Nga Kahui Pou: Launching Maori Futures

By Mason Durie

by 2051 the ethnic Maori population will almost double in size to close to a million, or twenty-two percent of the total New Zealand population. Even more dramatically, by 2051 thirty-three percent of all children in the country will be Maori ...' This substantial change in our society will have major implications for Maori and wider society. Professor Durie discusses traditions and customs and addresses contemporary needs in order to build development strategies for the launch of the Maori population into the new millennium.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Huia Publishers
• Release date: Aug 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781775500513

Book preview

Introduction

Ngā Kāhui Pou: Launching Māori Futures contains a series of addresses delivered between 1999 and 2002 at national and international conferences. They span a range of topics but are brought together by a common thread woven around contemporary Māori development and the advancement of Māori into the twenty-first century. At the same time, although the emphasis in this book is clearly on modern times and the future, Māori development itself is part of a much older journey initiated in Te Moananui a Kiwa, the Pacific, and continued within Aotearoa New Zealand over a period of several centuries or more. Development is not the prerogative of a single era.

Nonetheless Māori development has come to refer to Māori economic, social and cultural advancement in modern times. Positive Māori development certainly emerged as the core of Māori policy in 1984 after the Hui Taumata, the Māori Economic Summit. The new direction was part of the wider manifesto of the fourth Labour government to reduce the size of the State and devolve functions and accountabilities to the private sector as well as to communities. However, it also coincided with Māori aspirations for greater autonomy, revitalisation of culture and language, and a more direct role in delivering services to Māori.

After the upheavals of the nineteenth century, when depopulation and alienation combined to place survival at risk, Māori had become increasingly dependant on a state that was essentially committed to policies and programmes that would assimilate Māori into the prevailing systems of colonial New Zealand. So it remained, virtually until 1975 when the Treaty of Waitangi Act was passed. Although the Act was primarily about establishing a pathway that could lead to the resolution of grievances against the Crown for breaches of the Treaty, it marked the beginning of a new era in New Zealand constitutional and political reform. The Crown now appeared more serious about recognising Māori as a partner in the ongoing development of the nation and Māori were even more determined to live as Māori.

The new era did not arise in isolation of events elsewhere in the world. While New Zealand was grappling with the relevance of an 1840 Treaty to modern times, indigenous people around the globe, including Māori, were debating strategies for undoing the shackles of colonisation, and asserting their rights as First Nations peoples in countries where their standing had been seriously eroded. They engaged in actions at several levels and loss of life, imprisonment, and further marginalisation were not infrequent. But their determination was so unswerving and their collective action so compelling, that the politics of indigeneity were eventually to find a place on agenda of the United Nations and the schedules of many governments.

Meanwhile, having more or less accepted the right of Māori to maintain their own language, culture and social institutions, and having recognised some of the injustices of the past – particularly as they applied to the alienation of land and other resources – the New Zealand State embarked on a process of reformation. Frequently the reformation process highlighted differences between Māori and the State; often the debate was both acrimonious and confusing, and at times the goals seemed so incompatible that the prospects of any agreement dimmed as the debate progressed. Yet since 1975 the New Zealand ethos has changed. The debate is now less about whether the Treaty of Waitangi should be recognised but how it might be best implemented. There is little discussion about the rights and wrongs of having Māori providers in health or early childhood education or social services, instead the focus is on building their capacity so they might be more effective. Restitution for the glaring injustices of the past is no longer argued as if it were a matter for state generosity, instead it is seen as a state obligation, consistent with common law and with solemn undertakings made in 1840.

Māori development, however, is not only about the relationship between Māori and the State, even though that accounts for much of the energy. It is also about the relationships between Māori – between tribes, within tribes, between tribes and other Māori organisations, between Māori individuals and Māori collectives, and between leaders who carry the mantle of their ancestors and leaders who have made their mark in commerce or sport or law or academia. Sometimes the relationships are strained to the point that the chances of progress seem distant but often enough the synergies have led on to innovative approaches to development that have added strength to Māori self-determination.

