Kia kōrerorero tonu ai: a review of the dialogue at the interface of Indigenous oral tradition and archaeology in Aotearoa New Zealand and Oceania

Abstract

This paper examines the previous theoretical interfaces of Indigenous oral tradition and archaeology in Oceania, specifically in Aotearoa (New Zealand). Historical processes of writing down kōrero, or oral histories, by amateur historians and ethnologists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, culminated in the romanticised traditions of the early Polynesian society and influenced contemporary archaeological scholarship. In response to criticisms, archaeologists attempted to validate kōrero using Western research methodologies. However, attempts often fell short and processual archaeologists of the mid-late-20th century considered oral tradition and archaeology as incapable of cross-validation. Parallel ethnological scholarship focused on the symbolism in oral histories as indicators of their function in contemporary society or as legitimate forms of recounting actual historical events after critical evaluation. More recent archaeologists use kōrero about the last few centuries like any other historical source. Māori scholars have taken inspiration from previous theoretical arcs to position kōrero in a postmodern space of relative truths or to critically analyse its historical and functional values. The review concludes with how the interface of oral history and archaeology might follow Kaupapa Māori research methodologies and current materialist critiques of dominant settlement pattern theory.