by Michael King
That this increased valuing of their own heritage should lead Pakeha to become advocates for their culture was something of a surprise. The assumption most Pakeha grew up with was that their culture was strong enough and pervasive enough to persist through and despite any vicissitudes or challenges it might encounter. And perhaps it was. They imagined that the special measures undertaken as a Treaty obligation to protect and strengthen Maori language and culture were necessary because of their vulnerability, and that such measures would not in any way threaten the viability of Pakeha culture.
Then a series of events, none of them directly related, appeared to suggest that the former imbalance was being corrected by the creation of another imbalance. In 1997 the Treaty Negotiations Minister, Doug Graham, was quoted as saying that Maori had spiritual feelings for mountains, lakes and rivers that Pakeha lacked – a statement strongly resented by the large number of non-Maori New Zealanders who habitually took their recreation in such places and regarded them with a respect and a reverence that at least equalled and in some instances exceeded that displayed by Maori. Then, in 1998, in the same month that the national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa, refused to remove from display in a visiting exhibition of contemporary British art the sculpture Virgin in a Condom, which was giving strong offence to some Christians, the Waikato Museum of Art and History withdrew a Dick Frizzell exhibition because moko on the face of a caricatured Four Square grocer offended Tainui kaumatua.
Four years later Transit New Zealand postponed work on State Highway 1 near Mercer on the ground that local Tainui people believed such work would disturb a taniwha or guardian spirit. At almost the same time the North Shore City Council announced that it would proceed with the widening of Esmonde Road in Takapuna, even though that would carve six metres off the front of Frank Sargeson’s section, including the legendary ‘hole in the hedge’ and the area of former garden in which his ashes had been interred.
Both sets of events arose from different decisions by different officials in different institutions. But those in favour of Maori interests all grew out of Treaty-based obligations in legislation or mission statements to consult with Maori and to observe the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. In the case of State Highway 1, the relevant factor was the obligation to respect wahi tapu or sacred places.
Most Pakeha had little difficulty accepting that. The problem they identified was that the country by this time had legislatively based procedures to protect the values and sensibilities of one culture and not the other. They did not want to see anything taken away from Maori, just to ensure that the measures of protection and respect extended from the one culture to embrace both cultures: to see wahi tapu of significance to Pakeha, such as Frank Sargeson’s grave, given as much protection as wahi tapu of significance to Maori; and to have the history and experience of Pakeha New Zealanders valued by the country as a whole, and by its institutions, as much as those of Maori.
They were asking, in other words, for what might be called a ‘mutuality of respect’. As another manifestation of that respect, just as Pakeha were now decades away from the stance which viewed Maori culture as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’ or ‘barbaric’, so Pakeha felt that they ought not to be viewed by Maori as tau iwi or aliens, representatives of a colonising power that merely stole material and cultural resources from Maori and gave nothing in return.
For the reality was that the two cultures were still in a relationship of mutual exchange that had begun as early as 1769. Contemporary Maori culture was so strong in its renaissant form in part because of the ability of its adherents to select successfully from the range of concepts and technologies that the Western world had to offer, and to incorporate those things into their culture on the basis of Maori needs and concepts of usefulness. One early and spectacular example was the Maori use of photography to take the place of ancestral representations in carvings in meeting houses and elsewhere, and consequently to strengthen the ability of the culture to remember and revere ancestors. The modern Maori concept of tino rangatiratanga, which we would now recognise as corporate tribal authority, developed because the Westminster parliamentary system of one person–one vote could not co-exist with the mid-nineteenth-century concept of chiefly authority, which was what Henry Williams had in mind when he formulated the term tino rangatira for the text of the Treaty of Waitangi. This, of course, means that the tino rangatiratanga that the Treaty promised to protect is not the tino rangatiratanga that contemporary Maori seek to have delivered. But there is nothing extraordinary in that: cultures, all cultures that are alive, change over time, and their words change their meaning. The Maori culture of the twenty-first century is not Maori culture frozen at 1769, nor at 1840. Nor should it be. It changed and grew dynamically according to changing needs and circumstances prior to the eighteenth century, and it continues to do so in the twenty-first century.
