While histories from the early contact and colonial periods in New Zealand (1769-1840, 1840-1907) have given rise to a rich Anglophone literature focusing on the Indigenous Māori, the ethnography of Māori sexuality remains selective, resulting in a largely incomplete body of knowledge. The task of addressing this knowledge gap has failed to recruit the deliberate attention of postcolonial scholars, particularly those concerned with the methodologic considerations required to reconcile the discourse of Māori sexuality. Consequently, the grammars available to articulate Māori sexuality remain fragmented and constrained by the colonial perspectives from which they originated.

It is possible to reach an epistemological reconciliation of Māori sexuality that does not require a strong reliance on the colonial archive. After all, the institutions that have driven knowledge production in the colonial world have historically decided against the extension of their epistemic sovereignties to authentically support Indigenous knowledges and voices, distinct from objectifying the Indigenous body. Māori sexuality is no different and the extensive Indigenous archive accessible to Māori scholars (tribal histories, song, chant, oratory and material culture) survives outside of Western scholarship as a set of unique ontological tools. Many of these oral traditions have been recorded and exist in the Māori language, allowing for the institution of an alternative, and additional, grammar within the discourse of Māori sexuality. This paper advances the view that the Indigenous archive is a critical station in the journey toward a decolonial grammar of Māori sexuality that not only critiques, but confronts the monopoly of its limiting colonial discourse. This research proposes a methodology that engages the Indigenous Māori archive, through the close interpretation of Māori linguistic and narrative expressions, to glean a more comprehensive and authentic representation of Māori sexuality.