Te Aitanga a Hauiti and Paikea: Whale People in the Modern Whaling Era (original) (raw)
Related papers
Artefacts, history and assemblage formation at Te Hoe whaling station, New Zealand
Australasian Journal of Historical Archaeology 32: 23-34, 2014
Manufacturing date ranges for ceramic vessels, glass bottles, clay pipes and selected metal artefacts at Te Hoe whaling station, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand are compared with each other and with two historically identified phases of occupation at the site (c.1842–1857, 1864–1896). This supports the frequently observed pattern of ceramic vessels having a longer use-life than either glass bottles or clay pipes. It also shows a markedly longer time-lag for ceramics from the second phase of occupation, which is interpreted here as indicating that the remnant whaling community had limited engagement with mainstream New Zealand society throughout the later nineteenth century.
Marine resources in Maori oral tradition
2013
Aotearoa New Zealand (ANZ) was one of the last land masses settled by humans, with the arrival of Maori ca. 1280 AD. This relatively recent human history allows unprecedented opportunity to investigate traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in changing environmental and societal contexts. Before European contact, Maori culture had a strongly developed tradition of oral literature, including ancestral sayings (whakatauki). Whakatauki represent one of the main ways of transmitting critical information about all aspects of life and society, including TEK. Our aim in this paper was to analyse information on marine resources contained in whakatauki. We analysed linguistic cues to place whakatauki that refer to marine resources in five time periods, before examining the frequencies of occurrence for these whakatauki, and thus infer the likely importance of these resources through time. References to specific fish reduced through time, in contrast to generic references; we argue that these patterns are associated with societal developments. Naming of fish species during the initial settlement period likely reflects prior Polynesian voyaging experience. Many early fish references are associated with food, but later references to fish do not strongly reflect this pattern. The occurrence of marine resources such as elasmobranchs and shellfish in the whakatauki differ from their occurrence in the archaeological record, reflecting limitations associated with both forms of record.
Toi Hauiti and Hinematioro: a Māori ancestor in a German castle
Pacific Presences: Oceanic Art and European Museums, 2018
Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. Pacific Presences is a two-volume book that enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, it exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Over thirty essays explore materialities, collection histories, legacies of empire, and contemporary projects. Read the whole book here: https://www.sidestone.com/books/pacific-presences-vol-2
We compare ethnological views of Māori canoes (waka) of the first colonisation period with those of the European contact period, and then describe diverse archaeological waka from the interim period. The aim is to reconstruct basic design elements of whole canoes and to suggest their relative ages. Variations in form relate to differences in sailing ability and we refer to scientific performance testing of a range of model canoe hulls and sails. We find that through time technological change in waka correspond to other changes in New Zealand archaeology including demographic and social shifts, and the contraction of interaction spheres. The first canoe-builders in New Zealand adjusted to a new environment. The country became isolated within East Polynesia, but there were widespread communications and capable sailing canoes on the New Zealand coast. Through time, with a shift from multihulls to monohulls and changes in hull form, we see a general decline in the sailing performance of canoes and the development of new types more suited to paddling and downwind sailing. However, notwithstanding this trend, outrigger canoes which could sail well persisted into late pre-European times in both the north and south of the country.
A-Whaling We Will Go: Encounters of Knowledge and Memory at the Makah Cultural and Research Center
On a summer morning in 1995, like nearly every other morning that year, I went to the Makah Cultural and Research Center to research the history of the reservation community in Neah Bay, Washington. This morning was set apart from the others, however. There on the table, awaiting the staff, sat a paper plate stacked with smoked whale blubber. The blubber—boiled and smoked by a Makah linguist on the museum staff—was a novelty. As endangered species, California and Pacific gray whales had been off limits to hunting for many years. Whale hunting was once a significant spiritual, social, and economic practice for the Makah people and they were adamant about securing the right to it in their 1855 treaty with the U.S. government. Although the Makah people still enjoy occasional meals of salmon, halibut, sea urchin, goose- neck barnacles, and many other sea creatures, gray whale has not been a part of their diet since they ceased whale hunting early in the 20th century. By the 1920s, the whale population, decimated by commercial hunting, could no longer support this tradition (Pascua 1991). The smoked blubber sitting on the staff table that summer morning had come from an "accidental whale."
This article explores the social biographies of sea cucumbers and whales' teeth, challenging a prevalent tendency among scholars to endow objects with abstract essences. It focuses on encounters of value in which the meanings of material possessions fluctuated across cultural and ethnic boundaries. Such moments of contradiction and coalescence had profound environmental and social consequences and suggest new ways that environmental historians might understand the roles of cultural arbitrage and expropriation in the making of the world system. To illustrate these crucial issues, this article discusses the experiences of David Whippy and William Cary, two Nantucket castaways in nineteenth-century Fiji, and it investigates long-term connections that emerged among Nantucket, Fiji, and the broader ecosystems and cultures of the Pacific Ocean region during the 1800s. Both men were involved in the export of sea cucumbers (genus Holothuria) from Fiji to China and the importation of sperm whales' teeth to Fiji from various parts of the Pacific. The histories of these two commodities offer potent testimonials about cultural and ecological changes during the nineteenth century.
Houses of Stories: The whale rider at the American Museum of Natural History
In April 2013, fifteen members of the Māori tribal arts group Toi Hauiti travelled to New York to reconnect with their carved wooden ancestor figure, Paikea, at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). They gave educational presentations to school groups, museum staff and members of the public about Paikea and the whare kōrero, or house of stories, which Paikea had adorned as a gable figure. Through a discussion anchored in the importance of taonga (ancestral treasures), this paper describes embodied forms of knowledge used by Paikea’s descendants to know him in his absence, and introduce him to diverse audiences. Its foci are: museum education in multicultural contexts; learning by doing through the use of interactive activities; and community outreach and museum education. In addition, it discusses the challenges to protocols and opportunities for learning offered to AMNH staff through this engagement, and examines the impact it had on Toi Hauiti members themselves.