Doctoral supervision is a complex set of intersecting relations, personal and familial, social and institutional. History figures there: wanted or not, ghosts from the past come back to haunt supervisor, student and thesis. This article explores a particular configuration that can occur in Aotearoa/New Zealand when Pakeha academics supervise Maori students, especially those undertaking research engaging with matauranga Maori/Maori knowledge, kaupapa Maori methodology, and/or Maori communities. In this article, I analyse interviews with nine Pakeha supervisors of Maori doctoral students to identify instructive accounts of supervisor selves that are, in varied ways, sensible to the hauntings of colonial history. In embracing rather than refusing history's ghosts, these identities appear to enable doctoral supervision on the Pakeha-Maori hyphen to flourish.