ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the politics of naming and renaming Māori people, objects, places and practices in the context of museums and heritage sites in Aotearoa New Zealand in the early 21st century. Since the 1970s, there have been attempts at addressing the colonial past through the Waitangi Tribunal, and the Māori language has official status and is increasingly used at various levels of society from the bilingual national anthem to mainstream media and everyday conversation. The authors look at the use of Māori words in museums and galleries, from the names of institutions to names for objects, which in both cases have supplanted their English equivalents, and also at the preference for Māori names of places, streets and towns, including heritage sites. These reflect both parallel movements of decolonization and indigenization in tension with a strain of settler nationalism, which express interest in, but also guilt about, the Māori language and culture supplanted by European colonization. Case studies include the terminology and classification of Māori weaving and the adoption of Māori words to describe the human remains which have been repatriated in recent years.
