Abstract
Stories of culture contact and change in New Zealand are, in James Clifford's words, "structured by a pervasive dichotomy: absorption by the other or resistance to the other." Expressed another way, Paige Raibmon argues that colonial binaries of authenticity continue to structure our understandings of indigenous people. In this thesis, I use te hopu tītī ki Rakiura, the customary harvesting of tītī (Puffinus griseus/"muttonbirds") by southern Kai Tahu from islands adjacent to Stewart Island, and he mahi pōhā (the kelp-bags used to traditionally store preserved tītī) , as a way to illustrate both the introduction and limitations of these colonial categories.
Influenced by recent historiography from India and British Columbia, as well as the work of sociologist Shmuel Eisenstadt, I argue that muttonbirding is best understood not as a Kāi Tahu rejection of modernity, but as a key component of an alternative Kāi Tahu modernity. To help locate both continuity and change in Kāi Tahu understandings and uses of the natural world in Murihiku (the area of southern New Zealand south of the Waitaki River and east of the Waiau River) and Foveaux Strait, this dissertation draws from recent work in economic history and the history of science. In so doing, I am attentive to both episteme (propositional knowledge or "knowledge what") and techne (prescriptive knowledge or "knowledge how") associated with the tītī harvest. Being a muttonbirder myself, I am able to read archival references to muttonbirds and muttonbirding particularly closely. These include letters and published works by Rev. J. F. H. Wohlers, the first foreign resident missionary in Foveaux Strait, who established a mission on Ruapuke Island in 1844 which he oversaw until his death in 1885. While the dissertation draws from a wide range of official records and print culture sources, my personal connections have allowed me to draw on private diaries and photographs of the harvest and pre-season preparations relating to pōhā. Bringing together this range of material allows me to offer a carefully localised reading of cultural development which makes frequent reference to people from whom I am directly descended. The dissertation as a whole emphasizes the centrality of whakapapa in structuring the Māori past.
I am of the opinion that my approach to Māori history, particularly the distinction I draw between episteme and techne, can be usefully deployed in analysing the response of other Kāi Tahu communities, and indeed those of other Māori, to the challenges and opportunities presented by colonisation from the mid nineteenth-century. Moreover, I believe that my dynamic interpretation of what constitutes Māori culture in the present-day ought to be considered by tribal groups directing efforts at cultural revitalisation.