Signposts - a blog about Te Ara the Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Te Ara meets Web 2.0

Te Ara invites your contributions

Te Ara wants you!

So that more of you can help us build Te Ara, we’ve added three new features: a blog, a Flickr group and ‘your stories‘.

Recently, there has been some public discussion about whether, as the internet becomes more interactive, Te Ara is an old-fashioned beast because it isn’t a user-generated site like Wikipedia or Flickr. We make no apologies for the fact that we commission entries from experts in their fields, nor that we search the archives of the country for the most appropriate images and film clips we can find, because the end results are full, accurate and richly resourced. Not to diminish the tremendous resource that Wikipedia is, but you will see the difference if you compare, for example, Te Ara’s entries on Ngāti Porou or Moa with the Ngāti Porou and Moa entries in Wikipedia.

But we do recognise the importance of encouraging users to interact with Te Ara and help build it. Right from the beginning Te Ara went out to the community and invited people to send in stories on particular subjects. You’ll find some great contributions in the entries on The voyage out and Beachcombing, for example.

And now we want to encourage even more people to contribute to Te Ara through our new features.

Read more »

A dog and his miner

March 24th is Otago’s anniversary day holiday, but this year it’s also the Monday after Easter, so a holiday for everyone, not just Otago. I’m pleased therefore to learn that the anniversary holiday’s still being observed – on the immediately following Tuesday. Nice work Otago.

I’m presently researching and writing the encyclopedia entry for Otago, but browsing round Te Ara it’s already easy to find lots of Otago angles.

An obvious place to start is with the Scots, given that Otago originated as a Free Church of Scotland settlement in 1848. Though it is interesting to learn that Otago was never completely Scottish – even in its first years Scots accounted for only just over half of the settlers.

And from a few years before, in the European Exploration entry you can find Te Huruhuru’s 1844 map of the Otago lakes Wakatipu, Wanaka and Hawea, at that time unsighted by any European.

From 1861 the search for gold in the interior brought many miners across the Tasman from Victoria in Australia. News of the bitterly cold Central Otago winter of 1862 didn’t deter everyone, as is evident from this Melbourne Punch cartoon.

And if that doesn’t make you feel cold, read George Barrington’s 1863–64 journal of his abortive six-month gold-seeking expedition into the country between Lake Wakatipu and the West Coast. After about five months of travel he writes ‘this is the most miserable day of my existence’. Barrington and his companions made it back to Wakatipu in the early winter, not much more than skeletons, but alive.

Central Otago can of course be very hot as well as very cold. Dunedin residents will undoubtedly use this holiday weekend to enjoy its fine, warm and calm late summer weather. Have a great time.

Enjoying a multi-ethnic festival

For this post on Race Relations Day, let’s look at three ‘Your stories’, which we have just put up on Te Ara. They are now part of the entry about Te Tau Ihu tribes, from the top of the South Island.

Originally the entry was called ‘Whakatū tribes’ (Whakatū is Nelson). Last year three of the iwi – those who claimed descent from the Kurahaupō waka – contacted us and said that they would like the entry name changed to ‘Te Tau Ihu’ or ‘the prow of the waka’, because their lands extended beyond the Nelson region. While they were happy with the entry, they wanted to tell their own stories as separate iwi with their own distinct traditions. Last week, with the full support of the authors Hilary and John Mitchell, their stories appeared.

The story is apt because there was a time when New Zealand was very much a mono-cultural world. By the 1950s most white New Zealanders expected everyone to conform to the behaviours and attitudes of ‘real New Zealanders‘. They had forgotten the range of accents, foods, religions and traditions that came with their ancestors from different parts of Great Britain and Europe. They expected Māori to become ‘honorary whites‘, who earned membership in ‘mainstream’ society by taking part in its wars, its factories and its sporting pastimes. Those who looked different, like Chinese and Indian New Zealanders, largely kept to themselves.

In the last forty years there has been a remarkable change. Faced with the visible evidence of immigrants from the Pacific, Asia and the Middle East, New Zealanders have also begun to recover the amazing cultural richness in their own history. In Te Ara, we have noted the Irish with their St Patrick’s Day and their fiddles, the Scots with their bagpipes, the Dalmatians with their wine-making skills, and the Samoans with their stunning musical and artistic talents. In New Zealand Peoples we tried to document some of these distinctive traditions; and we were delighted when the entries sparked a highly successful television series, Here to stay. In Māori New Zealanders, we tried to uncover the stories of some of the many iwi of the country.

It is our hope that this rich coverage of both the immigrant and indigenous peoples does something for race relations in New Zealand. Understanding of difference is a key to good relationships, yet it is easy to overlook just how important small differences can be to identity. Thank you, Kurahaupō, for reminding us of this. We hope you enjoy their stories.

Celebrating St Paddy’s Day

The 17th of March is, of course, St Patrick’s Day, and that seems like a good time to celebrate the Irish contribution to New Zealand – and Te Ara.

The Te Ara entry on The Irish traces their long history in New Zealand. Some arrived before 1840 as whalers, sealers and traders. Other early arrivals included the many Irish soldiers with the Royal New Zealand Fencibles, who were stationed in Howick to defend Auckland during the New Zealand Wars.

Settlers from Ireland continued to arrive in New Zealand throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, bringing with them the tradition of celebrating St Patrick’s Day with parades, sports, dances, horse races and, as you might expect, drinking.

If, like me and more than half a million other New Zealanders, you have some Irish heritage, now’s the time of year to claim it!

James Hector

New Zealand geologists celebrate the 16th of March as Hector Day, to mark the birthday of explorer, geologist and natural scientist James Hector in 1834.

Hector was a dominating figure in 19th century New Zealand – he was the founder of the Colonial Museum (now Te Papa), the New Zealand Institute (now the Royal Society of New Zealand) and the Geological Survey (now GNS Science). Hector’s dolphin is named after him, as is Mt Hector in the Tararua Range.

James Hector has a special place in Te Ara – he is one of the most frequently mentioned individuals and appears in a variety of entries, including mining, birdwatching, and timekeeping. Try typing ‘hector’ in the search box at the top right of any page, and you will see the range of his contributions.

In 2007 a symposium was held at Te Papa to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Hector’s death. This TV3 news item covered the symposium and gives some background on Hector’s life and achievements. It isn’t widely known in New Zealand that before he settled here he explored the Canadian Rockies and discovered Kicking Horse Pass, which is now on the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This video tribute to James Hector was sent to the symposium by Jim Doyle, mayor of the area.