Māori History: A Captivating Guide to the History of the Indigenous Polynesian People of New Zealand by History Captivating

Author:History, Captivating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

Picture of Tāmati Wāka Nene taken in the 1870s (top) and an illustration of Te Ruki Kawiti from the 1940s. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org.

Among the loudest was Hōri Kīngi Te Wharerahi, Moka’s and Rawa’s third brother, who proclaimed that the governor would bring peace to the Māori. His speech marked the turning of the tides, and he was helped by another Ngāpuhi chief named Tāmati Wāka Nene, a relative of Hongi Hika. Nene told his fellow chiefs that they had to have sent the Pākehā away when they first arrived. He argued that it was too late now. In fact, they needed a governor to act as a father, peacemaker, and judge among the tribes. However, Nene also declared that the governor had to preserve Māori land and customs. Both Nene and Wharerahi had considerable mana, and their words carried a lot of weight, allowing the positive stance to slowly take over. Nevertheless, an agreement wasn’t reached during the day, and the Māori discussion continued throughout the night. It was only on the morning of February 6th that the majority of the chiefs accepted the treaty. At that moment, forty-five Māori chiefs signed their names or, in the case of the illiterate majority, drew their facial moko patterns.

However, before the signing ceremony was carried out, a French Catholic missionary prompted Hobson to tell the Māori that they wouldn’t be persecuted based on their religion. He did this to protect his Catholic followers from the British Protestant government. Hobson agreed, as he just wanted to get the signing over with. Yet, this point was conveyed only vocally. Another missionary spoke to the Māori in their language, stating that the governor said the “several faiths,” including various Christian denominations and “also Māori custom,” would be protected by the government. This late verbal addition prompted later scholars to argue that this statement should be considered as the fourth article, one that allowed the freedom of religion. This adds another layer of confusion, leading to much debate among academics. According to some, from the perspective of European legality, the statement only carried moral obligation and weight but was legally unbinding. Others claim that in an oral society such as the Māori, an unwritten promise had the same weight as the written text.

Yet, in reality, this debate only became important in later periods, when the Māori struggled against New Zealand’s government for their rights. During the Treaty of Waitangi, it was largely irrelevant to the Māori chiefs, who once again didn’t really understand what the idea behind the freedom of religion was, nor how important it could be. Similarly, other discrepancies between ideas of sovereignty and mana or rangatiratanga, the questions of cultural preservation, and the differences between the English and Māori versions weren’t important at that time. The chiefs only debated about accepting foreign domination, and they based their argument solely on the text presented to them in the Māori language. All of the debates behind the “true meaning” and issues of legality came later when bilingual scholars educated in the law began inspecting the treaty in its entirety.

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