The Weekend: Matariki is the perfect time to start afresh
Mānawatia a Matariki!
Congratulations, you made it. Welcome to the Māori new year.
I like the idea of starting fresh on the darkest day of the year. It makes sense that after weeks of feeling the heavy weight of dark and cold, there would be a clear marker for rounding the corner. It's like a reward for persevering and, in my opinion, should include at least one more statutory holiday (take it from January 2).
Having our big holiday and new year celebrations in the summer is like being made to run a marathon without water, only to then be hit with a hose at the finish line. Way too late, excessive and not needed: the finish line (summer, daylight) is enough of a reward at that point.
This week has been a freezing, dark week where there's nothing to do but sit in front of the heat pump (if you're lucky enough to have one) and contemplate every life decision you ever made. In other words, it's the perfect time for reflection and planning, and a couple of days off.
The fact that people spend the Gregorian new year hungover, full of sun and often fresh from a two-week holiday, and then try to reflect on their life and decide what they want to do for the next 12 months is frankly unhinged. No wonder everyone sets ridiculous resolutions and then crashes out in winter when they realise 'morning runs' are hell on earth when there's ice on the ground and you can't see shit.
Meanwhile, right there at the perfect moment is Matariki. There to say hey, we've been in the slog era but we're on the way out. Let's reflect on the past 12 months and plan for the next 12. Let's take time to connect with the whenua and reaffirm our place in it, remember those we've lost and plan for those still to arrive. That's the perfect time to be making realistic resolutions. Less 'run 23 marathons' and more 'spend more time with family', less 'lose 75kg' and more 'learn about my own history'. Because you know a desire is real when you want to do it even on the coldest, darkest days of the year.
The stories Spinoff readers spent the most time with this week
Feedback of the week
'Good on you for knitting socks; hand-knit socks are the best. I hope you enjoy your time here in Aotearoa and, if you choose to, get to stay permanently.'
'yikes. that's what Broadmore left me with here. big ole dirty YIKES.'
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Erik Olssen's new study The Origins of an Experimental Society, New Zealand, 1769-1860 is the first leg of a long haul flight through New Zealand's history, volume one of a planned three. Its title signals it will not be a history viewed through a chosen lens, whether of post-colonialism, decolonisation or post-modernism, those deconstructive narratives of the past 50 years. It urges readers to engage in an exploration of the nation's origins with, at the very least, open curiosity at what historian Erik Olssen is up to. The book's opening sentence indicates that his will be an even-handed account: 'The islands of New Zealand were colonised by two seafaring peoples, the Polynesians from around 1350 and the Europeans from the early 1800s.' Olssen soon makes clear that he 'looks in depth and detail at the particular intellectual and belief systems of the Europeans at that historical moment' of engagement, and 'at the ways the Pacific in turn influenced their ideas about human nature and human history; and how those ideas shaped the interconnected history of these two peoples.' It is about how 'tangata Pākehā' were 'changed by their encounters with 'tangata Māori' and their land, just as they too were changed'. He writes, 'The idea of New Zealand as an experiment arrived with the colonists of the 1840s' through the aims of 'two religious organisations and a private company … The Church Missionary Society, strongly supported by the Wesleyan Missionary Society, took on the task of ensuring the survival, salvation and civilisation of Māori, and the New Zealand Company assumed that of building a 'Better Britain', although it subscribed to the evangelical-humanitarian campaign to 'preserve and civilise' Māori before incorporating them into the new society.' For some revisionist historians, bureaucrats and politicians, this may well read as reactionary to their views of colonial settlement being essentially bad for the indigenes, and that its inheritors are perpetuating cultural and social damage without end. But Olssen makes it clear that his 'purpose has been to attempt to understand people who lived in a different world which, while continuous with mine, was very different. I may be critical of certain features of their world – particularly those that I reject in my world – but as a historian my primary obligation is to understand and represent, rather than condemn or judge.' This brings some cool air