Publication Details Hardback, 220mm x 190mm, 88pp, image plates 21, ISBN: 978-0-9951230-6-9
Author and/or Editor name/s Jenny Gillam & Eugene Hansen (Maniapoto) (eds.)
Author and/or Editor bio/s Jenny Gillam and Eugene Hansen are multimedia artists who often work collaboratively – with each other, with other artists and with researchers in other fields. Gillam trained as a photographer in the early 1990s and gained an MFA (RMIT, Melbourne) in 1999. Hansen gained a BFA (Sculpture) from Canterbury University in 1991 and an MFA (RMIT, Melbourne) in 1998. They are both Senior Lecturers at Massey University’s Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Wellington, New Zealand.
Year of publication 2020
Publisher Massey University Press, Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract For Māori, kiwi are under the protection of Tāne-Mahuta, atua of the forests and birds. They are known as te manu huna a Tāne – the hidden bird of Tāne. Highly treasured kahu kiwi, cloaks adorned with their feathers, carry the wairua, the spirit, of the kiwi. New Zealanders know that our national bird is vulnerable to extinction. Many of us have not seen a kiwi in the wild, nor are we aware of the care and respect shown to them after death.
This book documents a wānanga at which three generations of Ngāti Torehina Ki Matakā women learned to pelt North Island brown kiwi so their feathers can be used to make kahu kiwi. It bears witness to their role as guardians of a vulnerable taonga, and their everyday commitment to the kaitiakitanga of our indigenous culture. This passing on of customary knowledge developed out of a partnership with the Department of Conservation, where accidentally killed kiwi, still protected under the Conservation Act 1987 even in death, were returned to Māori from the district in which the kiwi were found. These Māori women, culturally rooted in tradition, are quietly responding to the significant social and political issues that confront us on a local, national and global scale.
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