REVIEW: The Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti o Waitangi - Nā Ross Calman

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI – TE TIRITI O WAITANGI
Nā ROSS CALMAN
PUBLISHER: ORATIA
RRP $29.99

REVIEW nā HINEATEA ALEXANDER

The Treaty of Waitangi – Te Tiriti o Waitangi by Ross Calman is an engaging and effective resource on the document.
It’s an incredibly digestible book making it an easy and informative read which I enjoyed thoroughly.

The book is broken up into several sections each outlining the timeline from the early events that led up to Te Tiriti, all the way to
today and the key events in that timeline.

It begins with outlining the events leading up to the creation and signing of the Treaty including parts of the history often excluded, such
as Maori literacy rates and how that came about.

Calman gives a brief but objective insight on the events at the Waitangi signing of the document before outlining its travels across Aotearoa for
other signings and includes a labelled map of the signing locations.

What I particularly liked about the book was that it includes the document’s texts in te reo Maori, an English translation of the text in reo, and the
original English in the document. I found this to be an effective way to show the differences in wording between the documents given to the Maori
and Pakeha signatories.

Another part of the book that stood out to me was the short section about Te Tiriti in the 20th century. Even though Waitangi Day did not become an official holiday until 1973, by 1960 Waitangi Day had become a nation-wide celebration for Maori.

Showing even through the suppression by the Pakeha government Maori didn’t forget. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book and I’m sure many other young people or anyone else looking to learn more about Te Tiriti would enjoy it as well. It’s informative and well researched and provides further reading on Te Tiriti.