conditioning to the overheated rooms of bias and sectional self-interest that permeate much of our academic and political discourse. The book demands attention and close reading to fully appreciate its value. Sizeable at 400 pages main text, and 120 pages with 2640 endnotes (yes, you read that right) which double as a bibliography, it reflects the years of Olssen's research and wide reading through many of which he was Professor of History at the University of Otago. A current Otago professor, Tony Ballantyne, notes Olssen as a 'scholar of immense learning' with the foundation of the book being his 'omnivorous reading' across many subjects and disciplines. Professor Atholl Anderson (Ngāi Tahu) finds the book 'remarkably lucid and insightful' and a 'quite astonishing intellectual achievement'. This quality is endorsed by Buddy Mikaere (Ngāti Pūkenga, Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāti Pikiao,Tūhoe) who also observes that it is 'not an easy book but steady application to its contents leads to immeasurable rewards.' The main narrative is broken into six chapters although, given the length of each, they are better described as parts because each is broken into separate sections, sometimes with their own sub-titles. (A note here that I am not a fan of the book's design with its oversized fonts for the start of each chapter, tight margins, idiosyncratic page numbering and no numbering at all for the end-notes pages.) * Chapter 1, 'Meeting, 1769-1814', covers the period from James Cook's first voyage, to Samuel Marsden's establishment of the first mission in the Bay of Islands. Cook and his companions sailed out from the new world of the Scottish Enlightenment where the word 'civilisation' was just coming into use, bound on voyages driven by new sciences and technologies. One clear image the book throws up is of Cook's ships being floating laboratories with the very latest gear such as microscopes and advanced chronometers; and crewed with the men capable of using these to expand understanding of the natural world. Sydney Parkinson, 'View of Arched Rock, on the Coast of New Zealand; with an Hippa, or Place of Retreat, on the Top of it', 1769–1784. Alexander Turnbull Library, PUBL-0037-24. The captain joined them as 'three years of subtle intellectual osmosis imbued Cook with many of the values of the Enlightenment and helped transform a very capable mariner into [a capable ethnographer and] the greatest of explorers'. After crossing the Antarctic Circle in Resolution, the first to do so, Cook wrote in his journal, 'I whose ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go.' This conjures up a link, 200 years later, to Neil Armstrong's words on being first man on the Moon. Enlightenment philosophies are often given a bad rap for generating social and political conditions focused on individualism and market-driven capitalism, and that explorers such as Cook opened up the world for its economic exploitation. But this view overlooks that the rights of man were an equally essential part of the formula, that all people should be equal and not subject to the tyrannies of feudalism and aristocratic hierarchies. This underpinned, along with the developing sciences of ethnology and ethnography, not only a new approach to political economy, but also humanitarianism. Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire and Diderot were actively against colonialism and its clear danger to indigenous peoples – as well as their own lives and reputations. By the time Cook set out, it was with the clear instruction to do no harm to native peoples. Cook and his colleagues encountered all of the Polynesians scattered across the Pacific, noted their physical and linguistic similarities but remained puzzled at the variety of social and cultural differences. Yet there seemed to have been no deep enquiry into Polynesian voyaging or evidence that this was occurring in the late 18th century. Later, Māori were to let go their seagoing waka in favour of European craft which were manifestly more robust and seaworthy. Cook and other European voyagers upended the Polynesian world, not least in debauching island morals and introducing deadly diseases. Most of the Pacific islanders had proved generous and hospitable, and were often happier than Europeans. By the time of his third voyage, Cook had begun to realise that he was not only bringing the fruits of 'civilisation' to Polynesia but also all its evils and he became increasingly frustrated at the contradictions of his mission. 'Apart from their superior firepower and access to iron, he had seen little evidence of European superiority.' 