nā Kahu Kutia - March 22

Valuable knowledge can come from all sorts of places, from scientists, journalists, academics, AND from your nan and koro down at the pā, from our pūrākau, from the whenua itself even.

The internet is one place where there’s heaps of our kōrero to be found, if you know where to look. It can be pretty overwhelming to wrestle with, and not everything is as helpful as it might look in the beginning. 

Here’s some searching basics for you!

When you’re searching through stuff, ask yourself who is writing this? What worldview do they come from? Who is meant to read this? 

Lots of early colonial writing (eg: Elsdon Best) prioritised a colonial Pākehā reader. This might mean that Elsdon for example didn’t focus on wāhine and tamariki as much as tāne. 

Heoi, there’s always things to glean from writings like this, just take it all with a grain of salt.

The key thing to remember is that not everything you read on the internet is true, or very accurate, so make sure double check all your research, or just ask your nan eh.