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

United Nations Human Rights Day poster, 2010

The 10th of December is Human Rights Day, and to mark the occasion Te Ara has just published a fine entry by Paul Rishworth on human rights.

The date was chosen to commemorate the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was proclaimed on this day in 1948. It was during the Second World War that the term ‘human rights’ first began to be used. This is not surprising, given that so much of the emotional focus during those years was a concern about the horrifying attack on people’s dignity and indeed life by the Nazis.

But the concept of rights goes back far earlier than this – to the rights written down in the Magna Carta in 1215 by the English barons in their battle against ‘bad’ King John; or to the Bill of Rights prepared by the English Parliament in 1688 following its battle against another king, James II. The British came to believe that their possession of rights was one of the distinctive marks of their citizenship – and the ‘rights and privileges of British subjects’ was written in to article three of the Treaty of Waitangi.

Historically, this concept of rights largely involved a protection for subjects against possible abuse by governments or kings. It was about what government could not do to individuals. This remains important, especially in a society such as ours where parliamentary sovereignty is absolute. However, in the 20th century the concept was expanded in two ways:

• It came to cover certain positive things government should provide for people, such as the right to health or education.
• It came to involve protecting people against abuse from other citizens as well as government. Particularly important in this respect was the right not to be discriminated against on the grounds of gender, race, religion or disability.

Our new entry explores these matters in a New Zealand context and it is illustrated with some powerful images which really bring the issues to life in a personal context. Look particularly at the photo of protestors outside a Turkish cafe in Invercargill where two Israeli women had been refused service, and at the image of comedian Philip Patson, who uses a wheelchair and couldn’t attend the opening night of a Human Rights Film Festival in 2006 because there was no wheelchair access.

What the entry implies in the end is that human rights are not just about defending ourselves from possible abuse from authority; they also oblige us all as individuals to ensure that everyone in this society is able to fulfil their personal potential. So I urge you to read our new entry on Human Rights day and think about how it applies to you.

Te Taiao

Last night Te Ara won a prize at Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards, which are organised by Te Pūtahi-a-Toi at Massey University. Te Ara (part of Manatū Taonga – Ministry for Culture and Heritage) won the non-fiction category for our book Te taiao – Māori and the natural world, published by David Bateman last year.

The book itself was the product of a number of entries written for various themes. The book is structured around Māori conceptions of the natural world – for example Ranginui for the sky and Papatūānuku for the earth. An assortment of writers, editors, resource researchers and copyright staff, along with the publishers, all worked to put the book together.

This team effort is encapsulated in the proverb:

Mā tini mā mano ka rapa te whai.

By the multitudes the work will be accomplished.

Basil speaks on behalf of Te Ara at Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards

Myself and Jock Phillips, Te Ara’s senior editor, spoke at the awards. Jock made the point that in many ways the ceremony was a homecoming for Te Ara. He noted that Professor Sir Mason Durie had organised at hui at Te Pūtahi-a-Toi in 2001 to give advice on how to formulate Māori content for Te Ara. One of the results was Te Ara Wānanga, Te Ara’s Māori Advisory Committee. Professor Durie was one of the founding members of the committee.

Also pleasing was the award for biography, which went to Joseph Pere for his work on his grandfather, Wiremu Pere: Wiremu Pere: the life and times of a Maori Leader, 1837–1915. Joseph Pere is a former recipient of the Māori History Fellowship at Manatū Taonga.

Other recipients were Robert Jahnke for Tirohanga o mua: looking back, Tina Makereti for Once upon a time in Aotearoa, Chris Winitana for Tōku reo, tōku ohooho, and a special award to Derek Fox for Mana magazine.

Nā reira he mihi nui tēnei ki ngā kaiwhakawhiwhi, i riro i a koutou tēnei honore. He mihi hoki ki Te Pūtahi-a-Toi, heoi anō ki Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa mō tēnei kaupapa nunui.

A fox walks past the South London house of Peter Campbell, in his last cover illustration for the London Review of Books. Image: London Review of Books

The 1997 New Zealand historical atlas is much like a pre-internet version of Te Ara, with its swarm of little graphics and sidebars expanding on the subject of each of its large-format double-page maps. From the perspective of how specific places have altered over time, the Atlas deals with many of the subjects covered in Te Ara – earliest Polynesian settlement, glaciers, the Waikato wars of the early 1860s, Presbyterians and the ‘demon drink’, and mid-20th-century life in small-town New Zealand.

