Te Pouhere Kōrero – Māori History, Māori People

The first volume of the journal Te Pouhere Kōrero – Māori History, Māori People was published in 1999, with ten volumes in total published by 2023. The journal is peer-reviewed and has an editorial executive. Hard copies of Volume 10 (2023) can be purchased in all good bookshops and through Bridget Williams Books.

All ten volumes have now been digitised (with support from Creative New Zealand and Te Kura Tangata Arts at the University of Auckland); they are available in the New Zealand History Collection, which can be found in all subscribing libraries, including public, tertiary and school libraries. Please contact collections@bwb.co.nz for help in accessing this rich digital resource.

Te Pouhere Kōrero

Te Pouhere Kōrero operates as a broad collective of Māori colleagues interested in history. It was established in November 1992, at an inaugural hui convened at Rongopai Marae at Waituhi, near Gisborne, Aotearoa New Zealand. The official journal, Te Pouhere Kōrero – Māori History, Māori People, focuses on Māori and Indigenous history.

The group includes local whānau, hapū and iwi experts, librarians, museum curators, school teachers, Treaty claims researchers, public servants and academics. Members have included scholars and writers such as Keri Kaa, Miria Simpson and Manuka Henare, as well as Charles Royal, Danny Keenan and Monty Soutar. Pouhere is an unapologetically Māori collective that has operated as a safe space – explicitly for Māori, by Māori and about Māori.

For those who regularly attend Te Pouhere Kōrero wānanga, symposia, zui, online lectures and other events, it remains a crucial space for Māori to discuss and debate issues and ideas that cannot be appropriately addressed in coloniser-centric associations or conferences. It is a place to debrief, share our mahi and re-energise. The journal forms part of this mahi, as Te Pouhere Kōrero seeks to disseminate and promote Māori mātauranga and perspectives on history to wider audiences.