Heritage role is ‘like coming home’ F
or Delphine Moise-Elise, starting her new role as Pompallier Mission manager was a bit like coming home. The experience of stepping into the historic printery building in Russell, now in the care of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and the only pise´ de terre (rammed earth) building in Australasia, felt familiar.
“When I first walked into the printery it smelt like my grandparents’ home in the Alps and the old pise´ buildings I lived in when I was studying in Lyon,” she said.
“The Gaveaux press itself, as it stands proudly by the statue of Mary, is a powerful taonga, embodying so much of the history of the time. I have been immersed in other cultures’ heritage and traditions for a very long time, but discovering and confronting the history of the ‘French Place in the Bay of Islands’ is different — it is closer.”
Built in 1842, Pompallier Mission originally housed a printery where church texts were translated from Latin to te reo Māori by French Marist brothers under the leadership of Bishop Jean-Baptiste Pompallier, then printed and bound. Today the printery stands as New Zealand’s oldest industrial building, and distinctly French in style.
A French national, Moise-Elise was born in the French Alps and spent her childhood in Provence, growing up surrounded by history and tradition in a family of storytellers. After moving to Australia in her early 20s, she has spent most of her working life in the Northern Territory and New Zealand.
With a strong professional background in cultural heritage management, her experience spans strategy development in a bicultural context, oral history, governance and mediation, as well as communication, filmmaking, organising and curating exhibitions and international cultural exchanges.
“In my most recent role in the Northern Territory I supported the creation of the Knowledge Keepers Committee, a network of prominent cultural leaders in Arnhem Land, to oversee the development of research processes and protocols resulting in an indigenous intellectual and cultural property framework to enable the repatriation and interpretation of indigenous knowledge in their region. This region is the cradle of the most ancient rock art in the world,” she said.
She has also worked as a researcher for Aboriginal organisations conducting land claims, native title claims, oral history research and protection of sacred sites, and developed a Cultural Heritage Strategy for the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
She has strong connections to New Zealand, not least of which her tamariki, who whakapapa to Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, and has also worked in this country assisting with Treaty claims, research and documentation, cultural mapping and recording oral history on video, as well as kaupapa Māori health initiatives.
But it is the Bay of Islands that has an especially strong connection.
“I first visited the Bay years ago, and was deeply touched by the wairua of the place. The multi-layered, interwoven, heroic history of the place at the junction of worlds is the stuff of legends,” she said.
“The place embodies the proud history of tā ngata whenua resistance, resilience and also diplomacy. I always dreamt that if I came back to Aotearoa for good it would be here in Kororāreka. It is a true privilege to be here.”
She described Pompallier Mission as an extraordinary place imbued with mana, from the pā above the printery to the sea, the garden and the forest around it, but the lifeblood were the kaitiaki, “this wonderful team who bring the place to life”.
In the short term she had much learning and listening to do, including respectful engagement with tāngata whenua and the wider Russell community, leading cultural heritage destinations in the region, local businesses and her “wonderful team at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga”.
In time she would like to grow a new vision for the place, but in the meantime she was getting to know her new home, and loving the experience.
“I am absolutely in awe of the region; its beauty, its rawness — the Bay and Kororāreka in particular, with so much history and culture woven into the whenua,” she said.
“Being French, and passionate about food, I am also delighting in the many locally made products, from delicious wines and cheeses through to our oyster farm.
“I love Kororāreka in winter, walking to work along the Strand, stopping for a chat at the jetty and then arriving at Pompallier Mission to enjoy great coffee and a French croissant. Who would not be grateful?”