Post by Kiwi Frontline on May 31, 2016 10:20:56 GMT 12
NZ Herald 31/5/16
PRE-EUROPEAN MAORI LIFE
Alan Duff’s picture of ancestral Maori ways is closer to the reality than the rosetinted view of Anne Salmond in her quotes of newcomers who looked at Maori family life and saw healthy, happy people.
It is impossible to fit all the many reports of the very opposite in a letter, but here is one by early settler and writer Polack during his residence in New Zealand between 1831 and 1837.
“On taxing some females with having committed infanticide, they laughed heartily at the serious manner in which I put the question. They told me the poor infants did not know or care much about it. One young woman, who had recently destroyed a female infant, said that she wished her mother had done the same to her, when she was young; ‘For why should my infant live?’, she added, ‘to dig the ground, to be a slave to the wives of her husband, to be beaten by them and trodden under foot. No. Can a woman here protect herself, as among the white people?’”
JOHN ROBINSON,
Wellington.
Wanganui Chronicle 31/5/16
OFF TOPIC
H Norton (Letters, May 26) has written a highlv personal note. referring to me by name twice, where he claims that my "followers' opinions are ill-based, anti-Maori rants" and that my books "are repetitious with the one theme — that the `Treaty of Waitangi does not have any principles'." The other authors of Twisting the Treaty would hardly agree that they are in any way my "followers"; each speaks for himself. And my letter (May 15) made no reference at all to possible Treaty principles. That one point is not the topic of what I have written, there or in several books.
But he asks for my opinion, so here it is in a nutshell. The accepted text of the Treaty of Waitangi is in Maori, and the proper translations are those made at the time, before a century and more had passed and words were claimed to have taken on new meanings. It said very clearly that sovereignty of the country was with Britain and that all New Zealanders were equal, all having the rights and responsibilities of British citizens. This is a statement of equality, of one people, never of division into two race-based groups which might then act in partnership. That's it.
Rather than joining an endless debate on newly minted word meanings, or on the curious idea of an essence encompassing a principle of the Treaty, I have chosen to write of the real history of our nation, including the fantastic contributions of Tamati Waka Nene and Apirana Ngata.
JOHN ROBINSON
Wellington
Northland Age 31/5/16
DERIVATION AND MEANING
There must be few words in any language whose meaning has been distorted as much as
rangatiratanga. It was a word coined by the missionaries, clearly derived from rangatira (rungateeda in 1817), the Maori word for the lowest level of chieftainship, with the suffix tanga', in English 'ship' in the sense of 'having the quality of,' e.g. friendship.
However that is far from the whole story, because derivation is not the same as meaning. Thus, English 'gangway is clearly derived from Norwegian Vangvei ' but that means footpath. Again, the Bislama word 'hagarap', whose derivation is obvious, simply means broken. Even Durie, sometime chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal, observed that "there is, then, no single definition of tino rangatiratanga, and little comfort can be derived from linguistic origins".
When the Williams, father and son, needed a Maori word to mean possession' in translating the Treaty of Waitangi on the night of February 4-5, 1840, they had a quandary since the concept was vague in Maori culture. Indeed, in 1822 Hongi had defined 'taonga' as "property procured by the spear;' that is, taken from other people by force, showing that the idea of enduring ownership was non-existent. Thus the Williams chose 'tino rangatiratanga' and this was affirmed, be it noted, to "tangata katoa o Nu Tireni" — all the people of New Zealand.
In strongly hierarchical Maori society, anybody less than a rangatira had few possessions. Slaves, most living in abject conditions, very rarely had any at all but could be a handy source of protein if the fishing had been bad.
Well tino rangatiratanga served its purpose in the treaty, but that was about it. Indeed, as Phil Parkinson has noted, tino rangatira never became common usage, "a single late and remarkable exception" being its use by some Rotorua residents in addressing Queen Victoria. Parkinson continues, "That the Queen herself could be addressed as 'the tino rangatira' by Maori tends to show that activist appropriation of the term [since) rests on unstable ground." Dug out of its grave, in one prize example, tino rangatiratanga became Kawharu's" unqualified exercise of their chieftainship". And now we have our Angela Herbert-Graves Northland Age, May 24) boring in with "Our concept of power was known as mana (and much later in the 19th Century as rangatiratanga)". Both show blatant contempt for history, usage and meaning which is no more than political propaganda of a low order. She quotes others of her ilk —John Rangihau, with "rangatiratanga was people-bestowed," and Manuhuia Bennett, who allegedly described "rangatiratanga in a way that sums up its constitutional and cultural parameters". What nonsense!
