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MAORITANGA |
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When the pakeha first came to this Island, the first thing he taught
the Maori was Christianity. They made parsons and priests of several
members of the Maori race, and they taught these persons to look up and
pray; and while they were looking up the pakehas took away our land.
Mahuta, the son of the Maori King Tawhiao, addressing the New Zealand
Legislative Council in 1903.
The term Maoritanga embodies Maori lifestyle and culture - it is the
Maori way of doing things, embracing social structure, ethics, customs,
legends and art, as well as language . In the Anglo-European dominated
society that New Zealand has always been, and to a large extent still is,
it has been easy to see Maori culture as harping back to some fond-remembered
idyll of the past, but Maoritanga has remained very much alive, and in
the last couple of decades has seen a dramatic resurgence. By most
measures, Maori make up over ten percent of New Zealand's population,
but Maori- pakeha marriage since the early nineteenth century has left a
complex inter-racial pool; many third- or fourth-generation pakeha can
claim a Maori forebear or two, and some contend that there are no full-blooded
Maori left. Maori ancestry remains the foundation of Maoridom, but a
sense of Maori belonging has become a question of cultural identity as
much as bloodlines.
Until very recently, white New Zealanders liked to promote the image of
the two races living in harmony as one people, citing scenes of Maori
and pakeha elbow to elbow at the bar and Maori rugby players in the
scrum alongside their pakeha brothers. Pakeha prided themselves on
successful integration that seemed a world away from the apartheid of
South Africa or the virtual genocide exacted on North American and
Australian aboriginal peoples; after all, Maori could claim all the
benefits of pakeha plus dedicated seats in parliament, extra university
grants and various other concessions. Yet this denied the undercurrent
of Maori dissatisfaction over their treatment since the arrival of the
first Europeans; the policy of assimilation relied entirely on Maori
conforming to the pakeha way of doing things and made no concession to
Maoritanga . Maori adapted incredibly quickly to pakeha ways but were
rewarded with the loss of their land . It is impossible to overestimate
the importance of this: Maori spirituality invests every tree, every
hill and every bay with a kind of supernatural life of its own, drawn
from past events and the actions of the ancestors. It is by no means
fanciful to equate the loss of land with the diminution of Maori life-force;
little surprise, then, that much of the spirit went out of Maori people.
It is only really in the 1980s and 1990s that the pakeha paternal view
has been challenged, with the country reacting by adopting biculturalism
. As Maori rediscover their heritage and pakeha open their eyes to what
has been around them for generations, knowledge of Maoritanga and some
understanding of the language is seen as desirable and even advantageous.
The government has increasingly channelled resources towards the "flax
roots" of Maoridom, fostering a rapid take-up in the learning of Maori
language, a resurgence in interest in Maori arts and crafts and a
growing pride in Maoridom. At the same time, Maori have won back
customary rights to fisheries and resources, and parcels of land have
been returned to Maori ownership. Nonetheless, there is a sense in some
quarters that Maori are only getting as much as the pakeha -dominated
government feels it is prepared to give back.
For many pakeha , however, there is considerable unease over what is
perceived as the government's soft stance on Treaty of Waitangi land
claims . Some envisage a future where Maori will own the land (including
private land not currently up for redistribution under Treaty claims),
will reclaim the rights granted them by the Treaty, and will have more
influence than pakeha . Quite frankly, they're afraid. So far, reaction
to the strengthening Maori hand in this climate of conciliation has only
been voiced quietly, and just how this scenario will pan out remains to
be seen. True power-sharing and biculturalism seems a long way off, and
Maori aspirations for "sovereignty" - a separate Maori government and
judiciary - look far-fetched at present, but the Maori juggernaut is
moving fast.
Maori legend
Maori culture remains highly oral, with chants, storytelling and oratory
central to ceremonial and daily life. This was doubly so when Europeans
arrived and first recorded the traditions and legends normally passed
down verbally. Different tribal groups often had different sets of
stories, or at least variations on common themes, but European
historians with pet theories to promote often distorted the stories they
heard and even destroyed conflicting evidence, creating their own Maori
folklore. This generalizing trend served the purpose of creating a
common Maori identity, and many of the stories have been accepted back
into the Maori tradition, leaving a patchwork of authentic and
bowdlerized legends. Nonetheless, there are fixed themes common to most
Social structure and customs
Maori society remains tribal to a large extent, though the deracination
resulting from the widespread move from the tribal homelands to the
cities has eroded some of the closer ties. In urban situations the finer
points of Maoritanga are having to be re-discovered, but the basic
tenets remain strong and formal protocol still reigns for ceremonies as
diverse as funeral wakes, meetings and Maori exhibition openings.
