurinui Jones.

Drawings, Paintings and Prints collection - The Drawings, Paintings and Prints collection includes many portraits of Māori, and representations of Te Ao Māori, mainly in drawings and paintings by 19th century Europeans.

Photographic Archive - The Photographic Archive holds original photographs of New Zealand and the Pacific from the 1850s onwards, including many relating to Māori.

Rangiātea online exhibition - Rangiātea was the oldest Anglican Māori Church in New Zealand until it was tragically destroyed by fire in 1995. It was recently rebuilt. This website celebrates the unique history of Rangiātea.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand - The Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand (1868 to 1961) contain articles on the history, ethnology and mythology of Māori from the mid to late 19th century onwards. The journals are available online.