'Although conscious of his contradictory role, Cook was anxious to ensure his future reputation.' In planning his third voyage, he 'cast himself as the benevolent and philanthropic commander who incarnated the values of the Enlightenment, bringing commerce, knowledge and peace'. But this fostered hubris and an increasing tendency to punish those who broke the rules, thieving indigenes and ship's crew alike; and contributed to his death in Hawaii 10 years after his sequence of great voyages began. Books about the voyages, including Cook's own and Georg Forster's best-selling Voyage Round the World, had an immense effect on European thinking about the natural sciences and ethnological theory. Olssen believes that Cook 'foreshadowed the possibility of a bi-racial society by producing an ethnographic account of the several indigenous peoples which emphasised above all their common humanity, their resourceful ingenuity and their capacity.' The knowledge acquired by Cook's voyages, their experimental nature, was intrinsic to the philosophical shaping of how the colonisation of New Zealand occurred. Of all the Polynesian peoples, Māori came to be seen as the most robust and intelligent and capable of being 'civilised', the mission underpinning the projects of all the coming European interlopers, whether missionary or settler. Olssen considers in Chapter 2, 'Entangling, 1814-30', that this period has been something of an orphan in past histories, except for examination of the musket wars. Yet it was a time when the interlocking of races began in earnest and Māori ventured further and further afield, not just to Australia, where they became dominant in ships' crews, but as far as Britain and France. The polyglot nature of whaling and sealing ship crews introduced Māori to the varied character of Europeans and, around the mid-1820s, began using the terms Pākehā and Māori in relation to each other. Olssen has followed this when naming the two great 'tribes' of New Zealand Ngāti Māori and Ngāti Pākehā between whom intermarriage became increasingly common. In the south, sealers and whalers were the chief Pākehā influencers but in the north, missionaries from, principally, the Church Missionary Society and Wesleyan Missionary Society brought the new civilising values to the powerful Ngāpuhi nation. Following Samuel Marsden's establishment of the first mission in 1814, the evangelising power of the missions wrought the most change to Māori society before the 1840s. Bringing Christianity to Māori was a fourth impacting force on indigenes that should be added to Jared Diamond's trilogy of 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. It changed their world forever and was arguably the most powerful. Donald McLean, Governor George Grey's Chief Land Purchase Commissioner from 1853, noted in his journal that Christianity was 'one of the principal causes of our easy conquest and retention of the New Zealand islands'. Although this was before the wars. Strengthening humanitarian beliefs in Britain had 'roots in Christian benevolence' and were 'first articulated to help Polynesians achieve the same level of wealth and prosperity as the British.' The British governing elites increasingly considered 'two obligations: first, to afford protection to the 'natives'; and, second, to police the behaviour of British subjects'. In this period, the philosophical pathways that led to the Treaty of Waitangi were already marked out. * Chapter 3: 'Amalgamating, 1830-1840' covers the decade run-up to the signing of the Treaty with the growing influence of the missionaries, the increasing attention of the British government to what was happening in New Zealand after the infamous collaboration of Captain John Stewart in transporting Ngāti Toa warriors in his ship Elizabeth to massacre Ngāi Tahu people at Akaroa. William Fox, 'In the Aglionby or Matukituki Valley, looking into the Otapawa. 20th Feb.', 1864, watercolour, 204 × 257 mm. Alexander Turnbull Library, B-113-008. It portrays a Māori man – possibly Ngāi Tahu Poutini, but probably Kehu – making traditional use of resources by catching a weka. The mana of northern chiefs was undermined by the growing literacy of freed slaves and children in mission schools, key to understanding the Christian Bible and the domestic and agricultural skills and structures of Pākehā life. But literacy did not alter 'older skills of memorialisation, improvisation and oratory' and in the Māori world 'pervaded by sacred meaning' they 'continued to believe in collective rather than individual redemption. The synthesis remains vibrant to this day.' Literacy was becoming important also for dealing with trade practices as the number of whalers and traders increased in the Bay of Islands and elsewhere. The lawless conduct of Pākehā transients began to influence British policies needed to address the belief, exemplified by missionary Samuel Marsden, who declared that 'immoral British subjects threatened the very existence of this most capable and attractive people'. There