In the shift from state dependency and relative Māori passivity, to a model of development that hinges on self-determination, it has been necessary to construct new frameworks. Māori aspirations will not find expression by rhetoric alone. If they are to be converted to practice, sound conceptual foundations, clarity of purpose, and a capacity for measuring both progress and impact must underpin them. In addition, there is a clear need for Māori development to be attuned to the broad economic, political and social parameters that underpin New Zealand. Compatibility with a wider reality does not mean a return to the imposition of mono-cultural constructs nor the formulation of a universal approach, as if all New Zealanders were part of a homogenous population. Nor does it mean the acceptance of the nation’s current constitutional arrangements as if they were set in stone. But it does mean that if Māori aspirations are to materialise, then Māori development cannot ignore the realities that characterise modern New Zealand or the global influences that impact on all peoples.

Ngā Kāhui Pou: Launching Māori Futures is a selection of twenty papers presented at conferences between 1999 and 2002. Although each has quite distinct objectives, there are nonetheless a number of recurring themes. First, they are all concerned with aspects of Māori development: some examine the constitutional implications of self-determination, others dwell on the application of Māori perspectives to service delivery, others still concentrate on the needs of particular groups such as older Māori and Māori youth. Second, many of the papers provide frameworks for conceptualising Māori development – in education, or health, or legislation. Third, they attempt to reconcile Māori perspectives with other viewpoints so that the compatibilities between a Māori-centred approach and the prevailing approaches can be better appreciated. Fourth, although the focus is on Māori, the indigenous link is highlighted in a number of papers – a reminder that Māori endeavours have much in common with those of other indigenous peoples. Finally, contemporary relevance is a fundamental theme. While the traditions and customs of the past are discussed in several papers, the aim has been to confront the needs of today in order to build platforms for tomorrow.

For convenience the papers appear in the same chronological order in which they were originally presented.

The first paper, ‘Whānau Development and Māori Survival: The Challenge of Time’ (1999) was part of Te Uru Mai o te Motu, a millennium lecture series instigated by the School of Māori Studies at Massey University. It describes Māori progress since arrival in Aotearoa, discusses whānau (family group) initiatives, threats to whānau well-being, contemporary whānau arrangements and strategies that might secure whānau survival well into the future. Frameworks for measuring whānau well-being and for assessing whānau dysfunction are constructed and a case is made for more attention to long-term planning.

The second paper, ‘Maui Pomare: First Māori Doctor’, formed the substance of the 1999 Newman Lecture (Auckland Medical Historical Society). It discusses the contribution of the first Māori medical practitioner, Maui Pomare, to Māori development and considers the contemporary relevance of the five strategies that characterised his work: leadership, cross-sectoral reform, cultural realities, political power and a skilled workforce.

‘Paiheretia: An Integrated Approach to Counselling’ (1999) reminded delegates at the New Zealand Association of Counsellors International Conference in Hamilton that conventional western approaches to counselling did not always meet Māori needs. In the paper a model of counselling (Paiheretia) is introduced. Developing secure cultural identity and facilitating access to te ao Māori (the Māori world) are seen as important tasks for Māori-centred counselling, and the skill required by Paiheretia counsellors is reviewed. While not a panacea for the resolution of all problems, the approach is recommended as a systematised form of counselling applicable to many Māori seeking personal help.

‘Imprisonment, Trapped Lifestyles, and Strategies for Freedom’ (1999) was delivered at the Indigenous Peoples and Justice Conference organised by the Foundation for Indigenous Research in Society and Technology (FIRST), in Wellington. The conference explored a number of issues related to Māori imprisonment and the paper examines themes of offending, lifestyle, justice, identity and the terms under which Māori participate in society. It concludes by offering six strategies for ‘recovery’.

