“Like every thinking Pākehā, he wants to get his head around the Treaty thing. What are the best books for me to buy him as a present?”
So I was asked recently, and yep, it is a great time to be building our understanding of te Tiriti o Waitangi. And a great time for gift giving too!
- My top pick is actually not a book at all but a self-paced, online Tiriti workshop from the wonderful team at Groundwork. Give your friends or family a gift voucher to learn and/or refresh their knowledge – it only take a couple of hours. Or try it as a family.
- Some great books:
- Tangata Whenua: A history‘ by Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris – beautiful and comprehensive
- Understanding Te Tiriti – a handbook of basic facts about Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail – written in clear and simple language, and delightfully short. These two books would go well together
- Other great books include the newly released Te Tiriti o Waitangi Relationships – People, Politics and Law, Ned Fletcher’s The English Text of the Treaty of Waitangi (which argues convincingly that even in the English version of Te Tiriti, Māori did not cede sovereignty), and Imagining Decolonisation, a series of readable essays, including one by the late Tā Moana Jackson – one of the last of his amazing contributions to Aotearoa.
- Or try some short and sweet and free stuff:
- Read Te Tiriti o Waitangi: This downloadable poster has a good English translation as well as the original Reo Māori text. Let’s ensure we are reading the actual words of Te Tiriti! (Copies of He Whakaputanga / The Declaration of Independence are also available on this site.)
- Te Tiriti Explainer – this two-pager from Groundwork covers why we have Te Tiriti, what it says and how it is relevant now – an excellent overview.
- Understanding Te Tiriti o Waitangi | Let Me Explain – A useful 5-minute video describing the background and relevance of Te Tiriti. From Re: News hosted by journalist Liam Rātana (Ngāti Wairupe, Ngāti Kurī)
- Why Te Tiriti is important to me – in seven sentences – one of my previous blogs about how and why Te Tiriti is so important to non-Māori.
Always keen for more suggestions, and sending good wishes for the holidays and the New Year to all of us who call Aotearoa home.
Thanks for sharing…and for the child or teen in your life, this graphic book is great –
https://lamplightbooks.co.nz/products/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-the-treaty-of-waitangi?srsltid=AfmBOoptsqFlsox7zwTfceYT_OBHeLl-vlRg6Ez4U43bHpeiywMSODLg
Great suggestion – thanks for adding this one!
Fantastic list. For a real revelation into what was happening in and around leaders both from England and Tangata Whenua in the years leading up to Te Tiriti, Huia Come Home by historian J. Ruka is short, easy to read and yet deep, detailed and phenomenal. Heartbreaking at times especially the story of the loss of the Huia but ultimately hopeful and uplifting.
Thank you for this very helpful list of resources. I will draw on it when looking for reading etc to recommend to others.