Similarly, Pakeha culture continues to borrow and to learn from Maori. That was one of the features that made it different from its European cultures of origin. It took words and concepts (mana, tapu, whanau, taonga, haka, turangawaewae), attitudes (the tradition of hospitality which, in the early nineteenth century, was so much more visible from the Maori side of the frontier than the Pakeha), ways of doing business (an increasing willingness to talk issues through to consensus in preference to dividing groups ‘for’ and ‘against’ a given motion), and rites of passage (a loosening up of formerly formal and highly structured funeral services).
There is, as yet, no sign that the cultures will bring an end to such exchanges, just as there is no sign that, despite the exchanges, the different character and flavour of each culture will be diluted or disappear in the immediate future. William Herries, a future Minister of Native Affairs, told the New Zealand Parliament in 1903 that he looked forward ‘to the next hundred years or so, to the time when we shall have no Maoris at all but a white race with a dash of the finest coloured race in the world’. One hundred years on that vision is as far from fulfilment as at the time it was voiced. The bicultural reality remains a given, about which all New Zealanders need to be informed, and through which they will have to continue to negotiate – as national governments, as local governments, as community organisations and as individuals.
And most New Zealanders, whatever their cultural backgrounds, are good-hearted, practical, commonsensical and tolerant. Those qualities are part of the national cultural capital that has in the past saved the country from the worst excesses of chauvinism and racism seen in other parts of the world. They are as sound a basis as any for optimism about the country’s future.
Further Reading and Acknowledgements
For my generation of historians there have been two great mentor figures: Keith Sinclair and W.H. (Bill) Oliver. Both published major surveys of New Zealand history within a twelve-month period. Sinclair’s A History of New Zealand (1959), the Penguin predecessor of this present book, and Oliver’s The Story of New Zealand (1960) were such an advance on what had been written previously that they were rightly seen as being without precedent. The content, shape and respective styles of these books left an indelible imprint on the work of historians who followed them. Both men also left a mark on their colleagues and successors by virtue of their strong, albeit very different character and mannerisms.
More recently, however, the terrain of New Zealand history has been dominated by what could be seen as three substantial headlands: twin-peaked Mount Belich and a single Mount Oliver. James Belich’s volumes are Making Peoples (1996) and Paradise Reforged (2001); W. H. Oliver’s is The Oxford History of New Zealand (1981), which he edited with B. R. Williams. Geoffrey Rice has edited a second edition of the latter (1992). There is also the alpine range of five volumes of The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1990–2000), edited first by W. H. Oliver and subsequently by Claudia Orange. I am personally indebted to all these books. I commend to readers too Environmental Histories of New Zealand, edited by Tom Brooking and Eric Pawson (2002); The Oxford
Illustrated History of New Zealand (1990), edited by Keith Sinclair; and the Bateman New Zealand Historical Atlas (1997), edited by Malcolm McKinnon. Ranginui Walker’s Ka Whawhai Tonu Matou (1990) provides a specifically Maori perspective on the ground covered by all these books.
For the prehistorical period, the outstanding book is The Lost World of the Moa by Trevor Worthy and Richard Holdaway (2002). The Alfred Crosby book from which I quote is Ecological Imperialism (1986). Kerry Howe has written authoritatively on the genesis of Maori and Polynesian cultures in The Quest for Origins (2003). Janet Davidson’s The Prehistory of New Zealand (1984) is the standard book on pre-European Maori life. I have drawn on Sir George Grey’s Polynesian Mythology and Maori Legends (1995) for traditional material; and the deconstruction of Stephenson Percy Smith’s fabricated Maori legends can be found in David Simmons’s The Great New Zealand Myth (1976). How the Maoris Came to Aotearoa (1947) gives a pleasingly literate account of that myth, and by a Maori writer, Harry Dansey. Michael King’s Moriori: A People Rediscovered (1989) offers the full story of the indigenous settlers of the Chatham Islands.
Early Maori–European contacts have been most thoroughly and satisfyingly treated by Anne Salmond’s Two Worlds (1991), Between Worlds (1997) and The Trial of the Cannibal Dog (2003). I have drawn from all three books and greatly admire their breadth and depth. For new and important insights relating to Abel Tasman’s encounter with New Zealand I have to thank Grahame Anderson’s ground-breaking book The Merchant of the Zeehaen (2001). In writing about sealers and whalers, Salmond builds on earlier research by Rhys Richards, to which I am also indebted. Trevor Bentley has devoted a whole book to Pakeha Maori (1999).