Herbert-Graves waffles on with "from the earliest days of colonisation we have endeavoured to assert and maintain the essential constitutionality of our relationship with the Crown etc. etc." Well I have news for her. By the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori, including slaves, became subjects of the Queen. That was, and technically still is "the essential constitutionality of [their) relationship with the Crown," albeit they are citizens of New Zealand like the rest of us. That Englishman, Shakespeare, got these people's story right: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
ANOTHER BRIBE
“Te Awa Tupu a Bill passed first reading”. Here we go again with this National government to give Wanganui iwi $80 million to give a river its legal identity with the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. What a pathetic load of crap.
John Key has said that no one owns the rivers but is paying local iwi to look after it. Where is the $80 million for the rest of us people who can look after the river as well? The rest of us have just the same respect for the waters.
When the 14 Wanganui (without the 'h') chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in Wanganui in 1840 there was no mention of rivers, lakes, seabed or foreshore. Once it was signed these were the property of the Crown, held in 'trust' for all the people of New Zealand.
Since government hold waterways in trust for the public they cannot sell or give away to private ownership or control.
Maori today have inter-married of their own free will with other races, and therefore are no longer the group of people that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. Maori today are New Zealand citizens that claim varying degrees of Maori ancestry, as one sees in the continuing amended legislation since 1865, as Maori ancestry become further and further diluted. This payout is another bribe to get votes. It is another thief from the public purse.
I B
Wanganui
AN ENDLESS LECTURE
It was a pleasure to read Joe Car's article on 'Powering up the Maori economy', as laid out in the recent regional economic development hui at the Turner Centre. It is good to read of the initiatives taken by people like Pita Tipene, Rangimarie Price, and their determination to use their huge natural resources for the betterment of their people.
Unfortunately, and sadly, missing in this report was any mention of Ngati Kahu, and I can only assume they were not part of this hui.
Judging by Anahera Herbert-Graves' recent articles, the path this runanga has taken has become increasingly academic, and is simply leading them further into Never-Never Land.
This reluctance to engage with other bodies and become part of the wider Northland economy must concern many people in this iwi. Most of us, Maori and Pakeha, want practical answers to today's problems, not an endless lecture.
B P
Tokerau Beach
PRE-EUROPEAN MAORI LIFE
Alan Duff’s picture of ancestral Maori ways is closer to the reality than the rosetinted view of Anne Salmond in her quotes of newcomers who looked at Maori family life and saw healthy, happy people.
It is impossible to fit all the many reports of the very opposite in a letter, but here is one by early settler and writer Polack during his residence in New Zealand between 1831 and 1837.
“On taxing some females with having committed infanticide, they laughed heartily at the serious manner in which I put the question. They told me the poor infants did not know or care much about it. One young woman, who had recently destroyed a female infant, said that she wished her mother had done the same to her, when she was young; ‘For why should my infant live?’, she added, ‘to dig the ground, to be a slave to the wives of her husband, to be beaten by them and trodden under foot. No. Can a woman here protect herself, as among the white people?’”
JOHN ROBINSON,
Wellington.
Wanganui Chronicle 31/5/16
OFF TOPIC
H Norton (Letters, May 26) has written a highlv personal note. referring to me by name twice, where he claims that my "followers' opinions are ill-based, anti-Maori rants" and that my books "are repetitious with the one theme — that the `Treaty of Waitangi does not have any principles'." The other authors of Twisting the Treaty would hardly agree that they are in any way my "followers"; each speaks for himself. And my letter (May 15) made no reference at all to possible Treaty principles. That one point is not the topic of what I have written, there or in several books.
But he asks for my opinion, so here it is in a nutshell. The accepted text of the Treaty of Waitangi is in Maori, and the proper translations are those made at the time, before a century and more had passed and words were claimed to have taken on new meanings. It said very clearly that sovereignty of the country was with Britain and that all New Zealanders were equal, all having the rights and responsibilities of British citizens. This is a statement of equality, of one people, never of division into two race-based groups which might then act in partnership. That's it.
Rather than joining an endless debate on newly minted word meanings, or on the curious idea of an essence encompassing a principle of the Treaty, I have chosen to write of the real history of our nation, including the fantastic contributions of Tamati Waka Nene and Apirana Ngata.
JOHN ROBINSON
Wellington
Northland Age 31/5/16
DERIVATION AND MEANING
There must be few words in any language whose meaning has been distorted as much as
rangatiratanga. It was a word coined by the missionaries, clearly derived from rangatira (rungateeda in 1817), the Maori word for the lowest level of chieftainship, with the suffix tanga', in English 'ship' in the sense of 'having the quality of,' e.g. friendship.
