Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights

Recently a watershed moment occurred in the world of intellectual and cultural property rights in Aotearoa, New Zealand, when the "Toi Iho" trademark [1] was launched at the Auckland City Art Gallery. Elders and leaders of the art world and of the tangata whenua — the indigenous local tribe — gathered to celebrate the physical reality of an idea/passion/signifier that had been discussed in various guises by Maori for decades. The Toi Iho trademark asserts authenticity in the creative arts and provides a cultural context for works that have a Maori lineage or whakapapa. The Toi Iho trademark signifies an ethos of ownership, respect, and active engagement with the Maori people from which the culture sprang. Within this context, I begin a discussion about the digitization of the creative works of our ancestors. Works cauled in the times of the gods — when Tane separated his parents, the heavens and the earth [2], when Ruaumoko [3], the foetal earthquake-god, kicked the belly of the earth mother to create the ravines and mountains of Aotearoa / New Zealand, and when Maui [4] hauled his great fish — the North Island — out of the domain of Tangaroa, the ocean. This created wisdom has been handed down by the ancestors since Kupe [5] first discovered Aotearoa near the end of the first millennium. Digitizing Cultural Materials Anything can be digitized: any story, legend, map, chart, blueprint, or equation. Any storyteller recorded in video or sound format can be transformed into a digital rendition for access on local or global networks. When digitizing cultural materials, the important questions are: How do we send a message that strengthens the holistic context of each cultural item and collection? How do we ensure that both indigenous and non-indigenous peoples receive the message? How do we digitize material taking into account its metaphysical as well as its digital life? In August 2001, I was fortunate to participate in the Hilo, Hawaii, meeting on "Digital Collectives in Indigenous Cultures and Communities" [6]. This collaboration of indigenous, technical, financial, and library experts created a vision that needs to be embraced and driven by indigenous communities themselves: "Building a Global Indigenous Library" (a suggested project in the Hilo meeting report). Various technical digital library models were articulated at the meeting. It was agreed that the challenge in building a successful indigenous digital library model is winning the trust of …