Post by Kiwi Frontline on Oct 22, 2018 10:11:02 GMT 12
TREATY, MAORI LANGUAGE & CULTURE
“With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori (including the chiefs) became not ‘partners’ but subjects of the Crown. And at that point, the language and culture of the public square became the English language and Western post-Enlightenment culture brought by the settlers.”
When Europeans came to these shores they found various raggedy-assed bands of subhuman cannibal savages existing in a Hobbesian state of nature with one another, in which “every man’s hand was against every other man’s,” "no man was secure in his life or in his property" and "life was nasty, brutish and short."
There was no such thing as a collective "Maori" or a nation state. Since some 512 chiefs signed the TOW and a substantial minority refused to, there were probably around 600 of these individually insignificant groups.
In the absence of a universally acknowledged civil government and laws to provide for land ownership, in 1840, the various tribes owned NOTHING. They simply used or occupied it until a stronger bunch of bullyboys came along and took it off them. The only universally acknowledged system of laws was "te rau o te patu" [the law of the club] aka "might makes right."
Throughout the 1830s, various Maori chiefs were begging the Crown to intervene in New Zealand.
It seems clear that in the lead-up to the signing of the Treaty, most chiefs had come to view British sovereignty and its associated rule of law as the only way to put a conclusive end to the Musket Wars that had ravaged the land for almost two decades prior to 1840.
With the coming of the musket, the various tribes possessed for the first time weapons of mass extermination with which to be revenged upon traditional enemies. The farsighted came to see that only outside intervention could arrest this ever-escalating cycle of inter-tribal violence.
Ngapuhi had been the first tribe to obtain muskets after Hongi Hika returned from England in 1821 with a large quantity of firearms, powder and shot. These weapons were used by Ngapuhi to overrun much of the North Island in the first of the Musket Wars.
A destructive arms race ensued. Thousands of Maori were killed as other tribes acquired European weapons of their own to wage war on immediate neighbours and further afield. The Lyttelton Times of 4 September 1861 retrospectively reported that as a result, “Whole districts were depopulated, and large and powerful tribes driven from their ancestral lands.”
Tribes fleeing from Ngapuhi began pressing upon their neighbours all the way down the North Island. “[W]ar spread from tribe to tribe, till the whole North Island became one scene of bloodshed and massacre.” In 1824, this carnage reached the South Island, after Te Rauparaha, having obtained a large supply of guns and ammunition, crossed Cook Straight to attack Ngai Tahu.
These inter-tribal conflicts also led to significant indirect loss of life. Thousands of Maori died of recently introduced respiratory ailments after moving down from their well-ventilated hilltop pas to low-lying, miasmic swampland to cut flax to trade for guns. But by far the greatest killer was mass-scale starvation.
For pre-European Maori, fighting was a ritualised pursuit traditionally taking place once the kumara crop had been harvested. After the onset of the Musket Wars, fighting became a year-round activity, because many tribes no longer bothered to cultivate, thinking instead to conquer their neighbours and take their food.
Since everyone else was operating on the same assumptions, thousands starved to death if they weren’t killed and eaten first by hungry war parties. As an indication of how scarce grown or gathered foodstuffs were at that time, the Lyttelton Times reported that: “Hongi [Hika] and his party, in returning home [to Northland] through the districts they had overrun, were compelled to live almost entirely on human flesh.”
The Maori population in 1840 is today believed to have numbered around 100, 000. By various estimates, the Musket Wars had led directly or indirectly to some 60, 000 – 100, 000 deaths over the period 1821 – 1838, after which the bloodshed tapered off because every tribe now had guns.
Maori culture’s ongoing requirement to extract utu (payback) from enemies meant this uneasy balance of power would always rest on a knife-edge, and a number of commentators have suggested that only by signing the Treaty did Maori avert their complete self-destruction as a race.
The words of the chiefs themselves display a full awareness that their acceptance of Governor Hobson would place him in authority over them, and that behind Hobson stood Queen Victoria. Eyewitness accounts of the pre-Treaty debates make it clear that none of the chiefs who signed it thought they were going into “partnership” with the Crown. Those who spoke up for Hobson also leave no doubt that they expected British sovereignty to bring lasting peace to the land.
Maori accepted the Treaty of Waitangi because the Maori way wasn’t working. Out: intertribal warfare, murder, cannibalism, revenge killing, female infanticide, and slavery. In: a settled form of civil government, the rule of law, private property rights, democratically elected limited government, individual rights and freedoms, religious tolerance and pluralism, science, literature, technology, schools and hospitals, houses that didn’t leak. Flush toilets and indoor plumbing, baths.
Their nasty-ass whakapapa even got toilet paper and soap.
Quite a good deal, most would agree.
With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori (including the chiefs) became not “partners” but subjects of the Crown. And at that point, the language and culture of the public square became the English language and Western post-Enlightenment culture brought by the settlers.
Starting with [but not limited to] Maori language and culture, all subcultural associations – expressed within the law – became private matters for those concerned.
“Do it in your own time and on your own dime” would sum it up.
It never ceases to amaze me why any part-Maori alive today would choose to accentuate the primitive over elevating the oivilised.
