Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu Treasures for the Rising Generation: The Dominion Museum Ethnological Expeditions, 1919–1923 by Wayne Ngata, et al (review)

HEI TAONGA MĀ NGĀ URI WHAKATIPU is a generously illustrated and beautifully designed book that contextualizes the ethnographic fieldwork led by Apirana Ngata, Te Rangihīroa, Elsdon Best, Johannes Anderson and James McDonald a century ago for the Dominion Museum, now Te Papa Tongarewa. Like the fieldwork projects, this book is a collaborative endeavour that outlines the story of the four expeditions, set within their historical and political contexts. Each expedition, which took place between 1919 and 1923, is covered in detail. The first was at Gisborne, to record the hui aroha for the returning Māori Pioneer Battalion; the second coincided with the visit of the Duke of York to Rotorua in 1920; the third traversed the Whanganui River; and the final expedition was hosted by Apirana Ngata on the East Coast. Scholars interested in material culture, museum studies, colonial collecting and the early history of anthropology in New Zealand will find much of value in the fine-grained analysis of the fieldwork provided in those chapters.

Perhaps most importantly, Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu seeks to reconnect the images, sounds and objects collected during the expeditions with the descendants of those who shared their knowledge, traditions, songs and practices a century ago. In doing so, the authors highlight the different aspirations and agendas that underpinned the expeditions. For Ngata and Te Rangihīroa, who played a significant part in coordinating and directing the fieldwork, the expeditions were a chance to record aspects of Māori song and tradition for future generations. Global war and the influenza pandemic gave the 1919 expedition particular significance, as Monty Soutar details in his chapter on the Gisborne expedition. As the authors note, Ngata’s interest in anthropology was not uncritical, but he saw its potential and possibilities to meet Māori aspirations.

The expeditions are worthy of assessment because they were ‘globally significant’ in that they had Indigenous leadership, were community-driven and experimented with new technologies in the field, notably film and sound recording, but also photography. James McDonald’s photographs play a central role in Hei Taonga mā ngā Uri Whakatipu, as they not only form a record of the expeditions themselves, but also provide an illustration of ethnographic fieldwork in practice. These photographs, though, also tell a story about whānau and community. In one of the most important contributions to the book, Natalie Robertson’s chapter details the role of photography in colonial history, its adoption by anthropologists and ethnographers to record and categorize people and culture, and its integration into Māori life. The book comes to life when the people and places depicted in fieldwork photographs are named by descendants. Defined by whakapapa and whānau, the photographs tell different histories and, in the words of Robertson, ‘invite other stories to emerge and be shared’ (p.276).

The outcomes of the expeditions were multiple: the objects, films and photographs form a significant collection in our national museum, for instance. They inspired the creation of the Board of Ethnological Research, influenced anthropology’s development as a discipline in New Zealand and had a foundational impact on the trajectory of Te Rangihīroa’s future career. They demonstrated, too, the importance of Māori participation in the social sciences and the capacity of Indigenous knowledge to reshape the discipline. As Te Rangihīroa wrote to Ngata in 1927, Māori and Pacific thinkers ‘should be in the forefront and not leave the bulk of the investigations to workers who have not got the inside angle that we have. They miss things that are significant to us’ (p.281). While acknowledging the work of Pākeh...