Introduction: Looking at the Overlooked

THE MISSION OF folklorists has been described as "looking at the overlooked"—that is, studying the parts of culture that are beneath the attention of other academic disciplines and attaching the same value to the artistry and creativity of ordinary people that is more often applied only to the culture of the elite.¹ In New Zealand, however, the study of folklore has been almost non-existent. In surveys of world folklore, New Zealand is almost never mentioned. New Zealand itself is also easy to overlook: a small country with more sheep than people, far from the centers of global power and rarely heard from in the world news, "a mere punctuation mark at the bottom of the globe" (Lealand 1985:63).

Given this lamentable state of affairs, "Looking at the Overlooked" was a fitting title for the first-ever academic symposium devoted to the study of folklore in New Zealand, held at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University of Wellington in April 2006. The aim of the gathering was twofold: first, to announce to New Zealanders that there was indeed folklore in their own country, and that it was worth taking seriously; and also to bring together from around the country the professional folklorists, enthusiasts, and academics from a variety of disciplines who had expertise in the study of folklore.

The symposium was a huge success. For a full day the seminar room at the Stout Centre was packed with people, singing along with the songs, laughing uproariously at the jokes, and enthusiastically debating questions of both New Zealand folklore and folklore in New Zealand. I have never experienced an academic conference where the level of sustained engagement was so high. The excitement in the room was palpable, even at the end of the day when the wrap-up discussion concluded with calls for the establishment of a Chair of Folklore Studies and the unanimous decision to "keep this project going." The papers in this issue all derive from this conference and represent the next step in keeping the project going, in moving the overlooked topic of New Zealand folklore closer to center stage.

The Study of New Zealand Folklore

A recurring theme of the symposium was that the study and collection of folklore have largely been neglected in New Zealand. A cursory examination of the folkloristic literature appears to bear out this refrain. At most, New Zealand receives a brief note to the effect that there is no support for the academic study of folklore there.² What is more, when people talk about New Zealand folklore, they most often mean Pakeha folklore.³ Maori lore is somehow considered a separate domain.

New Zealand enters the history of folklore study briefly because of the pioneering work of Governor George Grey in the mid-nineteenth century. His Polynesian Mythology, published in 1855 from notebooks in which prominent Maori wrote down their oral traditions at the governor's behest, was influential among both anthropologists and the general public. The original manuscripts, deposited in the national archives, continue to be mined by anthropologists today (Luomala 1961). Many other European missionaries, travelers, and anthropologists also published collections of Maori myth and legend, fitting these materials to the reigning anthropological theories of the day from solar mythology to cultural evolution. However, all of this work rested on the assumption that Maori lore and language was dying, and the resulting texts were viewed as relics rather than as living traditions.⁴ Nevertheless, this mythology, along with a rich vein of historical legend, continues to be a relevant and living tradition among Maori (Walker 1992).

Clearly Maori music, legend, and mythology would have a claim to being truly New Zealand national folklore—yet curiously, it is never called this. Maori folklore and New Zealand folklore are considered to be separate things. This attitude stems from the notion that "New Zealand folklore" must reflect or be the common property of all New Zealanders, or at least, of most of them. In practice, "all New Zealanders" tends to mean Pakeha New Zealanders, especially those of English, Scots, or Irish stock...