HISTORY FROM COURT RECORDS

Te Ao Hou, April 1955, Page 42

HISTORY FROM COURT RECORDS The greatest source of knowledge on Maori history, and the original of all existing Maori land titles, are the minute books of the Maori Land Courts. The evidence they record contains many orations of chiefs long dead describing old wars, and authentic stories about every tribe in New Zealand. If these books, which are kept in the offices of the Department of Maori Affairs, were to be lost through fire or other disaster, students and historians of the Maori people would suffer an irreparable loss, and the whole Maori administration would be gravely affected. Although Maori Land Court Judges have long been worried about this danger it is only two years ago that the present Chief Judge, Mr D. B. Morrison, asked for a microfilm record of all the Court minute books, particularly the early ones, to make sure of their preservation. In many other countries records have been microfilmed to guard against loss and fire, also to make them more readily available for study. A 35 m.m. camera is used, specially designed for a sharp focus, and a good operator under good conditions can film 12,000 sheets a day. In New Zealand, micofilming has been little practised except for extra copies of special documents. In using film to prevent the loss of valuable records, the Maori Land Court is therefore doing pioneering work in this country. Considering how many important documents have already been lost through calamities in New Zealand's short history, the money now spent on the minute books can hardly be called a luxury. Very little space is needed to store microfilm records. One massive tome of court minutes is reduced to one cubic inch of film. The job of putting the many hundreds of minute books through the machine will take a number of years, but so far all minutes from the establishment of the Maori Land Court up to 1890 have been filmed. There are 367 of these. Negatives have been placed in fireproof storage, and positive prints have also been made, and lodged in the Turnbull Library in Wellington where students can look at them. This will be a great help, as access to the minute books was difficult in the past. The government is now planning the next stage, the filming of about 400 minute books dating from 1890 to 1900. The work is being done by the National Publicity Studios.