Post by Kiwi Frontline on Jan 28, 2021 14:09:42 GMT 12
Northland Age 28/1/21
GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA
It is most helpful that Network Waitangi (letters, Northern Advocate Jan 18) has confirmed that the group that says that the Treaty of Waitangi was an agreement that chiefs both ceded and didn’t cede sovereignty started as a Government propaganda project.
Network Waitangi may have forgotten that the Maori language treaty which 512 chiefs signed was first drafted in English then translated into Maori. Both these drafts (English & Maori) were read to the chiefs and others assembled at Waitangi on February 5th 1840.
The English treaty text that Network Waitangi refers to is a document signed by 39 chiefs at Port Waikato/Manukau Heads in April 1840. Blobs of sealing wax and pinholes show that the English text signed there was probably attached to a Maori text and used to record signatures that would not fit on the Maori text.
The Port Waikato/Manukau Heads English text indisputably was not used at Waitangi. Some background helps sheds light on the sovereignty argument.
Around the time that the Government set up Project Waitangi, an academic asserted that chiefs may have understood “kawanatanga”, which translated “sovereignty”, in Article 1 as “governorship”, and “rangatiratanga”, that translated “ownership” or “possession”, as “chiefly authority”. So, a nonsensical treaty was created in which Article 1 ceded sovereignty and Article 2 said chiefs retained it.
Network Waitangi say they are not a Maori separatist organisation. Please forgive me for thinking that they were, especially when they openly promote dual or parallel exercise of power and governance.
GEOFF PARKER, Kamo
www.kiwifrontline.nz/media/letters-to-the-editor
GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA
It is most helpful that Network Waitangi (letters, Northern Advocate Jan 18) has confirmed that the group that says that the Treaty of Waitangi was an agreement that chiefs both ceded and didn’t cede sovereignty started as a Government propaganda project.
Network Waitangi may have forgotten that the Maori language treaty which 512 chiefs signed was first drafted in English then translated into Maori. Both these drafts (English & Maori) were read to the chiefs and others assembled at Waitangi on February 5th 1840.
The English treaty text that Network Waitangi refers to is a document signed by 39 chiefs at Port Waikato/Manukau Heads in April 1840. Blobs of sealing wax and pinholes show that the English text signed there was probably attached to a Maori text and used to record signatures that would not fit on the Maori text.
The Port Waikato/Manukau Heads English text indisputably was not used at Waitangi. Some background helps sheds light on the sovereignty argument.
Around the time that the Government set up Project Waitangi, an academic asserted that chiefs may have understood “kawanatanga”, which translated “sovereignty”, in Article 1 as “governorship”, and “rangatiratanga”, that translated “ownership” or “possession”, as “chiefly authority”. So, a nonsensical treaty was created in which Article 1 ceded sovereignty and Article 2 said chiefs retained it.
Network Waitangi say they are not a Maori separatist organisation. Please forgive me for thinking that they were, especially when they openly promote dual or parallel exercise of power and governance.
GEOFF PARKER, Kamo
www.kiwifrontline.nz/media/letters-to-the-editor