‘Kaumātuatanga Reciprocity: Māori Elderly and Whānau’ (1999) was first presented at a conference on ageing in Wellington in 1998 and revised for publication in 1999. It discusses the roles of older Māori and uses empirical evidence to identify the particular issues that will face future generations of kaumātua (Māori elders). Demographic trends and changing patterns of cultural identity will be key determinants in the uptake of positive roles by older Māori.

‘Contemporary Māori Development: Issues and Broad Directions’ (1999) describes a ‘century of development’. The main features of four twenty-five-year periods from 1900–2000 are analysed and the challenges for the period 2000–2025 are considered. Broad aims, principles, goals and capabilities are proposed as the basis of a development framework. Because the paper was originally presented to Māori public servants, the role of the State in Māori development is discussed with a conclusion that the Māori–State partnership may not be the most significant – or desirable – relationship for future Māori development.

In 2000 a conference devoted to ‘Building the Constitution’ was held in Wellington. A series of contributors were invited to submit papers that examined various aspects of the New Zealand constitution. ‘A Framework for Considering Constitutional Change and the Position of Māori in Aotearoa’ was one of a group of papers concerned with constitutional implications of the Treaty of Waitangi. It discusses the shifting nature of New Zealand’s constitution and the prospects of becoming a republic. While the Treaty is seen as highly important to the current debate, the more fundamental question is about the position of Māori as indigenous to New Zealand and how it will be recognised in the future. A constitutional change framework incorporating starting points, processes and outcomes is proposed to progress the debate.

Arranged by a Canadian parliamentary study group as a millennium project, a conference, ‘Parliamentary Government at the Millennium: Continuity and Change in Westminster Systems’ was held in Ottawa in 2000. One of the two invited presentations from New Zealand was ‘Māori in Governance: Parliament, Statutory Recognition, and the State Sector’. The Treaty of Waitangi, demographic trends, and positive Māori development provided a context for understanding Māori representation in parliament, specific Māori provisions within the law, and Māori experience with the state sector. The paper highlighted areas where progress had been made and concluded that Māori self-governance within a single unitary state would be a logical progression.

‘Te Pae Māhutonga: Mental Health Promotion for Young Māori’ (2000) was the title of a paper presented at the Conference of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (Faculty of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry) and the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services in Auckland. Apart from analysing the state of mental health for young Māori, Te Pae Māhutonga was introduced as a model for Māori mental health promotion. Based on the Southern Cross constellation of stars, the model proposes six key tasks for health promotion and draws attention to the index of potential as a useful way of assessing the promise of Māori youth.

‘Māori Health: Key Determinants for the Next Twenty-five Years’ attempts to predict where future major health impacts will come from. The paper was delivered in Wellington as a keynote address at the Foundation for Indigenous Research in Society and Technology (FIRST) Conference on Health and Indigenous People. Five critical factors were examined: demographic change, participation in society, environmental adaptation, access to te ao Māori and health policies. Major advances in Māori health will probably not come from the health sector alone; instead, a range of social and economic polices must combine to significantly improve health standards. A dedicated Māori capacity for long-term planning was stressed.

At the Nation Building and Māori Development Conference (2000), ‘Parliamentary Devolution and Māori Self-Governance’ examined approaches to self-determination based on the devolution of state services as well as parliamentary devolution. Limitations of current governance arrangements, especially in relationship to Māori-owned resources were highlighted and arguments for and against a national forum for self-governance were rehearsed. In any event, the paper concluded that further devolution of parliamentary authority to a Māori body was overdue.

Diabetes is a major health problem for Māori and for many indigenous peoples. ‘A Strategic Framework for Addressing the Impact of Diabetes on Indigenous Peoples’ was presented at the Fifth International Conference on Diabetes and Indigenous Peoples at Christchurch in October 2000. Four major strategies were suggested: macro-political intervention, adaptation to modern environments, treatment, and empowerment. For each strategy two goals were advanced: the elimination of disadvantage and valuing indigeneity; modifying lifestyles and balancing diet; early detection and targeted treatments; education and research; and self-management and self-determination.