was some exaggeration in this, given that there were only 2-3000 Pākehā in the country by 1840 and, according to Ernst Dieffenbach's estimations, almost 120,000 Māori. But missionaries feared secular undermining of their Christian authority and their pleas for action dovetailed with the humanitarian agenda of the Aborigines Protection Society and Colonial Office Undersecretary James Stephen, a member of the 'Clapham Sect', a group of Christian social reformers. The appointment of James Busby as British Resident to bring some law and order, but without money or staff, did little to ameliorate the situation but Ngāpuhi grasped the opportunity to declare an independent nation with its own flag. Then, later in the decade, British officials began to notice the increasing interest of the French in colonising New Zealand. Finally, the land-buying intentions of the New Zealand Company, guided by Edward Gibbon Wakefield's vision of building a 'Better Britain', was the culminating pressure that forced the British government into the 'fatal necessity' of taking on another colony. A midshipman on William Hobson's ship the Herald wrote in his journal that by agreeing to the Treaty of Waitangi the 'chiefs acknowledged the Queen as 'their liege sovereign' and she promised 'to protect and aid the New Zealanders [Māori] and if they were willing to (cede sovereignty) grant them all the privileges of British subjects'.' But from the moment of signing to the moment this review is published, the meaning of the Treaty has undergone continuous reinterpretation. Olssen observes that in 'offering Māori both the Queen's protection and all the rights enjoyed by the Queen's British subjects, the Treaty/Te Tiriti provided the foundation for a bicultural nation … even if we accept that there was nothing unusual let alone unique about Te Tiriti o Waitangi – and I do not accept that – it remains' as one American historian has commented, that 'where Americans made many Indian treaties and forgot them, New Zealanders made one treaty and remembered it'.' Although Olssen lands on the side of those who believe the Treaty is unique, he canvasses all points of view, and his phrasing suggests openness to these, reflecting his intention to avoid judgment. The country's fate had now been 'irrevocably altered by Britain's decision to annex it and the New Zealand Company's decision to colonise it. But the fact that the first decision was made as a result of the growing political and cultural influence of evangelical-humanitarianism … set New Zealand's history on a quite distinct trajectory from earlier British colonies of settlement'. And, as the Colonial Office's Treaty instructions to William Hobson showed, 'Māori were expected to help shape the future course of events.' The bulk of Chapter 4, 'Planning and Dreaming', is given over to the theories of Edward Gibbon Wakefield (EGW) and their practice through the settlements of the New Zealand Company. Olssen shows the influences on EGW of Enlightenment philosophies and the reform activities of his Quaker family. The Company's 'adoption of the evangelical humanitarian agenda for Māori' and EGW's vision for the 'amalgamation of two races by marriage' meant that his theory of systematic colonisation, an 'experiment' to create a 'Better Britain', was in alignment with the 'experiment' of the missionaries and Christian reform beliefs aimed at civilising Māori. The missionaries and their Westminster supporters were openly sceptical that EGW and the NZ Company were sincere, and were simply bent on making money by buying land cheap and selling dear. EGW's chequered past, which involved abduction and fraud, would always stain his vision. But Olssen avoids mistaking the man for his vision of a 'scientific approach to the creation of new societies which also shaped New Zealand's history in a unique way'. William Strutt, 'A group I once saw in Maori Land, New Plymouth', 1856, pencil and wash, 185 × 275 mm. Alexander Turnbull Library, E 453-f-005. Two Māori men and a woman canter on horseback, the woman wearing a top hat and riding side-saddle, the men in peaked caps and upright in their saddles. The painting illustrates the speed with which Māori had adopted the horse and European conventions as to how men and women ought to ride. This approach was to plan settlements made up of a cross-section of British society so that they would quickly develop into functioning economic units, with both town and country sections. Emigrants had to demonstrate good health and character and some kind of skill. Māori were to be included in the plan by 'pepper potting' sections for them among the new arrivals and, in the case of Wellington and Nelson, setting aside every tenth section – 'The Tenths' – for Māori rangatira. This demonstrated the belief that Māori were not only the most admirable