People of Marlborough

Which people can I learn about?

Here are some people related to Marlborough you could find out about:

Tips: These are just some examples of people you could research. You may have someone different you're interested in finding out about. Just use their name as your search terms in the resources below.

Local iwi:

• Ngāi Tahu

• Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō

• Ngāti Koata

• Ngāti Kuia

• Ngāti Rārua

• Ngāti Tama ki Te Tau Ihu

• Ngāti Toa Rangātira

• Rangitāne o Wairau

• Te Ātiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui

Note: Iwi are listed in alphabetical order. This list was put together to the best of our knowledge. If there are any other iwi to be included, please let us know.

Marlborough resources

Here are some sources you could look at to find out about individual people or groups of people from Marlborough.

The Prow

The Prow is a website featuring historical and cultural stories from Nelson, Tasman and Marlborough. It is a collaboration between the Nelson City, Tasman and Marlborough District Libraries, Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology and The Nelson Provincial Museum, so the information is reliable.

• Choose People to explore stories about the people who have played a significant, or interesting, role in the history and life of the top of the South Island of New Zealand.

• You can also enter keywords in the search box.

Tips: Stories can be told in different ways. It’s a good idea to look at multiple information sources about a topic to help you put together your own narrative.

Te Tau Ihu Statutory Acknowledgements

In the Top of the South, there are eight iwi who have Tangata Whenua status. The maps and documents on this website record many of the traditional stories which the different iwi associate with their regional sites of significance.

• Select an Iwi to view their maps.

• Browse the Statutory Acknowledgement document to read the stories behind the landscapes.

Rangitāne o Wairau

Rangitāne have resided in Marlborough since the sixteenth century.

• Select the tag labelled Rangitāne to find information on their history.

Tips: Websites that have .org or .net in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the organisation’s mission and values are.

Ngāti Kuia

Ngāti Kuia settled in Te Hoiere (Pelorus Sound) before European settlement. They withstood the musket wars and continued in the area.

• To learn about their history select History under the About Us label.

• There is also a documentary as well as documents in the Resources section.

Tips: Some websites have .iwi in their url. This tells you that the website belongs to an iwi and likely has Māori knowledge (mātauranga Māori).

Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō

Ngāti Apa ki te Rā Tō came from Ngāti Apa of the North Island. They made regular visits to Te Waipounamu (Top of the South Island) from the mid 1500s before settling at Tōtaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound). To learn about their history:

• Go to the Resources tab and choose History.

• Then select Our origins.

Te Ātiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui

Te Ātiawa settled Te Tau Ihu (Top of the South Island) from 1832 onward, by 1840 Te Ātiawa occupied land from Tōtaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound) to Mohua (Golden Bay).

• Select the Marae & Tōtaranui Iwi label to learn about their history.

Ngāti Tama ki Te Tau Ihu

Ngāti Tama arrived in Te Tau Ihu in the early 1820s with the Tainui and Taranaki alliance.

• Select the Hītori picture on their homepage to find out their history.

Ngāti Koata

Ngāti Koata settled in Te Tau Ihu (Top of the South Island) in 1825. To learn about their history:

• select the Tiaki Taonga label on their website, and

• then select Our History.

Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on the website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company’s mission and values are.

Ngāti Toa Rangātira

Ngāti Toa Rangātira migrated south to Te Tau Ihu (Top of the South Island) in the 1820s under the leadership of Te Rauparaha.

• Select the Mō Ngāti Toa label.

• Then select Taonga.

• Look down the page, past the timeline. for biographies of Tūpuna.

Ngāi Tahu

Ngāi Tahu first arrived in Te Tau Ihu (Top of the South Island) in the waka Uruao and then to explored and settled the South Island.

• Select the Ngāi Tahu label and then explore the links under History.

• Or under Connect find Our stories.

• You can choose a category to find Culture stories and more.

