Whaling in the Chathams

Press, 21 April 1984, Page 20

Whaling in the Chathams

Whaling and Sealing at the Chatham Islands. By Rhys Richards. Roebuck Society Publication No. 21, 1982. 164 pp. $18.95. (Reviewed by John WHson) This book is the fruit of assiduous research into relatively untouched historical sources concerning the activities of sealers and whalers, over almost a century, on or about the Chatham Islands. The era of sealing and whaling (which in the case of the Chathams lasted until the early 1870 s) is of undeniable significance in New Zealand and Pacific history as the era of initial contact between European and Polynesian cultures. Despite the interest of many historians in the era, its significance is still not fully understood. This book, focusing narrowly on the Chatham Islands, does not really advance our historical understanding of the era, although it does significantly add to the body of knowledge about it. Nor is it an easy book to read. The author has uncovered a wealth of interesting information, but failed to marshal the information into a coherent and readable narrative. A reading of the work leaves the impression that a more interesting, more significant and more readable work is lurking behind its pages. It is one the author probably could have written, given the breadth of his research, had he only assimilated his material better and reflected longer on it. He has, perhaps, addressed the wrong questions to his source material by trying so hard to ascertain how many sealing and whaling vessels frequented Chathams waters and to establish, in quantitative terms as he puts it, “the relative importance of the Chathams and the neighbouring regions” — relative, that is, to other New Zealand sealing and whaling grounds.

Numbers alone do not necessarily make for historical significance. It is necessary to know who was at the Chathams, when they were there, what " they did, and what record they left of ■> their activities. But the use to which this information is put is the key to whether a work significantly expands our understanding of the past. As an academic monograph * presenting an important body of “raw” * information, which is all the author claims his book to be, this volume is , welcome and will be of interest to , readers other than those with a purely local interest in the Chathams. But the book leaves one waiting for the day that other historians will first dig deeper into the interesting sources which the author of this work has begun to exploit and then subject the data which can be extracted from them to proper historical analysis.