The most comprehensive books on the inter-tribal fighting which occurred immediately before 1840 are Angela Ballara’s Taua (2003) and R. D. Crosby’s The Musket Wars (1999). The topic is also well covered in The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Military History (2000), edited by Ian McGibbon, as are New Zealand’s contributions to the South African, First and Second World Wars. James Belich’s The New Zealand Wars (1986) is still the standard volume on that topic, and his biography of Titokowaru, I Shall Not Die (1989), adds valuable perspectives to the Taranaki dimension of the wars. Judith Binney’s Redemption Songs (1995) is the definitive text on Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki and Ringatu. Hazel Riseborough’s Days of Darkness (2002) and Dick Scott’s Ask That Mountain (1975) document splendidly the Parihaka story. I have relied heavily on Ian Pool’s Te Iwi Maori (1991) for an understanding of Maori population figures in the nineteenth century.
The indispensable historical work for Treaty studies is Claudia Orange’s The Treaty of Waitangi (1987). Philip Temple’s A Sort of Conscience – The Wakefields (2002) will long be the authoritative account of this troubled family’s contribution to the European colonisation of New Zealand. Among the books helpful for an understanding of Pakeha New Zealand in the second half of the nineteenth century are Miles Fairburn’s The Ideal Society and Its Enemies (1989), R. C. J. Stone’s Makers of Fortune (1973) and Raewyn Dalziel’s Julius Vogel (1986). Judith Devaliant’s Kate Sheppard (1992) provides background to the campaign by which women in New Zealand won the vote.
For the period in which the Liberal Government was in office I am especially indebted to David Hamer’s The New Zealand Liberals (1988) and Tom Brooking’s fine biography of John McKenzie, Lands for the People (1996). Derek Dow’s Safeguarding the Public Health (1995) deals with health issues and the founding and subsequent history of the Department of Health. For the politics of the 1910s to the 1940s I have been grateful for Erik Olssen’s The Red Feds (1988), and a cluster of good biographies: Olssen’s John A. Lee (1977), Keith Sinclair’s Walter Nash (1976), Michael Bassett’s Sir Joseph Ward (1993) and Coates of Kaipara (1995), and Barry Gustafson’s on Savage, From the Cradle to the Grave (1986). Tony Simpson’s The Sugarbag Years (1974) is still by far the most evocative book on the effects of the Great Depression in New Zealand.
Ranginui Walker’s biography of Apirana Ngata, He Tipua (2001), and my own on Te Puea (2003) explore some of the Maori dimensions of national politics. For the later period, I have made use of Gustafson’s history of the National Party, The First 50 Years (1986), and his biography of Robert Muldoon, His Way (2000). Brian Easton’s The Nationbuilders (2001) provides vivid portraits of twentieth-century New Zealanders who have earned that designation.
The Pawson/Brooking Environmental Histories of New Zealand (2002), already mentioned, is essential reading for understanding this element of New Zealand’s past, and Ecological Imperialism (1986) by Alfred W. Crosby is helpful. Dorothy Campbell’s description of the Napier earthquake comes from Louise Lawrence’s (ed.) The Penguin Book of New Zealand Letters (2003). I found Colin James’s The Quiet Revolution (1986) and New Territory (1992) and Michael Bassett’s The State in New Zealand 1840–1984 (1998) useful for an understanding of the revolution that transformed New Zealand in the 1980s and early 1990s. Malcolm McKinnon’s Independence and Foreign Policy (1993) is a valuable survey of that topic.
Where relevant, of course, I have also drawn extensively from my own previous books on Maori, political, cultural and wider New Zealand history.
