Peter Adds is Wellington-based academic, treaty negotiator and former head of Victoria University of Wellington's Te Kawa a Māui/School of Māori Studies.
[1] He is of Te Āti Awa descent.
With a background in anthropology and archaeology,[2] he has interests in Treaty of Waitangi settlements,[3] indigenous astronomy, Māori development, and international indigenous issues.
[2] Adds is the founding head of the Māori Association of Social Science,[3] and has campaigned for a less government-sided view of New Zealand history to be taught in schools.
[4][5][6] A 2014 thesis by Dougal Austin, supervised by Adds and based on a survey of the collection of hei-tiki at Te Papa Tongarewa and early-contact examples in foreign collections, found that the mana of hei tiki is derived from the "agency of prolonged ancestral use" and stylistically was "highly developed [...] from the outset to conform to adze-shaped pieces of pounamu.