A joint initiative between the Crown and Māori gave rise to two national conferences in 2001. Both were aimed at identifying pathways for Māori education and were hosted by Ngāti Tūwharetoa at Tūrangi and Taupō. ‘A Framework for Considering Māori Educational Advancement’ was presented at the first meeting (Hui Taumata Mātauranga). It proposed a ten-part framework for the advancement of Māori education and included: three principles (best outcomes, integrated action and indigeneity); three pathways (Māori-centred, Māori-added and collaborative); and a capacity for independent Māori action as well as three broad goals – to live as Māori, to participate as citizens of the world and to be healthy and enjoy a high standard of living.

At the second conference (Hui Taumata Mātauranga Tuarua) similar themes were continued in ‘The Hui Taumata Mātuaranga: Progress and Platforms for Māori Educational Advancement’. This paper initially surveyed progress since the earlier hui and then identified five key platforms for Māori education (educational policies, social and economic policies, the Māori–Crown relationship, Māori synergy and Māori leadership). For each platform, goals were suggested and the key issues affecting progress were explored.

‘Hazardous Environments Old and New: Challenges for Health Protection’ (2001) was presented at the Environmental Health Conference in Wellington. The central point of the paper was that dealing with health risks associated with the physical environment had been more successful than coping with the risks inherent in modern lifestyles. A major challenge was therefore to expand the focus of health protection beyond the natural environment to encompass the new risks such as unbalanced nutritional standards, lack of exercise and substance abuse. Drawing on earlier experiences in combating infectious diseases, the option for legislation and the application of the laws of tapu were raised as possible means of encouraging lifestyle change.

Regional conferences on economic development have the potential to encourage Māori commercial activity and foster entrepreneurship. At the Maunga Tū Maunga Ora economic summit in Taranaki in 2002, a presentation entitled ‘The Business Ethic and Māori Development’ discussed the gains made during the Decade of Māori Development as well as the barriers to further development. Characteristics of a Māori-centred business were unpacked, including multiple goals (social, economic and cultural) and six defining principles: alignment, transparency, balanced motives, integrated goals, best outcomes and alliance. Arising from an interaction between the principles and the goals, there was the potential for a Māori business ethic to emerge. The paper challenged Māori business leaders to reconsider how commercial opportunities might contribute to Māori development in a way that accorded with Māori values and aspirations, and promoted synergies between Māori.

When the prominent jurist, Sir Ivor Richardson retired from the Court of Appeal in 2002 a conference was held in his honour. ‘Universal Provision, Indigeneity and the Treaty of Waitangi’ recognised his contribution to social policy, Treaty jurisprudence and human rights. The several dimensions of being indigenous were discussed in the paper and reasons for a possible conflict between the politics of universal provision and the politics of indigeneity were canvassed. It was concluded that as an indigenous people Māori might reasonably expect to be able to participate in society generally, as well as in the Māori world. This dual aspiration extends the notions of citizenship away from equality based on sameness and towards full participation as a democratic right.

A further examination of indigenous rights was evident in ‘Indigeneity: Challenges for Indigenous Doctors’. Presented at the first Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors’ Congress in Hawaii in 2002, the paper linked the experiences of indigenous doctors with wider issues confronting indigenous peoples across the world. Two challenges for doctors were posited: a need to be able to work in two worlds and live comfortably with two quite different bodies of knowledge; and the alignment of medical practice with indigenous development. It was acknowledged that indigenous doctors play valuable roles as agents who bridge the gap between indigenous world-views and the world-views that accompany science, professionals and global imperialism.

The concept of a fair and just society as one where there can be full participation in society and in the Māori world accords with the dual aspirations of Māori. In ‘Towards Full Participation: Dual Goals for Career Planning for Indigenous Peoples’ (2002), a Māori-pertinent framework for career planning was presented at the career services conference, Pushing the Boundaries. In order to realise aspirations for participation in two worlds, greater synergies will be required between clients, counsellors and the workplace. The most successful outcome – and the antithesis of assimilation – will be one where the client’s world-view is endorsed by the workplace.