Here at Te Ara we refer to the Atlas all the time, and some of us have worked on both projects, including Malcolm McKinnon, who was general editor of the Historical atlas and has overseen Te Ara’s Places theme, the section that covers every geographical region in New Zealand, and urban historian Ben Schrader, responsible for Te Ara’s city entries.

But many talented individuals contributed to the success of the Atlas and it is sad to have to record the passing of one of them. Peter Campbell was a New Zealand artist best known for his airy, elegant cover illustrations for the London Review of Books (LRB), the erudite fortnightly which provides authoritative commentary on history, politics and literary criticism. He worked on the LRB since its first issue in 1979, and the cover of the current issue bears his drawing of a fox walking past the South London house where he and his wife Winifred, also New Zealand-born, had lived since 1963.

In a tribute to Peter Campbell in the current issue its editor, Mary-Kay Wilmers, says that he graduated from Victoria University in 1958 with a philosophy degree and an extra-curricular enthusiasm for book design, developed while working with the pyrotechnic poet, publisher, typographer and boxer Denis Glover. ‘Tramping trips at Christmas settled the New Zealand landscape in my mind,’ he wrote, and his homeland’s mountains, trees, architecture and fauna recurred in his writings and artwork throughout a life spent mainly in London. There he began working for the BBC on the richly illustrated books that accompanied major series such as Civilisation, The ascent of man and Life on earth. Once he began producing the covers for the LRB, his witty, meticulous style came to define the review. Mary-Kay Wilmers says, ‘More adjusted than most to his own wants and necessities, and so better able to accommodate other people’s, he was an exemplary person to work with.’ Campbell also wrote articles for the LRB on a bewildering variety of subjects – architecture and art history, dandelions, cycling, doors, ducks and his favourite places in the British Isles.

He played a critical part in the early development of the Historical atlas. ‘We called for design proposals in 1990–91,’ recalls Malcolm McKinnon. ‘Peter Campbell and Margaret Cochrane – a very accomplished typographer and graphic designer in her own right – submitted a proposal. Theirs was by far the best and we adopted it as our template. We made some changes, however, so they are not specifically credited with the design. But they are thanked in the preface to the Atlas, and that thanks was very heartfelt.’ It is gratifying to learn that an exhibition of Peter Campbell’s superb artwork will open in Wellington next year.

Te Ara salutes and farewells this panoptically curious, polymathic son of Aotearoa. E te tohunga mahi toi no ngā mea katoa – hoki atu ki a rātou kua whetūrangihia, moe mai ra, takoto mai ra, okioki e.

Blogger Melanie Lovell-Smith enjoying the 150th-anniversary edition of the Otago Daily Times

The Otago Daily Times (ODT) turns 150 today. Founded by Julius Vogel in 1861, the newspaper was the first daily newspaper in New Zealand and still proudly states today that it is independent and privately owned.

As an image researcher, I’ve been very lucky – Te Ara’s relationship with the ODT dates from 2003, and has enabled us to include many wonderful images in the encyclopedia from the Otago region. Currently we have 340 ODT images up on Te Ara, and more to come.

The first ones we received included such diverse images as the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, Pope Shenouda III, visiting Dunedin; an elderly Japanese rugby player; and traditional New Zealand dress as interpreted by a new citizen. Later, when we started working on the themes Earth, Sea and Sky and The Bush, one of the great joys was being able to include some of chief photographer Stephen Jaquiery’s bird photographs, such as this one of a silvereye, or this, of a New Zealand pipit.

As someone who grew up in Dunedin, the ODT was my newspaper, and researching it for work was like coming home, in a odd way. Interestingly, there were some things that other staff who had also grown up in Dunedin remembered. One of them was the sex workers’ advertisements in the Personal columns, letting prospective clients know which small towns they would be visiting in the upcoming week.

The ‘Regions’ section of the ODT is also a section I remember well, with its local news and rural focus – and some wonderful photographs of things I remember from my childhood, such as hoar frosts and bad rabbits. And the mutton pies at Palmerston … travelling for a different job, one of my colleagues would insist on stopping there to get a mutton pie and a cheese roll – signs we were back down south.

There are many, many others – cute children, scarfies (both historical and contemporary), beautiful landscapes, and of course, our national hero, Shrek.

So thank you to the management for allowing us to reuse these images, to all the ODT photographers, who have taken such great photos, and thank you also to Glenda at the Star Shop for all her efficient assistance over the years – happy birthday to you from all of us at Te Ara!