“Honoured, flattered, humbled and somewhat saddened”
Local historians and researchers Hilary and John Mitchell are officially Stout fellows.
In March, John and Hilary will move to Wellington to take up the prestigious JD Stout Fellowship at Victoria University. There they will work on the fourth volume of their history of the Maori people of Te Tau Ihu - the Top of the South.
The Stout Fellowship is designed to foster research in New Zealand history, society and culture. It enables the fellow, normally an individual, to work for a year at the university on a specific project that is intended to lead to a publication. Hilary and John are the first joint fellows, the first husband and wife fellows, and John is the first Stout fellow of Maori descent.
Dr Mitchell (of Ngati Tama/Te Atiawa and originally from Takaka) said that he and Hilary were "honoured, flattered, humbled and somewhat saddened" by their recognition.
"The whole project, that's become three completed volumes so far, was the result of some prompting by the kaumatua (elders) of the Top of the South. In 1987 or ‘88 they appointed us to write a generic history that could serve as a backdrop for their separate iwi treaty claims. We told them that we couldn't do it without some pretty specific information that they had access to. Like most Maori families, the kaumatua and their whanau had whakapapa (genealogy) books that were unbelievably precious. We ended up with access to about 80 of them. They are so private and precious that sometimes members of families don't get access to them, but here we were, virtual outsiders to some of them, with copies of this precious material. It was huge trust and confidence they showed in us and we will always be grateful to them. The really sad thing is that only one of those kaumatua is still with us."
The first volume of the history, Te Tangata me te Whenua - The People and the Land, was published in 2004 and it was followed in 2007 by Te Ara Hou - The New Society. This volume won the history section of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in 2008, the judges noting in their citation that it was "a model for Maori histories of other parts of Aotearoa."
"I suppose the Stout Fellowship requires you to have achieved some recognition already - the university needs to know that you're going to produce the publication you say you will. The Montana prize involved some recognition by our peers and some public recognition as well. It probably helped," said Dr Mitchell.
The third volume of the history is at the semi-final proofreading stage and will be delivered to the printers within weeks.
The fourth volume will be what the Mitchells describe as "the business of 2009". It will consist of biographies of about 40 chiefs from across the Top of the South.
"We'll pick up many of the chiefs who we mention in various contexts in volumes one and two," said Dr Mitchell. "We actually have quite a lot of information about their whole life stories - where they lived and died and what their family connections were. Volume four will consist of dedicated biographies, done on a whanau basis, showing how the intra- and inter-family connections influenced what could and couldn't happen."
As part of this latest volume, the Mitchells will also produce an extended essay on rangatiratanga (chieftainship) in which they pull together some generalised characteristics of the concept of chieftainship out of the specific information they have about the chiefs.
"All along, Hilary and I have been attempting to do more than just record history," said Dr Mitchell. "It's not just what happened, it's how it came to happen and how it was able to."
Neil Wilson