The final paper in the collection was presented at the Development Studies Conference in Palmerston North in December 2002. ‘Parameters, Goals and Outcomes for Māori Development’ proposes a Māori development framework made up of three axes (determinants, processes and outcomes) and describes a Māori-specific outcome schema (Te Ngāhuru) relevant to the measurement of outcome goals.

Addresses published in Ngā Kāhui Pou: Launching Māori Futures have been previously published as follows: ‘Whānau Development and Māori Survival: The Challenge of Time’, in Ministry of Health, Te Pūtahi a Toi, Proceedings of Te Hua o te Whānau: Whānau Health and Development Conference. Wellington: Ministry of Health, 1999, pp. 72–90; ‘Imprisonment, Trapped Lifestyles, and Strategies for Freedom’, in E. Te K. Douglas and M. Robertson-Shaw (eds), Ngai Tatou 2020: Indigenous Peoples & Justice. Auckland: FIRST Foundation, 2001; ‘Kaumātuatanga Reciprocity: Māori Elderly and Whānau’, in New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 1999, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 102–106; and in Susan Gee (ed.), Experience of a Lifetime: Older New Zealanders as Volunteers. Wellington: Victoria University of Wellington, 2001, pp. 31–37; ‘A Framework for Considering Constitutional Change and the Position of Māori in Aotearoa’, in Colin James (ed.), Building the Constitution. Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, 2000, pp. 414–425; ‘Māori in Governance: Parliament, Statutory Recognition, and the State Sector’, in L. Seidle and D. C. Docherty (eds), Reforming Parliamentary Democracy. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003, pp. 128–149; ‘Māori Health: Key Determinants for the Next Twenty-five Years’ – in Pacific Health Dialog. 2001, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 6–11; ‘Hazardous Environments Old and New: Challenges for Health Protection’, The New Zealand Journal of Environmental Health. 2001, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 6–9; ‘Universal Provision, Indigeneity and the Treaty of Waitangi’, in D. Carter and M. Palmer (eds), Roles and Perspectives in the Law: Essays in Honour of Sir Ivor Richardson. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2002, pp. 167–177.

It will be obvious that the twenty papers do not cover the entire field of Māori development. Economic development, resource management and Treaty of Waitangi settlements are not addressed in any detail. However, Ngā Kāhui Pou: Launching Māori Futures does provide an overview of many fundamental issues and has particular relevance to social policies and to New Zealand’s constitutional arrangements. In that respect, the individual papers collectively contribute to an emerging picture of a nation where Māori values, perspectives and prerogatives can find expression.

CHAPTER 1

Whānau Development and Māori Survival: The Challenge of Time

Introduction

It is a privilege to be able to deliver this address tonight in the presence of so many people, and groups, who have contributed to the advancement of whānau (family groups) and to the promotion of Māori health and well-being. In particular I wish to acknowledge Dame Joan Metge whose scholarship over many years has enabled New Zealanders and an international audience to gain some appreciation of Māori society and the changing nature of whānau.

It is a similar honour to be able to recognise the efforts of the Māori Womens Welfare League, and their president, Druis Barrett. The league has consistently, and often single-handedly championed the cause of whānau, not only guarding the rights of women and children, but also recognising the significance of the whānau as agents for change and catalysts for Māori development. In the post-war years when men spoke only of land, as if that were to be the Māori salvation, members of the league focused on whānau; when successive governments urged Māori to greater economic heights, members of the league refused to turn away from the economic realities of whānau; and when the trail of urbanisation disrupted the lives and homes of Māori people, the league sought to re-establish the spirit of whānau in new suburbs and among dispirited urban migrants. The Māori Womens Welfare League’s forty-six-year campaign on behalf of whānau, and on behalf of Māori people generally, is a story of dedication and inspiration.

