Post by Kiwi Frontline on Dec 12, 2017 4:37:33 GMT 12
SIR WILLIAM AND THE WAIKATO TIMES
The experts who last week sought to “deconstruct” comments on the Treaty of Waitangi by Hamilton businessman Sir William Gallagher could face a bit of deconstructing themselves.
The fencing manufacturer caused a stir during a speech to Waikato businesspeople on Friday night, November 24, and was reported to have said that there was no doubt Maori ceded sovereignty, and criticised “reparations, among other things.
In reaction, University of Auckland professor Dame Anne Salmond called the views “unbalanced”, and pointed to “the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi” that “shows Maori did not cede sovereignty, but instead agreed to a gift exchange: kawanatanga for tino rangatiratanga”.
Kawanatanga / rangatiratanga
“Kawanatanga” and “tino rangatiratanga” were of no relevance to me until I started researching The First Colonist, which is a book about my great grandfather who arrived in Wellington two weeks before the treaty was signed. The 19th century letters, newspapers and debates show that today’s treaty dogma differs vastly from the treaty as negotiated in the context of its time.
The treaty was drafted in English and translated into Maori. “Sovereignty” in the first article of the English text was translated into “kawanatanga” in the Maori. “Ownership” in Article 2 of the English was translated into “rangatiratanga”.
Dame Anne’s alleged exchange of “kawanatanga for tino rangatiratanga”, is based on a back-translation from the Maori text Te Tiriti into English done in the 1980s by the late Sir Hugh Kawharu, a Waitangi Tribunal member.
Sir Hugh asserted that Maori signatories would not understand "kawanatanga" as "sovereignty", and said that "tino rangatiratanga" meant "unqualified exercise" of chieftainship”.
Sir Hugh ignored missionary William Colenso’s account of the treaty debate, available online here www.waitangi.org.nz/dl/William-Colenso-Account-Dramatised.pdf , which showed that chiefs understood that signing the treaty meant accepting a chief over them. Sir Hugh ignored any source document that Te Tiriti was translated from.
By changing the meanings of two key words, the Treaty became a deal in which the signatory chiefs agreed to settlers having a governor to keep settlers in line while the chiefs could carry on being chiefs. The implication is that if the chiefs were not allowed to carry on being chiefs, waging war at will, that would be a breach of the treaty requiring compensation.
Therefore, if “kawanatanga” translated “sovereignty” in Article 1 and “rangatiratanga” translated “ownership” in Article 2, Dame Anne’s utterance that “the chiefs were granted tino rangatiratanga too, and those are the absolute powers of a chief”, is simply nonsense.......
Continue reading Mike Butler’s informative article here > breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/mike-butler-sir-william-and-waikato.html
The experts who last week sought to “deconstruct” comments on the Treaty of Waitangi by Hamilton businessman Sir William Gallagher could face a bit of deconstructing themselves.
The fencing manufacturer caused a stir during a speech to Waikato businesspeople on Friday night, November 24, and was reported to have said that there was no doubt Maori ceded sovereignty, and criticised “reparations, among other things.
In reaction, University of Auckland professor Dame Anne Salmond called the views “unbalanced”, and pointed to “the Maori version of the Treaty of Waitangi” that “shows Maori did not cede sovereignty, but instead agreed to a gift exchange: kawanatanga for tino rangatiratanga”.
Kawanatanga / rangatiratanga
“Kawanatanga” and “tino rangatiratanga” were of no relevance to me until I started researching The First Colonist, which is a book about my great grandfather who arrived in Wellington two weeks before the treaty was signed. The 19th century letters, newspapers and debates show that today’s treaty dogma differs vastly from the treaty as negotiated in the context of its time.
The treaty was drafted in English and translated into Maori. “Sovereignty” in the first article of the English text was translated into “kawanatanga” in the Maori. “Ownership” in Article 2 of the English was translated into “rangatiratanga”.
Dame Anne’s alleged exchange of “kawanatanga for tino rangatiratanga”, is based on a back-translation from the Maori text Te Tiriti into English done in the 1980s by the late Sir Hugh Kawharu, a Waitangi Tribunal member.
Sir Hugh asserted that Maori signatories would not understand "kawanatanga" as "sovereignty", and said that "tino rangatiratanga" meant "unqualified exercise" of chieftainship”.
Sir Hugh ignored missionary William Colenso’s account of the treaty debate, available online here www.waitangi.org.nz/dl/William-Colenso-Account-Dramatised.pdf , which showed that chiefs understood that signing the treaty meant accepting a chief over them. Sir Hugh ignored any source document that Te Tiriti was translated from.
By changing the meanings of two key words, the Treaty became a deal in which the signatory chiefs agreed to settlers having a governor to keep settlers in line while the chiefs could carry on being chiefs. The implication is that if the chiefs were not allowed to carry on being chiefs, waging war at will, that would be a breach of the treaty requiring compensation.
Therefore, if “kawanatanga” translated “sovereignty” in Article 1 and “rangatiratanga” translated “ownership” in Article 2, Dame Anne’s utterance that “the chiefs were granted tino rangatiratanga too, and those are the absolute powers of a chief”, is simply nonsense.......
Continue reading Mike Butler’s informative article here > breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/mike-butler-sir-william-and-waikato.html