Te Motunui Epa – making history from the underground

For more than 150 years, five carved panels that once formed the back wall of a pātaka, slept in a small swamp just north of Waitara. The carvings, which uri of Taranaki now call the Motunui Epa, emerged from their long sleep in 1971 setting off an extraordinary chain of events that would take them around the world and back again.

In this talk, Dr Rachel Buchanan will discuss how unearthing the government records has changed the way she works as a historian, taking her much closer to the power of the underground and the sovereignty that exists, undiminished beneath our feet.  This work resulted in her book Te Motunui Epa (BWB Books, 2022).

This talk was recorded on 15 May 2023 at the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa. 

Dr Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Ātiawa) is the author of three books that explore Taranaki histories, including the invasion of Parihaka. Her new book, Te Motunui Epa (BWB Books, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in the illustrated non-fiction category. Along with Hana Buchanan and Debbie Broughton, Rachel is also member of Te Aro Pā poets. A former journalist, Rachel has also documented the collapse of newspapers in the history-memoir, Stop Press: the last days of newspapers.

Download a transcript of this talk: https://nzhistory.govt.nz/files/pdfs/new-lenses-history-talk-rachel-buchanan-transcript.pdf