A nice sunny Maori day… Part I

06/03/09

We have a breakfast of mingled cereal…
This is fun – we bought a pack of tiny ‘Sanatorium’ boxes like the Kellogs multipacks you can get, and had most of them between us! I particularly like the ‘Skippy’ cornflakes with a kangaroo on the front, and the mueslis… Plus the fact that it sounds decidedly as if it ought to be cereal for crazy people…
Perfect!
:D

Luckily, the rain has all but stopped, leaving the place a little damp but shaping up to be quite pleasant and bright (how English, sharing the weather!) as we head off towards Waitangi and the Treaty House.
We enter the centre through a bright, damp corridor of leaves. There are some blackbirds hopping about – they are not native, but seem to be thriving nonetheless. We pay our money having decided to do two things here – a Maori entertainment session and a tour of the grounds and Treaty House.
The Maori session consists of a well-built, sizeable chap telling us about what will happen – first we have to be welcomed, which means a man from our number (there are only about 8 of us in the audience) has to be issued with a rather scary welcome by the chief of the Maori tribe and has to accept. This consists of the Maori chief stamping a lot and doing a more specific version of the Haka and then throwing down a fern leaf defiantly, staring all the while at the visitors’ representative, who must then accept the leaf as a token that he means no harm and thanks them for their welcome.
This is done, by a very young, slim, wiry chief, who would certainly make me think twice about attacking any Maori were I an invader! A young man from the front row is ushered to take the leaf by the large Maori and all is tranquil again – the women sing a song of welcome to us, with subtle double harmonies and much hand-shaking… This apparently is to mimic the motion of ripples on the water, which is perceived as a good thing. It is quite distracting, but also quite pretty. Thus welcomed, we are now their honoured guests, and are graced with a whistle-stop tour of their culture in song, music and dance. They use their voices – all four are fine singers – their hands – the gestures are fluid and evocative – poi – with which the women are extremely adept – sticks – which are caught and thrown to improve coordination – and weapons – which are used in various ways to enact scenes from the Maori legends. Their folklore will be worth reading more about when I get home and can find a book on it (books are in short supply and ridiculously over priced in the antipodes, can’t imagine why…) as it seems to be an interesting mix of many cultures in style and content, east and west, India, Australia. I suspect, however, that it largely stems from Polynesia, but has been adapted – I shall find out! One particularly memorable story is one of the creation of one of the islands – one of the demi-gods was out fishing one day and his hook broke, so he used a jawbone and blood from his own nose to pull the South Island out of the water. I think he may even have used some of his grandmother’s hair for the line, but I will have to check on that one!
I also want to know exactly what a tiki is. I think it just means ‘small’, but has also acquired further specifics in being a particular small image too – rather like a monkey with its head quizzically on one side… It’s also often green…

We head off for our tour of the grounds - we are met by our guide, a nice, friendly Maori chap who is graced with the name Vern Whautere-Witehira. He is proud of his job, his culture, his country, and also very warm and open with us. The Maori are a world away from the Aborigines in terms of their attitude to tourists and to their land. I think perhaps they have always been a stronger people. The Aborigines were overrun by white settlers and cruelly crushed when they tried to reassert their rights and clearly resent this every step of the way. This even shows in their participation in the tourist trade; they are proud and haughty, but ultimately fairly unsuccessful and overrun. Whereas the Maori, who found NZ first, are clearly proud in their dealings with the white settlers, but this pride is a welcoming one, eager to display and share, not a resentful one, keen to see us leave. I suspect this may stem from the fact that the Maori successfully repulsed the efforts of the British colonials to take control, and altered the way the colonials wanted things to be so as to take joint control. This is very much reflected in their culture and mixing today.
Maori culture is still alive, well and running parallel to that of the colonials, which is why they have something of their own into which they can choose to welcome us.
This works.
I like it.
It is heartening that there is a culture which white colonialism DIDN’T manage to enslave, break or overthrow, given what a well-intentioned hash we made of Africa, Australia and America, and almost of India too…