No subject is more collegial in its progress and processes than history. Over the years, the colleagues with whom I have had the most stimulating encounters, in conversation, literature, or listening to them lecture, include:
Ian Atkinson, Angela Ballara, Laurie Barber, Judith Binney, Edmund Bohan, Barbara Brookes, Tom Brooking, Christine Cole Catley, John Crawford, Raewyn Dalziel, Allan Davidson, Janet Davidson, Derek Dow, John Dunmore, Graeme Dunstall, Brian Easton, Miles Fairburn, Louise Furey, Ross Galbreath, Phyllis Gant, Jim Gardner, Peter Gibbons, Jeanine Graham, David Grant, Anna Green, Roger Green, Ray Grover, Barry Gustafson, David Hamer, Glyn Harper, Philip Hart, Manuka Henare, Richard Hill, Kerry Howe, Colin James, Hugh Laracy, Peter Lineham, Dennis McEldowney, Robert Mahuta, Buddy Mikaere, Doug Munro, W. H. Oliver, Erik Olssen, Claudia Orange, John Owens, Dot Page, Ann Parsonson, Jock Phillips, Chris Pugsley, Irihapeti Ramsden, Marjorie Rau-Kupa, Geoffrey Rice, Ray Richards, Rhys Richards, Anne Salmond, Dick Scott, Peter Simpson, Tony Simpson, Keith Sinclair, Maui Solomon, Keith Sorrenson, Russell Stone, Jane Tolerton, Buster Walden, Ranginui Walker, Alan Ward, Ian Wards and Lydia Wevers.
Ian Atkinson, Wilf Davis, Brian Easton, Louise Furey, Peter Gibbons, Claudia Orange, Anne Salmond, Malcolm Templeton and Richard Woods all offered specific advice for parts of this book, for which I am immensely grateful; and Ellen Ellis and Kathryn Parsons helped me locate source material. As always in these circumstances, it is the author who is responsible for the use made of this assistance and for any inaccuracies or bad judgements.
Creative New Zealand made a grant to support the research and writing of the book; and Professor Bryan Gould and the University of Waikato made time available to me to complete it.
Finally I thank Maria Jungowska for patient logistic and moral support, Geoff Walker of Penguin Books New Zealand for commissioning the book, and Rebecca Lal for endless attention to the details of production. And I thank Andrew Mason for deft and sensitive editing of the text.
Governments of New Zealand since the granting of responsible self-government
Bell–Sewell Ministry, 1856 (Premier Henry Sewell)
Fox Ministry, 1856 (Premier William Fox)
Stafford Ministry 1856–61 (Premier Edwrd Stafford)
Fox Ministry, 1861–62 (Premier William Fox)
Domett Ministry, 1862–63 (Premier Alfred Domett)
Whitaker–Fox Ministry, 1863–64 (Premier Frederick Whitaker)
Weld Ministry, 1864–65 (Premier Frederick Weld)
Stafford Ministry, 1865–69 (Premier Edward Stafford)
Fox Ministry, 1869–72 (Premier William Fox)
Stafford Ministry, 1872 (Premier Edward Stafford)
Waterhouse Ministry, 1872–73 (Premier George Waterhouse)
Fox Ministry, 1873 (Premier William Fox)
Vogel Ministry, 1873–75 (Premier Julius Vogel)
Pollen Ministry, 1875–76 (Premier Daniel Pollen)
Vogel Ministry, 1876 (Premier Sir Julius Vogel)
Atkinson Ministry, 1876 (Premier Harry Atkinson)
Atkinson Ministry, 1876–77 (Premier Harry Atkinson)
Grey Ministry, 1877–79 (Premier Sir George Grey)
Hall Ministry, 1879–1882 (Premier John Hall)
Whitaker Ministry, 1882–83 (Premier Frederick Whitaker)
Atkinson Ministry, 1883–84 (Premier Harry Atkinson)
Stout–Vogel Ministry, 1884 (Premier Robert Stout)
Atkinson Ministry, 1884 (Premier Harry Atkinson)
Stout–Vogel Ministry, 1884–87 (Premier Sir Robert Stout)
Atkinson Ministry, 1887–91 (Premier Sir Harry Atkinson)
Liberal Government, Ballance Ministry, 1891–93 (Premier John Ballance)
Liberal Government, Seddon Ministry, 1893–1906 (Premier and [from 1902] Prime Minister Richard Seddon)
Liberal Government, Hall–Jones Ministry, 1906 (Prime Minister William Hall–Jones)
Liberal Government, Ward Ministry, 1906–12 (Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward)
Liberal Government, Mackenzie Ministry, 1912 (Prime Minister Thomas Mackenzie)
Reform Government, Massey Ministry, 1912–15 (Prime Minister William Massey)
National Ministry, 1915–19 (Prime Minister William Massey)
Reform Government, Massey Ministry, 1919–25 (Prime Minister William Massey)
Reform Government, Bell Ministry, 1925 (Prime Minister Sir Francis Dillon Bell)
Reform Government, Coates Ministry, 1925–28 (Prime Minister Gordon Coates)