However that is far from the whole story, because derivation is not the same as meaning. Thus, English 'gangway is clearly derived from Norwegian Vangvei ' but that means footpath. Again, the Bislama word 'hagarap', whose derivation is obvious, simply means broken. Even Durie, sometime chairman of the Waitangi Tribunal, observed that "there is, then, no single definition of tino rangatiratanga, and little comfort can be derived from linguistic origins".
When the Williams, father and son, needed a Maori word to mean possession' in translating the Treaty of Waitangi on the night of February 4-5, 1840, they had a quandary since the concept was vague in Maori culture. Indeed, in 1822 Hongi had defined 'taonga' as "property procured by the spear;' that is, taken from other people by force, showing that the idea of enduring ownership was non-existent. Thus the Williams chose 'tino rangatiratanga' and this was affirmed, be it noted, to "tangata katoa o Nu Tireni" — all the people of New Zealand.
In strongly hierarchical Maori society, anybody less than a rangatira had few possessions. Slaves, most living in abject conditions, very rarely had any at all but could be a handy source of protein if the fishing had been bad.
Well tino rangatiratanga served its purpose in the treaty, but that was about it. Indeed, as Phil Parkinson has noted, tino rangatira never became common usage, "a single late and remarkable exception" being its use by some Rotorua residents in addressing Queen Victoria. Parkinson continues, "That the Queen herself could be addressed as 'the tino rangatira' by Maori tends to show that activist appropriation of the term [since) rests on unstable ground." Dug out of its grave, in one prize example, tino rangatiratanga became Kawharu's" unqualified exercise of their chieftainship". And now we have our Angela Herbert-Graves Northland Age, May 24) boring in with "Our concept of power was known as mana (and much later in the 19th Century as rangatiratanga)". Both show blatant contempt for history, usage and meaning which is no more than political propaganda of a low order. She quotes others of her ilk —John Rangihau, with "rangatiratanga was people-bestowed," and Manuhuia Bennett, who allegedly described "rangatiratanga in a way that sums up its constitutional and cultural parameters". What nonsense!
Herbert-Graves waffles on with "from the earliest days of colonisation we have endeavoured to assert and maintain the essential constitutionality of our relationship with the Crown etc. etc." Well I have news for her. By the Treaty of Waitangi, all Maori, including slaves, became subjects of the Queen. That was, and technically still is "the essential constitutionality of [their) relationship with the Crown," albeit they are citizens of New Zealand like the rest of us. That Englishman, Shakespeare, got these people's story right: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
BRUCE MOON
Nelson
ANOTHER BRIBE
“Te Awa Tupu a Bill passed first reading”. Here we go again with this National government to give Wanganui iwi $80 million to give a river its legal identity with the corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a legal person. What a pathetic load of crap.
John Key has said that no one owns the rivers but is paying local iwi to look after it. Where is the $80 million for the rest of us people who can look after the river as well? The rest of us have just the same respect for the waters.
When the 14 Wanganui (without the 'h') chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi in Wanganui in 1840 there was no mention of rivers, lakes, seabed or foreshore. Once it was signed these were the property of the Crown, held in 'trust' for all the people of New Zealand.
Since government hold waterways in trust for the public they cannot sell or give away to private ownership or control.
Maori today have inter-married of their own free will with other races, and therefore are no longer the group of people that signed the Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840. Maori today are New Zealand citizens that claim varying degrees of Maori ancestry, as one sees in the continuing amended legislation since 1865, as Maori ancestry become further and further diluted. This payout is another bribe to get votes. It is another thief from the public purse.
I B
Wanganui
AN ENDLESS LECTURE
It was a pleasure to read Joe Car's article on 'Powering up the Maori economy', as laid out in the recent regional economic development hui at the Turner Centre. It is good to read of the initiatives taken by people like Pita Tipene, Rangimarie Price, and their determination to use their huge natural resources for the betterment of their people.
Unfortunately, and sadly, missing in this report was any mention of Ngati Kahu, and I can only assume they were not part of this hui.
Judging by Anahera Herbert-Graves' recent articles, the path this runanga has taken has become increasingly academic, and is simply leading them further into Never-Never Land.
This reluctance to engage with other bodies and become part of the wider Northland economy must concern many people in this iwi. Most of us, Maori and Pakeha, want practical answers to today's problems, not an endless lecture.
B P
Tokerau Beach