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Kōrero: Rural clothing

Māori shearers

Māori shearers

A group of shearers, mostly Māori, strike a pose with their hand shears at Eparaima homestead, near Castlepoint in the Wairarapa, around 1904–5. A few of the shearers’ clothes are rather ragged. Most keep their trousers up with braces – except for one man who seems to have used an old rope for a belt. Only a few of this group are wearing hats.

Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi

Alexander Turnbull Library, George Moore Collection

Reference: 1/2-065449; F

by George Moore

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

Ngā whakaahua me ngā rauemi katoa o tēnei kōrero

Me pēnei te tohu i te whārang

Bronwyn Labrum, Rural clothing – Menswear, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/mi/photograph/18477/maori-shearers (accessed 4 June 2026).

He kōrero nā Bronwyn Labrum, i tāngia i te 1 March 2009.

Comments

Te Atawhai Mahiatua
08 January 2023
This is a photo of my great, great grandmother and grandfather amongst other closely related family at Eparaima station. I find the heading of Maori shearers and then reference to their 'rather ragged clothing' to be in thoroughly poor taste. Poor and Maori in my reading of that seem to go together. Shearing is hardwork and they would not be wearing their 'Sunday Best' nor Hats to do what is an established tradition in our whanau. I really wish you would recaption and rewrite this to celebrate their hard work. It's pretty obvious they're impoverished having had the majority of their land cut away by the Crown between 1853 and 1854. Please place your historical remarks in context.