By Peter Hemmingson
“With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori (including the chiefs) became not ‘partners’ but subjects of the Crown. And at that point, the language and culture of the public square became the English language and Western post-Enlightenment culture brought by the settlers.”
When Europeans came to these shores they found various raggedy-assed bands of subhuman cannibal savages existing in a Hobbesian state of nature with one another, in which “every man’s hand was against every other man’s,” "no man was secure in his life or in his property" and "life was nasty, brutish and short."
There was no such thing as a collective "Maori" or a nation state. Since some 512 chiefs signed the TOW and a substantial minority refused to, there were probably around 600 of these individually insignificant groups.
In the absence of a universally acknowledged civil government and laws to provide for land ownership, in 1840, the various tribes owned NOTHING. They simply used or occupied it until a stronger bunch of bullyboys came along and took it off them. The only universally acknowledged system of laws was "te rau o te patu" [the law of the club] aka "might makes right."
Throughout the 1830s, various Maori chiefs were begging the Crown to intervene in New Zealand.
It seems clear that in the lead-up to the signing of the Treaty, most chiefs had come to view British sovereignty and its associated rule of law as the only way to put a conclusive end to the Musket Wars that had ravaged the land for almost two decades prior to 1840.
With the coming of the musket, the various tribes possessed for the first time weapons of mass extermination with which to be revenged upon traditional enemies. The farsighted came to see that only outside intervention could arrest this ever-escalating cycle of inter-tribal violence.
Ngapuhi had been the first tribe to obtain muskets after Hongi Hika returned from England in 1821 with a large quantity of firearms, powder and shot. These weapons were used by Ngapuhi to overrun much of the North Island in the first of the Musket Wars.
A destructive arms race ensued. Thousands of Maori were killed as other tribes acquired European weapons of their own to wage war on immediate neighbours and further afield. The Lyttelton Times of 4 September 1861 retrospectively reported that as a result, “Whole districts were depopulated, and large and powerful tribes driven from their ancestral lands.”
Tribes fleeing from Ngapuhi began pressing upon their neighbours all the way down the North Island. “[W]ar spread from tribe to tribe, till the whole North Island became one scene of bloodshed and massacre.” In 1824, this carnage reached the South Island, after Te Rauparaha, having obtained a large supply of guns and ammunition, crossed Cook Straight to attack Ngai Tahu.
These inter-tribal conflicts also led to significant indirect loss of life. Thousands of Maori died of recently introduced respiratory ailments after moving down from their well-ventilated hilltop pas to low-lying, miasmic swampland to cut flax to trade for guns. But by far the greatest killer was mass-scale starvation.
For pre-European Maori, fighting was a ritualised pursuit traditionally taking place once the kumara crop had been harvested. After the onset of the Musket Wars, fighting became a year-round activity, because many tribes no longer bothered to cultivate, thinking instead to conquer their neighbours and take their food.
Since everyone else was operating on the same assumptions, thousands starved to death if they weren’t killed and eaten first by hungry war parties. As an indication of how scarce grown or gathered foodstuffs were at that time, the Lyttelton Times reported that: “Hongi [Hika] and his party, in returning home [to Northland] through the districts they had overrun, were compelled to live almost entirely on human flesh.”
The Maori population in 1840 is today believed to have numbered around 100, 000. By various estimates, the Musket Wars had led directly or indirectly to some 60, 000 – 100, 000 deaths over the period 1821 – 1838, after which the bloodshed tapered off because every tribe now had guns.
Maori culture’s ongoing requirement to extract utu (payback) from enemies meant this uneasy balance of power would always rest on a knife-edge, and a number of commentators have suggested that only by signing the Treaty did Maori avert their complete self-destruction as a race.
The words of the chiefs themselves display a full awareness that their acceptance of Governor Hobson would place him in authority over them, and that behind Hobson stood Queen Victoria. Eyewitness accounts of the pre-Treaty debates make it clear that none of the chiefs who signed it thought they were going into “partnership” with the Crown. Those who spoke up for Hobson also leave no doubt that they expected British sovereignty to bring lasting peace to the land.
Maori accepted the Treaty of Waitangi because the Maori way wasn’t working. Out: intertribal warfare, murder, cannibalism, revenge killing, female infanticide, and slavery. In: a settled form of civil government, the rule of law, private property rights, democratically elected limited government, individual rights and freedoms, religious tolerance and pluralism, science, literature, technology, schools and hospitals, houses that didn’t leak. Flush toilets and indoor plumbing, baths.
Their nasty-ass whakapapa even got toilet paper and soap.
Quite a good deal, most would agree.
With the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori (including the chiefs) became not “partners” but subjects of the Crown. And at that point, the language and culture of the public square became the English language and Western post-Enlightenment culture brought by the settlers.
Starting with [but not limited to] Maori language and culture, all subcultural associations – expressed within the law – became private matters for those concerned.
“Do it in your own time and on your own dime” would sum it up.
It never ceases to amaze me why any part-Maori alive today would choose to accentuate the primitive over elevating the oivilised.
By Peter Hemmingson