More than 120,000 pages from 18 separate Niupepa Maori are being added to the National Library's Papers Past website.

Ati Teepa, the library's team leader manaakitanga, says the periodicals were produced by the government, churches, Maori and Pakeha, and are either in Maori or bilingual, making them a valuable resource for anyone interested in the language.

He says the first newspaper produced by Maori was done for the King Movement on a press brought back from Vienna by intrepid travellers Wiremu Toetoe and Hemara Te Rerehau.

"That was Te Hokioi e Rere Atu Na, the Kingitanga's paper, and the government in opposition to that paper printed Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke so our tipuna were extremely smart people so they picked up these technologies and these techniques to spread their kupu out to their people extremely quickly," Mr Teepa says.

The collection of niupepa Maori was first put together by Waikato University, with English language abstracts of the content added by Auckland University scholars.

(http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/).

