On 13 March 2024, Te Papa Press launched Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa a book developed in partnership with iwi, which delves into Te Papa’s Mātauranga Māori, History, and Art collections to explore taonga and objects intimately connected with the key events and players associated with the New Zealand Wars. Here, the authors – Curator Mātauranga Māori Matiu Baker (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue), Curator New Zealand Histories and Cultures Katie Cooper, Research Associate Michael Fitzgerald, and Curator Historical New Zealand Art Rebecca Rice – answer ten questions about the book and the mahi involved to publish it.

Q1: There’s been so much talk that the new schools’ history curriculum will address what is a fairly general ignorance about the New Zealand Wars and how what happened then continues to play out now. Where does this book fit into that aspiration?

Katie: In our jobs, we are lucky enough to witness, day after day, the power of objects. Taonga can transport you to another moment in time. They are a physical connection between past and present, and our hope is that the objects in this book will give readers new insights and new ways of understanding the New Zealand Wars. We weren’t trying to write a comprehensive history of the wars, but rather to share stories from the collection that would spark curiosity and empathy and hopefully inspire people – especially  rangatahi and general readers – to keep learning.

Q2: As the four authors, you’ve each come from different disciplines across the museum – Mātauranga Māori, History, and Art. What was the advantage of this collaboration?

Katie:  For much of the project we were meeting almost weekly to discuss particular objects, test out different structures, brainstorm potential essay topics and explore overarching themes. Everyone brought their own perspectives – both personal and disciplinary – to the objects and stories we were exploring.

Rebecca: It enabled us to see connections between taonga and across disciplines that opened up different ‘windows’ onto the people, places and events associated with the New Zealand Wars. I don’t think any of us would have comprehended the material and visual culture held in our collections so deeply without those conversations and without this collaborative approach.

Q3: From guns and flags, to maps, paintings, photographs, and medals, there are over 400 objects associated with the wars in the book. When you were still scoping the project did you have any idea that there were so many?

Matiu: There are objects in Te Papa’s collections which were acquired by its predecessors, the Colonial and Dominion Museums, when the New Zealand Wars were in progress, or still well within living memory of participants. Today we would call this ‘contemporary collecting’ – the acquisition of material relevant to current or very recent events.

Of course, much of this material was regarded at the time as trophies or war booty, and sometimes their context and the personalities involved were inadequately recorded. It has only been in recent years, with access to modern research tools such as Papers Past that we can easily dig deeper into the stories behind some of these objects and often bring them to life in the words of people who took part in the events they are associated with.

Q4: What do you think is the most powerful taonga?

Katie:  If forced to pick one I would say that the New Zealand Company flag, made in 1839, is very powerful. I love studying it up close – the stars are all slightly different, you can see the wonky stitching, there is a hand-written name on the hoist end, and the fly end is really tattered.

The flag is very powerful as it is an expression of Aotearoa’s sovereign independence – based on the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand – but made and used by a company devoted to colonisation. Just one of many complicated objects in the book!

Rebecca: I would have to say William Strutt’s 1861 painting View of Mt Egmont, Taranaki, New Zealand, taken from New Plymouth, with Maoris driving off settlers’ cattle, for many reasons. It’s a ‘colonial masterpiece’, a rare early oil painting of an historical New Zealand subject by a professional artist. It has an unusual perspective, positioning the viewer alongside Māori in the foreground. It reminds us of the power of art to shift its meaning over time, for while Strutt may have intended his painting as a depiction of Māori aggression, today it can be read as an expression of Māori resistance to colonial occupation.

Matiu: There are too many taonga with powerful and compelling stories to choose any one. How do you measure the significance of the mere-pounamu (weapon made of pounamu or greenstone) given by Patuone to Lieutenant-Governor Hobson at the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, or a stunning quartzite patu (weapon) made by Taranaki prisoners in Dunedin?

But one that comes to mind is the very elegant and beautiful hoeroa (staff) that belonged to Māori parliamentarian Hōne Mohi Tawhai, which is a segue to a damning satirical whakapapa or genealogy composed by Tawhai that could be described as a snapshot of the Māori condition in late-19th century colonial New Zealand. It’s a wonderfully concise and succinct picture depicting the impact of colonial machinery upon Māori society. I think it’s extraordinarily powerful and has the ability to become a powerful educational device in the new curriculum, and beyond.

Q5: And the most poignant?

Michael: The musket acquired by Colonel Alexander of the British Army’s 14th Regiment as a trophy of the battle of Mahoetahi. Soldiers (especially if they’re on the winning side!) have collected battlefield trophies since wars began, but Alexander was careful in his memoirs to record his admiration for the enemy’s bravery and his ambivalence as a professional soldier about having to fight men who were defending their land.

Katie: The 1902 commemorative certificate awarded to members of the Taranaki Mounted Volunteers is one of many poignant objects in the book. It is such a celebratory object – a large certificate embellished with images of flags and medals – which recognises the actions of the Volunteers during the New Zealand Wars and completely ignores the devastating consequences of those actions for iwi Māori. It really is an example of history being written by the ‘victors’, and says more about Pākehā dominance in Taranaki at the time it was created than it does about the events it commemorates.

Rebecca: Mrs Lloyd and her children, from William Francis Gordon’s collection of photographs relating to the New Zealand Wars. The place of this photograph in Gordon’s collection relies on absence: the absence of Captain TW Lloyd from the family portrait. It’s hard to find taonga that tell the stories of the women, the children, those, both Māori and Pākehā whose lives were impacted forever through the casualties of the wars. This photograph then, for me, stands in for all those whose lives were lost and for those who were left behind.

