Post by Kiwi Frontline on Oct 11, 2017 17:41:50 GMT 12
REVISING NEW ZEALAND HISTORY 10: CULTURAL CHANGE AMONG MAORI CHIEFS 1
Two very different cultures
Early Maori culture was tribal and primitive. Then in the late eighteenth century developed European people came, bringing the advances of millennia of Eurasian development. I have written of this in When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience (2012).
An extraordinary cultural shift followed. However, there was no uniformity in Maori thinking. Some led the changes and some resisted, while many vacillated between the two cultures, not sure of which way to go.
Here the lives of a number of influential chiefs are outlined, to show how the times were changing and how individual personalities helped to define the story of the new country.
A cultural revolution for all Maori
Although the focus here is on chiefs, it is important to recognise that all Maori participated in the extraordinary cultural revolution, which was largely informed by missionaries and then carried out by Maori themselves.
The changes were well under way before the Treaty of Waitangi. The new British administration certainly lacked the resources to control and monitor the considerable changes that took place within Maori society. Maori were in charge.
There was a remarkable change as commoners (and, we must not forget, slaves) moved from their old tikanga (culture) to Christianity. Steadily Maori came to regard all people with respect, and there was an end to attacks on other tribes with the associated killing, cannibalism and slavery.
Maori Christians were responsible for the freeing and resettling of slaves, as from Northland back to Kapiti in 1839 and from Waikato back to Taranaki in 1842.......
Continue reading Dr John Robinson’s # 10 series published in the ‘Kapiti Independent’ here > kapitiindependentnews.net.nz/new-zealand-history/
Two very different cultures
Early Maori culture was tribal and primitive. Then in the late eighteenth century developed European people came, bringing the advances of millennia of Eurasian development. I have written of this in When two cultures meet, the New Zealand experience (2012).
An extraordinary cultural shift followed. However, there was no uniformity in Maori thinking. Some led the changes and some resisted, while many vacillated between the two cultures, not sure of which way to go.
Here the lives of a number of influential chiefs are outlined, to show how the times were changing and how individual personalities helped to define the story of the new country.
A cultural revolution for all Maori
Although the focus here is on chiefs, it is important to recognise that all Maori participated in the extraordinary cultural revolution, which was largely informed by missionaries and then carried out by Maori themselves.
The changes were well under way before the Treaty of Waitangi. The new British administration certainly lacked the resources to control and monitor the considerable changes that took place within Maori society. Maori were in charge.
There was a remarkable change as commoners (and, we must not forget, slaves) moved from their old tikanga (culture) to Christianity. Steadily Maori came to regard all people with respect, and there was an end to attacks on other tribes with the associated killing, cannibalism and slavery.
Maori Christians were responsible for the freeing and resettling of slaves, as from Northland back to Kapiti in 1839 and from Waikato back to Taranaki in 1842.......
Continue reading Dr John Robinson’s # 10 series published in the ‘Kapiti Independent’ here > kapitiindependentnews.net.nz/new-zealand-history/