Māori

Welcome to the Māori Niupepa Collection

Here we have a collection of historic newspapers published primarily for a Māori audience between 1842 and 1932. The newspapers can be searched (full text), browsed (by series) or accessed by date. This collection has been made available by the New Zealand Digital Library Project, at the Department of Computer Science, University of Waikato.

Background information about the collection can be accessed below.

We are grateful for the support of many organisations that have assisted in making this collection freely available, in particular the Ministry of Education and university libraries throughout New Zealand. Please see our supporting organisations section below.

Background Information

The niupepa collection consists of over 17,000 pages taken from 34 separate periodicals. It is based on "Niupepa 1842-1933", a microfiche collection produced by the Alexander Turnbull Library. 70% of the collection is written solely in Māori, 27% is bilingual and about 3% is written in English. There were three main types of niupepa published; government sponsored, Māori initiated, and religious.

There are four main parts to the Māori niupepa collection:

  • facsimile images of the original pages
  • text extracted from the newspapers (for searching)
  • bibliographic commentaries for each newspaper title
  • English abstracts for each issue

Further information about the Niupepa Collection can be found in Rere Atu Taku Manu! Discovering History, Language & Politics in the Māori Language Newspapers. Edited by Jennifer Curnow, Ngapare Hopa, and Jane McRae. Auckland University Press (2002).

Supporting Organisations

The Ministry of Education are the principal sponsors of this project.

Financial support was also generously given by the following university libraries:

The newspapers are also available on 35mm microfilm and microfiche. They can be borrowed on interloan through your local library or purchased from the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Digital image capture was provided by New Zealand Micrographic Services Ltd.

Commentaries on titles provided by Gail Dallimore.

English abstracts are provided by a team working through the Department of Māori Studies at the University of Auckland.