Matiu: Pūmuka’s Union Flag, which is emblazoned with the words ‘PUMUKA’ and ‘TIRITI WAITANGI’, is perhaps one of the most poignant taonga in the collections. The flag was given to Pūmuka about 1834 by the newly appointed British Resident James Busby as an expression of gratitude for his support. Pūmuka was among a prominent group of influential northern rangatira present at the selection of our first national flag (1834), the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1835), and a vocal supporter and the sixth signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi. But in the post-Treaty disappointment in the colonial experiment Pūmuka found himself caught up in the 1845 Northern War with Kawiti and Hōne Heke. Pūmuka was killed in dramatic fashion, literally cut down during the battle of Kororāreka.

He was the mātāika, the ‘first fish’ or rangatira of distinction, to be slain in the first major battle of the New Zealand Wars. Pūmuka’s story always resonated deeply for me. How could so much hope and optimism turn so quickly into disappointment and conflict? Pūmuka’s story represents the hope and all the despair of the Treaty.

Q6: Of course, most of these taonga have provenance to both mana whenua and Pākehā descendants of those who fought or were caught up in the wars. What was their engagement with the book?

Katie: We consulted as widely as possible with iwi, hapū, whānau Māori, and whānau Pākehā connected to the taonga in the book. I know that for many descendants these stories are still very painful and the emotion is raw.

There is also pain in how the histories of the wars have been told by museums and other institutions, usually without consulting the communities most affected, so this book was about reestablishing connections between taonga, people, and places. The stories shared during the conversations have made the book so much richer – more nuanced, more layered, and more personal.

Rebecca: Another important aspect to the engagement underpinning this book was the commissioning of essays from Māori writers, historians, musicians, and artists. Most chose to write from a personal perspective. This has brought incredible range and emotional depth to the book, and we are so grateful to all the writers for sharing their mātauranga and their whakaaro with us.

Q7: What’s one new thing you learned about the wars as a result of researching for and writing this book?

Katie: Almost everything I learnt while researching and writing this book was new to me! I hadn’t previously done any in-depth research into the New Zealand Wars, so I jumped at the chance to learn with, and from, more experienced colleagues.

Rebecca: I think it’s less about what I’ve learnt, and more about how much more aware I am of the impact and legacies of the New Zealand Wars in our present moment. I find myself recognising traces of these histories in landscapes, in graveyards, in road-side monuments, in copses of trees, in paintings that I would previously have said have nothing to do with the New Zealand Wars but that are implicated in less direct ways.

Q8: Can you explain the title?

Matiu: Te Ata o Tū, or Tūmatauenga, can be translated as the Shadow of the War God. It seemed a perfect metaphor for the New Zealand Wars and conjured up images of Tū, the deity of humankind and conflict, casting his long dark shadow over the land. The name itself was inspired by the mid-19th century Ngāi Tahu rangatira Hākopa Te Ata-o-Tū, a storied figure who was a renowned warrior in his lifetime. You’ll have to read about him in the book, but he is a truly inspirational figure and actually served with Te Āti Awa during the Wellington campaigns in the 1840s.

Q9: Can you tell us about the flag on the cover?

Rebecca: It was always going to be challenging to attempt to select one taonga to represent the immense kaupapa of this book. In the end, this flag was chosen because it speaks so deeply, and so visually, to the complex movements of taonga across cultures, time and place.

The flag itself is a red ensign, a symbol of British power, but its meaning has been changed through its adornment with puhipuhi, made from kāhu feathers bunched and bound with muka. Puhipuhi are most often seen decorating taurapa, or tewhatewha. Its use here suggests the flag may have been carried by the Whanganui Native Contingent before being presented to Pourake Te Retiu by Governor Grey in 1865. We surmise that the flag, gifted in peace, was then captured as ‘loot’ in a raid in 1869, collected by John Handley, and finally acquired by the Museum in 1905.

Q10: Lest we forget – but so many have forgotten. These are difficult histories to revisit and interrogate. What is the museum’s role in and responsibility for telling them today?

Rebecca: I think of this book as a kind of reckoning, a working through and drawing attention to the museum’s deep implication in our colonial histories through our practices of collection, exhibition and publishing. It’s the first time we’ve explored the collections so deeply in relation to the difficult, confronting and emotional histories associated with the New Zealand Wars.

Many taonga in the book have been published previously, or have been on exhibition, but seldom discussed in terms of their provenance. Instead, taonga collected off battlefields have been considered as ‘exemplary’, rather than as war ‘booty’; watercolours and photographs have been little interrogated in terms of the role their makers played in the New Zealand Wars. It is absolutely our responsibility to be more honest about our collections, to be honest about the gaps in our exhibition-making, in our publishing, and to attempt to make these histories more visible.

Related links

• View the book Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa
• Look inside the book
• Read about the book and the launch on RNZ: NZ Wars: History comes alive with new book of taonga
• Listen to Matiu Baker talk to Dale Husband on waateanews.com
• Watch coverage of the launch on Te Ao Māori News.
• Listen to Charlotte Cook’s interview with Katie Cooper on RNZ Midday Report.
• Listen to Pokere Paewai interview Matiu Baker on RNZ Morning Report.
• Matiu Baker and Rebecca Rice are interviewed by Moana Makapelu Lee on Te Karere TVNZ.