Editing Te Rangikāheke’s Manuscripts; Editing people.
Arini Loader Victoria University – Wellington
Arini Loader is of Te Whanau Apanui, Te Arawa and Ngati Raukawa descent. Arini is a former Assistant Lecturer in Te Kawa a Maui, Victoria University of Wellington. She is currently completing a MA Thesis and looking towards undertaking a PHD.
This presentation is drawn from her thesis. In the mid nineteenth century Te Rangikāheke wrote some 800 pagesconcerning traditional Māori history, Māori religious ideas and traditional stories. In this paper I will argue that Te Rangikāheke exercised his tino rangatiratanga – his right to self determination in his recording of his stories. Accordingly I will argue that Sir GeorgeGrey then extended his powers of sovereignty and dominion over the original Māori writing in the act of editing Traditional Māori stories which have thus been filtered through imperial editors and emerged cut, pasted and recast in a Eurocentric mould. These narratives have then been passed off as authentic Māori tradition to Māori, mainstream New Zealand and the wider world.
Specifically this paper will examine the differences between a traditional narrative recorded by Te Rangikāheke and Grey’s editing of it. I will propose that editing provides a rich metaphor for the process of colonisation and that New Zealand’s colonial legacy involved editing Māori out of their own voice and therefore the world.
Ultimately, I will argue in this paper that indigenous peoples have their own stories to tell and should be guaranteed the right to tell them without fear of the colonisers editing them. Māori have their own worldviews, customs and beliefs and should be assured of being able to express and live them without being ‘edited’ into a palatable mainstream dilution, pushed, prodded, tidied up or toned down.