Face to face with so many experts on whānau and whānau development it is with some hesitancy that I embark on the topic of ‘Whānau Development and Māori Survival:The Challenge of Time’. However, I take heart from the occasion for this lecture; it is one in a series of millennium lectures, Te Ura Mai o te Motu, instituted by the School of Māori Studies to celebrate this new millennium. And because the invitation is a once-in-a-thousand-years opportunity and therefore unlikely to come my way again, any lingering diffidence about delivering this address on whānau is offset by a sense of opportunism – a chance to be part of the millennium hype.

Poised as we are on the verge of the next thousand years, there is every reason to humble ourselves in the face of time-spans so endless that the human life cycle appears little more than a brief moment, and not a hugely significant one at that. What I intend to do tonight is to enter into the spirit of the millennium and consider the journeys of whānau, not through the twentieth century alone, but across time spans of thousands of years and in both a backwards and a forwards direction. It is probably an unduly ambitious aim, but the good news is that I do not intend to discuss each of the two-thousand years one by one.

Instead, there are only three points I intend to make. Actually, they are questions rather than statements, and in the end they may not be answerable anyway. But, given this rather unique chance to reflect on the millennium just past, and to consider the millennium yet to come, we have the opportunity to go outside the usual boundaries and to adopt much more expansive time-frames than we would normally entertain.

The first question then is about the endurance of whānau over the past thousand years: how did whānau survive? The second question is easier to answer since it is related to the present: how are whānau faring today? And the third question is about the thousand years ahead: how will whānau survive in the next century and well beyond that, across the next millennium?

Whānau

Before exploring those questions, I should try and define what I mean by whānau, at least for the purpose of tonight’s lecture. Apart from its fundamental meaning, to give birth, whānau is a word which has undergone change in parallel to the changes in Māori society; it lends itself to a variety of interpretations. Joan Metge has illustrated that point in her seminal study, New Growth from Old.¹ Common to all meanings, whānau refers to groups of people, brought together for a special purpose. Generally the members of a whānau are Māori, though not always, and generally their association together is mutually beneficial, though, as I will discuss later, that is not always true either. In a narrower definition, whānau members all descend from a common ancestor and therefore, among other things, possess common patterns of DNA. Their shared heritage may go back four, five, or six generations, or may be traced back well beyond the memories of the oldest members, into the depths of history and the domains of tradition. In modern times, whānau is also used to describe a group who share not a common heritage but a common mission – a kindergarten whānau, a whānau support group, team-mates perhaps. Then there is an increasing trend to use the word whānau synonymously with family, or household.

It is not for me to accept one definition and reject others; they all have some validity according to the particular context. Although, for the most part tonight I will be adopting a conservative approach, and interpreting whānau to mean a group who boast a common descent – a shared whakapapa – many of the principles underlying the discussion will be equally applicable to whānau in other situations.

AD 1000: Deliberate Strategies

That leads me back to the first question. How did whānau manage to survive throughout the past thousand years and to emerge after a millennium in greater numbers and, I think, with greater heart? How did they overcome the twin threats to survival: confrontation with a new environment and confrontation with the West?

Of course, none of us really know for sure what life was like in New Zealand in the year 1000. But very elegant DNA studies from Massey University seem to confirm that a significant colony of Māori settlers was firmly established some eight hundred or so years ago.² And not by accident. Simulations point to at least fifty women being at the same place at the same time – an unlikely event unless it had been planned. A critical mass was necessary. Accounts of settlement by accidental voyaging (fishermen blown off course) are not supported by the new DNA evidence. On the contrary, careful planning to make the voyage to Aotearoa seems to have taken place over a two or three-hundred-year period – from the time of Kupe, until the arrival of the larger canoes bearing new settlers.