The fist thing Vern shows us is an impressive example of a Maori war canoe – very similar to the one in which the Maori explorer Kupe first arrived in New Zealand, ‘Ateoroa’, ‘the land of the long white cloud’. This canoe was built between 1937 and 1940, using only the original methods and tools which would have been used in 950AD, the year Kupe arrived on the island. It is beautifully carved from the trunk of three enormous trees, carefully hollowed out, tied together with strong twine made from ‘kokorari’, New Zealand flax, which swells and caulks the canoe when it is wet.
Kupe was an explorer from the Polynesian islands. He was displaying an extraordinary amount of forethought, realising that there was only so much space in Polynesia and that his tribe would need to expand elsewhere, so he set out to find somewhere. It took him and his relatively small crew of less than 100 six whole months to get to New Zealand, and they had no proof that there was much there in the first place. A few of the men remained behind, but he elected to go home a while after that and lived a long and happy life back in Polynesia, with further sporadic exploring but nothing as significant as New Zealand. This was in 950AD. It wasn’t until 1350 that a large upheaval and settling in New Zealand became a viable and sensible option. This time, many more canoes set out, with women and children too, enough to build a sizeable settlement in NZ.

Sadly, they also brought trouble for the wildlife. They ate the last Moa (a single bird could feed a village for a week – imagine a drumstick the size of half a horse) and brought rats and dogs, which decimated the local avian wildlife, adapted as it was to a paradisiacal predator-free existence nesting on the ground. Until the arrival of man in NZ, there had been no mammals and virtually no predators, so many of the birds became flightless, like the Kiwi and the Moa. When the Europeans came, three centuries or so later, there were 150,000 full-blood Maori in NZ, from many different tribes (which are still alive and well today around both islands). The culture hadn’t changed at all until the Europeans came.

Trouble began for the Maori with the first missionaries and convicts. Not all the missionaries wanted to merely share the Bible. Usually they were colonialists who expected something in return – like land rights, servants and complete authority. However, the Maori did not take invasion lightly, when it happened, and fiercely fought people who tried to take. Stories are told through carvings and the oral tradition of such encounters. However, the first white settlers, mostly sealers and whalers, were not an issue for the Maori. Often they were made welcome in the Maori settlements, becoming part of a tribe and even intermarrying – it wasn’t uncommon for a whaler to be happily married to a local Maori girl with a little half-Maori baby to prove it. It wasn’t until the Colonialists arrived with convicts and high ideas of acquisition and possession that real problems began. They also brought many non-native trees, such as Oak and Norfolk Pine.

The island of Russell, visible in the distance from the Waitangi treaty house, was the capital, and meant trouble. It was the first port of call for traders, whalers and pillagers. It was also a prime place to find convicts. Not because New Zealand was a penal colony, because it wasn’t, but because, should an Aussie convict make a successful break for freedom, he might well end up here, on Russell. 99% of the buildings originally in Russell were hotel bars, which seemed to work well…
It became known as ‘The Hell-Hole of the Pacific’.

The Waitangi Treaty House was built in 1937, as a commemorative act for the signature of the Treaty. Near it is the original house lived in by James and Agnes Busby. Busby started out in the NSW government. However, the governor of NSW became increasingly worried about the safety of his own position as Busby turned out to be rather too good at everything. Busby was effectively demoted sideways to ‘Resident of the Crown’ in New Zealand which effectively meant he had no support and no other title or authority, though he was the sole representative of the Crown in New Zealand.
He and his little family arrived and began to make themselves a home.
They had problems, both with the Maori and with the convicts.
However, Busby was a clever chap and soon learnt Maori.
They, in turn, saw a good man, who they accepted and trusted and of whom they became very protective. The Government in NSW, however, were becoming less impressed at his continued talent for success, even in inhospitable New Zealand.
He got the hard tasks from his Government; he was asked to round up the convicts, like animals, when they arrived in NZ, and to shoot them. This puzzled the Maori, who understood him as a peaceful man. I find this snippet of information rather sad…