The most fundamental and tightest division in Maori society is the
extended family or whanau (literally "birthing"), which extends from
immediate relatives to cousins, uncles and nieces several times removed.
A dozen or so whanau jointly form a localized sub-tribe or hapu
(literally "gestation or pregnancy"), perhaps the most important tribal
group, comprising dozens of extended families of common descent. Hapu
were originally economically autonomous and today continue to conduct
communal activities, typically through their marae . Neighbouring hapu
are likely to belong to the same tribe or iwi (literally "bones"), a
looser association of several thousand Maori spread over a fairly large
geographical area. The thirty-odd major iwi are even more tenuously
linked by their common ancestry traced back to semi-legendary canoes, or
waka . In troubled times, especially during the eighteenth-century New
Zealand Wars, iwi from the same waka would band together for protection.
Together these are the tangata whenua (literally "the people of the
land"), a term that may refer to Maori people as a whole, or just to one
hapu if local concerns are being aired.
The literal meanings of whanau, hapu and iwi can be viewed as a metaphor
for the Maori view of their relationship with their ancestors or tupuna
, who are considered to exist through their genetic inheritors; the past
is very much a part of the present. Evidence of this is seen in the
respect accorded the whakapapa , an individual's genealogy tracing
descent from the gods via one of the migratory waka and through the
tupuna . The whakapapa is often recited at length on formal occasions
such as hui (meetings).
Maori traditional life is informed by the parallel notions of tapu
(taboo) and noa (mundane, not tapu ). These are not superstition but a
belief system designed to impose a code of conduct: transgressing tapu
brings ostracism and ill fortune and is thought to cause sickness.
Objects, places, actions and even people can be tapu , demanding extra
respect - for example, the body parts of a chief, especially the head;
menstruating women; sacred items to do with ritual; earrings, pendants
and hair combs; burial sites; and the knowledge contained in the
whakapapa are all tapu . There is a practical aspect too, with the
productivity of fishing grounds and forests traditionally maintained by
imposing tapu at critical times. The direct opposite of tapu is noa , a
term applied to ordinary items which, by implication, are considered
safe; a new building is tapu until a special ceremony renders it noa .
People, animals and artefacts, whether tapu or noa , possess mauri (life
force), wairau (spirit) and mana , a term loosely translated as
prestige, but embodying wider concepts of power, influence and charisma.
Birthright brings with it a degree of mana which can then be augmented
through battle or brave deeds, and lost through inaction or defeat.
Wartime cannibalism was partly ritual but by eating an enemy's heart a
warrior absorbed his mauri ; likewise personal effects gain mana from
association with the mana of their owner, accruing more as they are
passed down to descendants. Any slight on the mana of an individual was
felt by the whole hapu , which must then exact utu (a need to balance
any action with an equal re-action), a compunction which often led to
bloody feuds, sometime escalating to war and further enhancing the mana
of the victors. Pakeha found this a hard concept to grasp and deeds
which they considered deceitful or treacherous could be correct in Maori
terms.
The responsibility for determining tapu fell to the tohunga (priest or
expert), the most exalted of many specialists in Maoritanga , who is
conversant with tribal history, sacred lore and the whakapapa , and
considered to be the earthly presence of the power of the gods
Arts and crafts
Although the origins of Maori art lie in the traditions of eastern
Polynesia, over half a millennium of isolated development has resulted
in a unique richness and diversity. Eastern Polynesia has no suitable
clay, so Maori forebears had already lost the skills of pottery and
focused their talents on wood, stone and weaving, occasionally using
naturalistic designs but most often the highly stylized forms that make
Maori art unmistakable.
As with other taonga (treasures), many superb examples were taken out of
the country by Victorian and later collectors, but there is a determined
move on the part of iwi and the Department of Maori Affairs to restore
as many taonga as possible to New Zealand, including over a hundred
severed heads which are scattered through museums all over the world. |
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