amongst Polynesians but also that EGW and the Company were not racists. It should be emphasised again that, whether missionary, NZ Company man or government official, the medium to long-term plan of all of them was to 'civilise' Māori to the British Christian ideal. The reality was that the dubious 'purchase' of land by the NZ Company, especially in the Cook Strait region, and failure to survey the land and its utility and resources beforehand led to hardship, chaos and conflict with local iwi. Despite all this, most settlers made a go of it and the immigrant cross-section of society was soon setting up clubs and societies and voluntary organisations that continue to distinguish the character of New Zealand today. The new settlements were also highly democratic. One settler considered local chiefs 'superior to the dissolute sons of the English upper classes who 'walk the beach and smoke their cigars'' and the wife of another 'thought Māori ranked higher in the scale of civilisation than many Pākehā'. Although conflict was to come, some Māori 'subscribed to the Wakefieldian vision; others amongst the rangatira capitalised by selling land and developing their own farms; and in one way or another many Māori became involved in defining how both experiments turned out. This was quite unlike what had happened in South Dakota, South Australia or South Africa.' * Olssen develops these themes in Chapter 5, 'Settling, 1840-1853', and the resultant arm-wresting between Pākehā and Māori over land, law and rights. After the bloody disaster at the Wairau in 1843, settlers realised they could not take the law into their own hands, and the 1845 war in the north gave Māori confidence in their own ability to resist. Governor George Grey realised he would need Māori allies if he wished to succeed in any future military confrontation. But by the end of the 1840s, 'most of the Company's settlers believed that the two experiments were back on track'. Grey believed 'amalgamation' had been achieved. A majority of Māori were now Christian and were deeply engaged with Pākehā ways of life. There was a spirit of egalitarianism among the settlers, including among women who were 'essential to systematic colonisation and enjoyed most of the rights that men did'. There was a bonding stimulated by rejection of Old Country ways, although this was bolstered by 'a degree of cultural homogeneity' brought about by the mixing of men from all over Britain that had occurred during the mobilisation against Napoleon. Unknown artist, 'The Missionary Settlement Rangihoua on the North Side of the Bay of Islands', c.1832, oil on wood panel, 223 × 305 mm. National Library of Australia, Rex Nan Kivell collection, 312052. In 1815 John Nicholas noted that Rangihoua was surrounded by 'several plantations of potatoes, coomeras, and other vegetables, and the cultivation had such an appearance of neatness and regularity, that a person not acquainted with the … natives could never suppose it was the work of uncivilized barbarians' There was more tolerance among the different religious sects. Once in New Zealand, immigrants became united in response to the NZ Company's failures and perceived 'tyranny' of the Crown's behaviour towards the new settlements. 'More importantly, of course, all Britons living in New Zealand, even those in Auckland, placed more importance on the ways in which their new colonies differed from the penal colonies of Australia.' Hobson's early plan to 'introduce convict labour from New South Wales to undertake public works had aroused an overwhelmingly hostile reaction from one end of the colony to the other'. The reverberations of this are still felt today. Chapter 6, 'Expanding, 1848-1860' begins, 'With the return of peace and the achievement of stability, the colonists celebrated the start of the 1850s with optimism and hope.' Sheep farming in the new South Island settlements of Canterbury and Otago expanded rapidly and agriculture 'for a brief period provided half of all exports. Both Māori and Pākehā farmers prospered.' There were gold rushes in Australia and California to take the produce and there were rumours of gold in both islands. But the new Eden began to show blights. Māori population began to decline, largely from the impact of European diseases and the drugs of alcohol and tobacco. Māori became more and more resistant to part with their land as pressure to sell increased with a settler population that became the majority by the end of the decade. 