Our guide talks to us about flags next, since we are standing beneath a large flagpole bedecked with various colours. Flags have been very significant to all the colonials and to the people who being colonised. New Zealand in particular has an interesting flag history.
The first people to arrive in New Zealand after the Maoris were the Dutch. However, as they stepped off their boat here, the Maori warriors leapt out and were apparently so fearsome that the Dutch turned tail with their flag and left the claiming of NZ to someone else! The French, however, were not so put off by the Maori and theirs became the first Western flag to be stuck in Kiwi soil. They were wiped out.
The Maori were clearly first takers on these verdant islands.
The Maori were beginning to learn the Western importance of flags when they decided to try and trade with Australia. A Maori trading ship made its way to the coast off Sydney, full of interesting things to sell and was immediately seized and the inhabitants imprisoned.
No flag meant no trade and was illegal.
However, the chaps at Sydney had no idea what they had done, which was to imprison two Maori chieftains… A gross insult!
The Maori told Busby and they decided, following a talk with him, that they wanted a flag. Naturally the English tried to give them the Union Jack but they were having none of it, taking one look at it and spitting it to the ground. They wanted their OWN flag. Various other suggestions were made… The flags of Scotland and St George were similarly rejected, as was Australia’s.
However, they did like the idea of the St George’s cross, but not for reasons of allegiance. They had had Christianity explained to them and they understood the concepts and approved of the ideas since they themselves believed in one Almighty and disapproved of idols. The blood red cross of St George appealed to them, so that was incorporated in the original flag, which was a large cross supporting a smaller cross and stars in the top left hand corner. This became the first official Kiwi flag in 1834.
However, a new one was on the way. Between 1835 and 1840 New Zealand was completely independent, but as such, fair game for anyone who felt like taking a bite out of it from the Maoris. They weren’t entirely happy with this, so they made the difficult decision to approach England for support. England was only too happy with this idea and drafted a huge declaration which was brought from the UK by a rather snooty gentleman called Hobson. He brought his 23 articles, which he expected the chiefs to sign and then to be able to scamper back home with them, having virtually taken possession of NZ. The Maori, being a little more savvy than most of the nations with whom the UK had
had dealings previously, took one look at the articles and decided that they were far too much, far too many and far too long.
To Hobson’s astonishment, the chieftains unexpectedly refused to sign the agreement and demanded negotiations, so he, Busby, Williams and a few of the local chiefs negotiated. For two and a half days, they discussed the requirements of this treaty until they were pared down and tweaked to the Maoris’ satisfaction. Only then, on 6th February 1840, were the documents signed; they were sent around every chieftain in NZ for signature, and apart from one or two who weren’t in agreement, it was universally signed and accepted.
The Maori had fought, not with spears but with words, to achieve this new state of affairs, one which allowed them their rights and freedoms which they had earned and deserved. The Maori signing the document meant balance and justice for both parties, unlike so many of the nations over which colonialism ran roughshod. They are the only people in the world who have signed a treaty of this type with the aim of bringing balance and harmony.
Our guide, Vern, focuses on the positive aspects of colonialism in NZ. However, things were still far from easy for the Maori; the Europeans brought good things, true, but they also brought convicts, germs, diseases and other unsavoury traits.
Sadly for Busby, following the signing of the treaty, despite all his hard work, he was not made governor of New Zealand. That title went to Hobson, who undoubtedly found it harder than Busby would have done, given all his hard work and good connections with the Maori.
In 1930, Lord Bleddesloe bought this land, restored the house to its former glory (it had become a milking shed!) and the Maori built the canoe and its shed. Lord Bleddesloe then gave the land back to its people in trust in 1940 so that it could be saved for the next generation. Shortly after, James Busby passed away in England, but his wife, Agnes, returned to the place they had loved. The Treaty House, fairly recently constructed, is a fine work – it is a ‘marae’ (a specific kind of meeting house) of glorious artifice, perfectly carved with images of every chieftain who signed the treaty and a few gods along the way too. You have to remove your shoes to enter and it is immaculate; glossy, glowing wood, perfect colours and little paua-shell eyes for each noble character.
It is a rather awe-inspiring place, especially given its significance, which makes it both beautiful and unique…