Māori farming trusts - A preliminary scoping investigation into the governance and management of large dairy farm businesses.

This preliminary scoping study investigates areas for possible improvement in the governance and management of large Māori dairy farm businesses. Building on the innovative practices of their tūpuna – including Rawiri Taiwhanga, the country’s first commercial dairy farmer – Māori are defining their own aspirations, realities and goals in the dairy farming world (Durie 1998, 2000). This report outlines these, and their accompanying challenges, as expressed by individuals and collectives currently engaged in Māori Dairy farm businesses. The Māori way of doing business is described in this study as having a ‘Quadruple Bottom Line of Profit, People, Environment and Community’ business objectives. More specifically, ‘Māori farms often have an inverted Quadruple Bottom Line. People, Environment and their Community often come before Profit….but without Profit none of it happens.’ Māori strategic plans and business values place emphasis on relationships, responsibilities, reciprocity and respect. These are exemplars of a Māori world-view, which explicitly acknowledges particular historic and cultural contexts (Tapsell and Woods 2010). The strategic management plans of the Māori Farming Trusts illustrate the spiral or matrix of values ‘He korunga o nga tikanga’ envisaged by Nicholson, Hēnare and Woods (2012). They prioritise the development of social capital to create competitive advantage. Such strategic plans reflect Māori vision and aspirations. These are to sustain and grow the land base; to provide leadership and guidance for the whānau; to develop capacity and resources within the Trusts and to perform better as businesses.DairyNZ Ltd, Ministry for Primary Industries (NZ

Houses of stories: the whale rider at the American Museum of Natural History

In April 2013, fifteen members of the Māori tribal arts group Toi Hauiti travelled to New York to reconnect with their carved wooden ancestor figure, Paikea, at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). They gave educational presentations  to school groups, museum staff and members of the public about Paikea and the whare kōrero , or house of stories, which Paikea had adorned as a gable figure.Through a discussion anchored in the importance of taonga (ancestral treasures), this paper describes embodied forms of knowledge used by Paikea’s descendants to know him in his absence, and introduce him to diverse audiences. Its foci are: museum education in multicultural contexts; learning by doing through the use of interactive activities; and community outreach and museum education. In addition, it discusses the challenges to protocols and opportunities for learning offered to AMNH staff through this engagement, and examines the impact it had son Toi Hauiti members themselves

Tocados emplumados en el Museo de América (Madrid) y el Weltmuseum (antiguo Museum für Völkerkunde, Viena)

En el año 2011 se llegó a la conclusión de que un artefacto en el Museo de América de Madrid era un complejo tocado emplumado polinesio. En el presente artículo se sugiere que es un pala tavake, diadema de la realeza tongana elaborada específicamente para el jefe supremo de Tonga a finales del siglo xviii. El tocado posiblemente fuera regalado al explorador español Malaspina en 1793 durante su estancia de once días en las islas de Vava’u, grupo del norte de Tonga. Además, se realiza una comparación con un ejemplar parecido en el Weltmuseum de Vienna, también considerado como un pala tavake desde hace tiempo, concluyendo que dicho tocado no es de origen tongano

Collecting in the South Sea: The Voyage of Bruni d’Entrecasteaux 1791–1794

In 1791, contre-amiral, rear-admiral, Joseph Antoine Bruni d’Entrecasteaux (Figure 1.1) was despatched by the French monarch Louis XVI - under direction from the Asemblee nationale constituante (National Constituent Assemby) - to search for the lost vessels of Jean-Francois de Galaup, comte de la Perouse

What’s in a name?: reconstructing nomenclature of prestige and persuasion in late 18th-century Tongan material culture

This paper is a study in the productivity of working across the disciplinary boundaries of material culture studies, historical linguistics and museology to restore the significance of historic names and terminological classifications for prestigious Tongan objects within the wider context of Western Polynesia. The authors trace the nomenclature of radial feather headdresses (palā tavake) both within Tonga as well as through linguistic cognates from elsewhere in Western Polynesia. Aspects of Tongan naming practices of other prestige items are considered, such as ‘akau tau ‘clubs’ and kie hingoa ‘named mats’, as is the Tongan practice of the poetical device of heliaki. We argue for a deeper understanding of objects of Tongan material culture and the historical and social environment that created them by closely “reading” prestige objects from Tonga’s past