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This paper canvasses Māori-language print media from the first monolingual newspaper in te reo Māori (the Māori language) in 1842 to what is believed to be the last, in 1945. It sets the publications in their social contexts and, importantly, discusses the ways in which the customs of oral culture transferred to the page. Also traversed are the ways in which the arrival of the telegraph and the development of journalistic conventions in the late 1800s changed the style of Māorilanguage news writing. Links go to digitised copies of the 18th century newspapers and credible, related sources of information.1 1 The Māori Niupepa Collection comprises more than 17,000 pages taken from 34 separate periodicals, published primarily for a Māori audience, between 1842 and 1932. A total of 70% are solely in Māori, 27% are bilingual and 3% are in English. Microfilm held by the New Zealand National Library Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa was digitised by staff of the New Zealand Digital Library (NZDL), which is part of the Computer Science Department, University of Waikato. The writer sends a pīki mihi (big thank-you) to its staff for the valuable work they have done to make our printed taonga available. Many links in this article go to the pages of publications that have been digitised. All other images and extracts in this paper have been reproduced unchanged and with permission. Embedded newspaper pages are high resolution so they can be enlarged and read. ‘Māori Language Newspapers’ Te Kaharoa, vol. 15, no. 1, 2020, ISSN 1178-6035 2 Introduction: Reading, writing and Māori Before the arrival of missionaries and settlers, the primary way to transmit information between and within iwi (tribes) was whaikōrero, or formal oratory. As Rewi noted in his book Whaikōrero (2010), oratory: helped people make decisions with regard to all matters affecting their living arrangements, their work, and their daily, monthly and yearly activities that would keep them safe. If there were any major issues to put before the people, each speaker would stand and air their opinion until all concerned had expressed what they had to say (p. 14). Speakers built on each other’s commentary, like a news story laying out points of view. Then, as now, speakers followed a structure and called on cultural knowledge to frame the ‘news’, using chants, allusions and stock phrases, drawing on imagination and wit, and often making references to whakapapa (genealogy) and people and places important to listeners (Rewi, 2010). The arrival of British explorer James Cook and the Endeavour at Tūranganui (Poverty Bay) in 1769 is, perhaps, where the whakapapa of Māori writing began. Three boys from the Rongowhakaata iwi were captured and taken on board. Travelling with Cook was the Tahitian high priest Tupaia, who was able to use his native tongue, which is related to te reo Māori, to talk with the boys. They spoke their names to Cook’s scientist Joseph Banks, who wrote them (Jones & Jenkins, 2011). In the early 1800s, newly arrived missionaries spurred the development of a reo-Māori orthography, translated the Bible into Māori and used it to teach their converts to read and write in te reo. The first school for Māori children was set up by Anglicans in 1816 (Biggs, 1968). McKay (1940) wrote that: The missionaries were surprised and gratified at the eagerness of the Maori in their desire to learn to read and write, and their facility in learning ... the merest children ‘Māori Language Newspapers’ Te Kaharoa, vol. 15, no. 1, 2020, ISSN 1178-6035 3 and grey-haired men were equally eager; and if they were not equally facile, the older made up in persistence what they had lost with the plasticity and adaptability of youth (p. 34). The newly literate often returned to their kāinga (settlements) to teach others (Anderson et al., 2014; Mikaere & Head, 1988). There are no reliable indications of the numbers of Māori who were able to read and write te reo at that time (Maslen et al., 1997), but Mikaere & Head (1988) have provided a useful summation of the theories. For example, Parr (1963) claimed that by the 1850s, about half of the adult Māori population could read Māori and about one-third could both read and write in te reo. Indeed, Māori may even have been more literate in their native language than British settlers (Biggs, 1968). Whatever the true figure, we know that literate Maori employed these skills with great gusto in their social and political lives – and particularly in an important English import, the newspaper (Jones & Jenkins, 2011; Maslen et al., 1997; McRae, 1983). Papers of the colonial era From the 1840s to the early 1930s, more than 40 reoMāori newspapers debated ideas, reported news, advertised goods and services and generally recorded Māori life, traditions, opinions and language use (McRae, 2014). Māori-language newspapers were produced by four broad groups: The Government; churches; private businessmen – these three groups all Pākehā-led – and iwi groupings, the latter’s papers set up to protest Government encroachment (Curnow, 2002). However, all the papers, regardless of whomever was in charge, “acted quite transparently as propaganda organs with political, religious and cultural agenda” (Paterson, 2002, pp. 7980), and were often opinionated and contentious (Curnow et al., 2006). Newspapers were tools for people with money and ideological agendas; journalism was yet to ‘Māori Language Newspapers’ Te Kaharoa, vol. 15, no. 1, 2020, ISSN 1178-6035 4 reinvent itself as a neutral purveyor of public information (Schudson, 2011). Still, Māori were keen on the papers as they leavened a diet of religious literature (Paterson, 2004). It was common for one person to read aloud an entire newspaper to a circle of attentive listeners, after which discussion would ensue: By publicly reading the newspapers and discussing them, a consensus of meaning and agreement in decisionmaking could be reached, as would be expected given the nature of Māori tribal society. This is also evident in letters printed in the newspaper, many with large numbers of names appended to them. The individual who actually put pen to paper would have possessed good writing skills, yet may have merely been an anonymous scribe (Paterson, 2004, p. 39). Government newspapers The colonial Government was quick to exploit the power of print (Rogers, 1998). The first Māori-language newspaper was the monthly Ko te Karere o Nui Tireni, (The Messenger of New Zealand, January 1842-January 1846),2 produced at the command of the country’s first Governor, William Hobson. The first paragraph in the new paper stated that it had been started “so Māori understand the laws and customs of the Pākehā and Pākehā also understand Māori ways”. The following paragraphs made clear the Government’s assimilationist agenda: The paper’s focus would be “first, the Governor’s decrees and secondly the Queen’s laws; the means of applying justice and the crimes for which people are tried, and a great deal concerning Pakeha customs” (Curnow et al., 2006, p. 11). To a 21st-century gaze, many of the 2 The first English-language newspaper had come out two years earlier. The New Zealand Gazette, published from August 21, 1839 to September 25, 1844, was the mouthpiece of the New Zealand Company, a private enterprise that “sought to establish a ‘Better Britain’ or ‘Britain of the South’, in which English class distinctions were preserved” (King, 2003, p. 172). ‘Māori Language Newspapers’ Te Kaharoa, vol. 15, no. 1, 2020, ISSN 1178-6035 5 articles are “condescending, even offensive” (Paterson, 2016, p. 48). This first paper, which ran to 49 issues, underwent several iterations as its publisher’s ideology against Māori hardened (Paterson, 2004; 2016). Other Government papers included Te Waka Maori o Ahuriri (The Māori Canoe of Ahuriri]) a fortnightly produced in Napier between 1863 and 1871. It was succeeded by Te Waka Maori o Nui Tireni (The Māori Canoe of New Zealand), a monthly produced in Wellington 1871-1877. These papers also pushed the Government’s agenda to assimilate Māori politically, socially and economically (Paterson, 2002), but that didn’t mean Māori voices were silenced: Māori were keen correspondents, and their voices in the papers will be explored soon.

Māori-language newspapers 1842-1945: A survey, with a focus on the expression of oral tikanga on the page