Ngāti Rārua

Ngāti Rārua descended from the Tainui waka then came to Te Tau Ihu (Top of the South Island) in the 1820s and 1830s.

• Select the Who we are label.

• Then select Our story.

Marlborough New Zealand - Heritage, Culture & Arts

This tourism website for Marlborough has a section about Marlborough heritage. You can find out the history of local people and places.

• Select a section eg Legends, Art & Culture or Our People.

• Choose a story to read.

General New Zealand resources

These websites have reliable information about the history of Marlborough.

Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

Te Ara is an excellent starting point for all questions about Aotearoa New Zealand. If we look down to the bottom of the page, we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage, so the information is well-researched and reliable.

• Select Biographies and then browse through the alphabet or do a keyword search to find famous Marlburians. We found this video clip on Kupe and Cook in the Sounds.

• Or, at the top right of the screen, search 'Marlborough'.

• Choose Marlborough places and read about how the region was settled.

• You can also search 'Te tau ihu'.

• Choose Te Tau Ihu tribes and explore iwi migration to the Top of the South.

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (DNZB)

This website has over 3,000 biographies of New Zealanders who have made their mark on this country. It does not include people who are alive. This site includes around 500 biographies that are in te reo Māori.

• Use the names of the people as search words to read about their lives and what they achieved, or

• you can do an Advanced Biographies Search which allows you to narrow down your search by region.

Tips: DNZB is part of Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand and belongs to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, so information is well-researched and reliable. You can tell this from their web address — they have .govt meaning they are from government organisations. They are also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Papers Past

This website is great for finding local primary sources as it has newspaper articles published in New Zealand.

• Choose Newspapers and you will have the option to search by title, region or date. You can also choose Magazines, Letters and Diaries, or Books.

• You can also search using keywords like 'Dr Cleghorn' or a topic you are interested in like 'Wairau Massacre'.

• Then you can narrow down the dates and also choose newspapers from a local region.

Tips: Remember that places and events have changed their names over time. If you are looking up something such as The Wairau Affray you should also try using Wairau Massacre, Wairau Incident and Tuamarina as keywords to find relevant material. Likewise, information on the Ōpaoa River will also be found using Opawa River as keywords.

Topic Explorer

Topic Explorer is an online tool from the National Library of New Zealand. It contains a wide range of quality resources for students in a range of formats, (eg articles, books, images, videos, primary sources, websites) on a variety of topics. These resources have been selected from reliable national and international sources.

• Look down to He Tohu: Colonial Life in New Zealand.

• Explore the many articles, images and videos.

• Check out the related topics on the right.

NZ History

NZ History is a great website for information about Aotearoa New Zealand. If we go all the way down the page we can see that the website belongs to the Ministry for Culture & Heritage. This means the information is well-researched and reliable.

• At the top right of the screen, search for 'Wairau Incident'

• Explore the events and people in the list.

• We found an excellent article on Te Rauparaha.

DigitalNZ

DigitalNZ is a website that focuses on New Zealand history and brings together results from lots of different websites. It’s an easy way of searching online resources from New Zealand libraries, museums, universities and government sites all at once. The results are grouped by type of information, like images, videos, newspapers, articles and research papers.

• Use the search bar to enter the name or a person or a group.

• Choose from images, articles, newspapers and more.

Tips: Websites that have .org or .net in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About DigitalNZ link on the website to find out what the organisation’s mission and values are.

Books

Your local or school library may have books about Marlborough history. Check out these titles:

• The calm beyond: Tua Marina and the Waikakaho from the Wairau affray to today by Cynthia Brooks

• The Wairau and its forgotten capital by Barry Holdaway

• Māori peoples of New Zealand = Ngā iwi o Aotearoa by the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage.

• The Wairau massacre: mindsets of the 1840s by J L Andrews

• Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka : a history of Māori of Nelson and Marlborough by Hilary and John Mitchell.

SCIS no: 5496296

More about Marlborough