Kula the Nurse and Nua the Teacher: Tokelau's Professional Pioneers

Authors

  • Judith Huntsman The University of Auckland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15286/jps.123.2.185-207

Keywords:

Tokelau, schooling, health services, gender bias, women's roles

Abstract

Two Tokelau women, both born in 1924, were pioneers in the provision of social services (health and education) in the atolls from the early 1950s. Their stories of their lives, supplemented by accounts of their patients, students and colleagues, form the material from which my brief biographies are constructed. They were celebrated in Tokelau, but never fully recognised in the same way by those New Zealand officials who employed and paid them.

Author Biography

Judith Huntsman, The University of Auckland

Judith Huntsman became Hon. Professorial Research Fellow in Anthropology at the University of Auckland upon her retirement in 2001, and continued as Hon. Editor of the Polynesian Society. She conducted field research in the Tokelau atolls between 1967 and 1997 and has had varied and continuing relationships with Tokelau people resident in New Zealand since the early 1970s. As well as numerous chapters and articles, she has been an author of several books about Tokelau’s history and ethnography, recent history and current affairs, migration and health, and narrative and song. Many of these works have been written in collaboration with other scholars, especially Antony Hooper, her long-time colleague in Tokelau studies.
Vol 123, No 2 (2014)

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Published

2014-10-06

Issue

Vol. 123 No. 2 (2014)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright © 2022 by the Polynesian Society (Inc.)

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process without written permission.

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Dr Marcia Leenen-Young, Editor
The Polynesian Society
c/o School of Māori and Pacific Studies
The University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019, Auckland
New Zealand

email: m.leenen@auckland.ac.nz