The Terminology of Whakapapa

Abstract

In the late 1920s and early 1930s Apirana Ngata wrote several texts based on his long-standing and extensive research into tribal genealogies or Māori whakapapa which, with the encouragement of Te Rangihīroa, were intended for a doctoral thesis on Māori social organisation. Although the doctorate was never completed, this fascinating fragment exploring the terminology of whakapapa, which survives in the Ngata family, the Alexander Turnbull Library and the Bishop Museum, stands as a remarkable testament to indigenous scholarship in early twentieth-century Aotearoa New Zealand. In this rich and allusive text, Ngata explores the various material ways in which whakapapa is expressed in Māori language (te reo Māori), via meeting houses, weaving, twining and fishing techniques—a distinctively Māori view of kinship illustrating how whakapapa is employed as practical ontology, the subject of this Special Issue. In his Introduction, Wayne Ngata points out the value of this genealogical knowledge today and the ways in which it provides vital insights into traditional Māori ways of thinking and doing.