'Many Māori became increasingly demoralised and anxious. A people who had eagerly engaged with the new world now began withdrawing.' The 1837-1844 sweet spot of Māori-Pākehā relations, when humanitarianism ruled at the Colonial Office had gone with James Stephen's retirement. His successor supported those who believed that 'Māori had no title to land they did not use, and became more pessimistic about amalgamation.' More and more immigrants were ignorant of 'the founders' radical humanitarian ideals and cared even less'. They also brought with them new racist thinking. The new immigrants, 'and most of them settled in Auckland in these years', knew that those ideals 'had become contentious in England,' even mocked. 'Reports of such events as the 'Wairau Massacre', especially Te Rangihaeata's execution of the men who had surrendered, contributed to the new mood by suggesting that the 'savage' could never be 'civilised'.' The signal event of the 1850s was the establishment of self-government with a national House of Representatives first meeting in Auckland in 1854. There was provincial government, too, of provinces disconnected from each other except by sea and which lasted until 1876. Most Māori lived outside or at the fringes of the growing Pākehā urban centres, and the establishment of the Kingitanga reflected their exclusion from the new form of national governance. By 1860, the Pākehā population had reached 78,000 and the Māori had declined to no more than 55,000. The imbalance, and urban-country separation would increase rapidly, putting increasing pressure by Pākehā on Māori for more land for agriculture, setting the scene for the physical conflicts to come. 'The implementation of self-government coincided with a 'hardening' of racist attitudes among the European settlers, less because of events here than because of developments in Europe and the United States' in attitudes towards indigenous peoples. 'Yet most settlers still paid lip service to 'amalgamation' even if they had become impatient with or hostile to Māori.' The education of settlers was assisted by the work of ethnographers who 'Despite their belief in the superiority of their own culture, confirmed in their eyes by their technological superiority, made remarkable progress in understanding Māori on their own terms.' Olssen notes that 'Words such as 'improve', 'educate', 'amalgamate', 'ingraft' and 'civilise' – nouns as well as verbs – joined 'fairness' and 'justice' as staples of political discourse.' Humanitarianism, by no means the least important legacy of the Enlightenment, had been hardwired into the new nation's identity.' The Epilogue examines Scot Arthur Thomson's 1859 history, The Story of New Zealand. Thomson was optimistic about the country's future and predicted the 'ultimate union of Māori and Pākehā'. Olssen concludes that although Thomson 'did not foresee that his optimism might prove to be a liar, his faith in what I have framed as two experiments – that a better world could be created in which Māori as well as Pākehā could thrive – would continue to shape public policy and excite future generations with the vision that their country could become a model for humanity.' This review is but a brief sketch of a volume fashioned from a wide-ranging and deep dive into all the historical literature that has come before it. Free of presentism and bias, it blows a fresh wind through the clichés of our history that bedevil current discourse. It is a must-read for anyone who truly seeks to understand our history, of the complexities involved in the foundation years of who we were to become. It moderates views of our early history that have become more and more polarised, as those holding and those seeking power project exaggerated and uninformed narratives. It may well offend those reluctant to engage with propositions that challenge their own prejudices and biases. The Origins of an Experimental Society, New Zealand, 1769-1860 by Erik Olssen (Auckland University Press, $65) is available in bookstores nationwide.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
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Hunters rally for community hall
Wilbur Mee, 2, of Hindon, hunts for his Red Band gumboot after dropping it outside the Hindon hall on Sunday. PHOTO: STEPHEN JAQUIERY Matariki was not a good weekend to be a wild animal inland from Outram. Organisers of the Hindon Hall inaugural hunting competition were thrilled with the turnout which attracted 35 team entries and 60 children. The small population with a big heart are rallying together to raise funds to maintain their community hall. Committee member Jo Harris said they were also delighted with sponsorship from local business with prizes including drone spraying, a new chainsaw, meat processing and chilly bins. Farmers worked in isolation which could impact their mental health and having a community hall helped people connect, she said. Teams hunted for wild boar, red deer stag, fallow stag and duck while children bagged hares, possums, rabbits and yabbies. A red deer hind with antlers attached by twine was disqualified. Team Tiznik won the heaviest red stag which weighed in at 152.5kg.