Even before then, however, there were Polynesian migrants who had been in New Zealand for some time. Some evidence of the early settlements is archaeological, and includes discoveries of kiore (rat) bones, but it is the oral narratives which are especially descriptive. Most tribal histories include accounts of early settlements in New Zealand. Best wrote about te Hapu Oneone and te Tini o Toi,³ early tribes whose members married with the descendants of Mataatua. John Te Herekiekie Grace described a ‘fair skinned and flaxen hair people’ called Ngāti Hotu who occupied the Taupō area prior to Tūwharetoa,⁴ and Pei Te Hurinui Jones mentions several early tribes, including the Pananehu, Maruiwi and Tai Tāwaro. The very early voyager, Toi te Huatahi came across some of them. ‘These people were not like Māori,’ Jones writes, ‘for some of them were very black and they had flat knees, he turi pāraharaha’.⁵ The local women ran after Toi’s men ‘because they were so handsome’, and intermarriage led to their absorption. While there is some archaeological evidence of those earlier peoples, there is no DNA evidence to indicate the survival of groups who are distinct from Māori.

I suspect that a thousand years ago the Pacific migrants who were in Aotearoa, found life in their new land a laborious and often discouraging task. Imagine after living in Rarotonga, or Tahiti, arriving in Aotearoa to face westerly winds, an absence of safe lagoons to buffer the force of the waves and to trap shoals of fish, no mammalian food reserves and frosts in the morning. None of the familiar comforts of home; no access to customary sources of food; and no tapa that could be fashioned into warm garments.

Adaptation to the Environment

The consuming task for whānau then must have been one of survival. How to maintain sufficient food supplies to last through long winters; how to keep warm and dry; how to create fire; how to deal with illness when the old medicines were no longer available; how to snare birds which lived so high off the ground; how to interpret the signs of nature; and how to cope with a new social order, yet to take shape. The challenge was to adapt to a new environment and use it to further the human cause. No question of returning to the good old days – they were now too far away in both time and distance.

Add to that the need to construct a new vocabulary. The situation in Aotearoa was different enough to require new words to describe the new faces of nature. There is no word in Rarotonga or Tahiti for frost. In other Pacific Islands, tio means a white oyster as it does to Māori. But in Māori the word tio also means a frost. Did frosts resemble oysters in some way so that the word tio was used, initially as a metaphor, until eventually it came to mean frost? And another novelty, a giant, flightless bird had to be named. There was nothing like it in other islands, but smaller fowls were called moa in Hawaii, Tahiti, and Tonga. So the word moa was applied to the much larger relative in New Zealand.

Finding new words may have been the easy part. Getting used to a different climate, distinct flora and fauna, the interpretation of the seasonal signs, flooded rivers, earthquakes, and long land distances would have been much more demanding challenges. I doubt that they were conquered overnight. Perhaps it took two hundred years or so to understand the environment, and maybe another hundred years to feel at one with the new land.

Amazingly, not only did the new settlers survive, they flourished. Writings of Pei Te Hurinui Jones and Bruce Biggs,⁶ and Angela Ballara⁷ seem to confirm that within two or three hundred years, small whānau groups had formed themselves into larger social units, hapū, and had constructed elaborate rules and conventions for the conduct of trade, fishing, agriculture and warfare. Life had become highly organised. Survival was no longer the all-consuming task and the exploits of whānau gave way to the more complex exploits of hapū and iwi (larger tribal groups). Now there was time to develop more sophisticated ideals and art forms and to codify what was previously a matter of experience and common sense.

Laws for Survival

The laws of tapu and noa, for example, took on new forms once the immediate challenge to survival had passed. Probably (although I am now speculating) in the first two or three hundred years of settlement in Aotearoa, whānau gradually learned about their new environment, at least enough to know what was safe, noa, what was risky, tapu, and what should be avoided at all costs, rāhui. Over time the reasons for introducing sanctions and recognising social liberties became incorporated into more elaborate explanations. Now the laws of tapu and of noa seemed to be derived from higher powers and mere mortals were expected to fall into line, or run foul of the authorities. What had started out as a series of whānau practices based on the law of survival, had become codified into a more complex statement about social conduct – still linked to survival but not so closely identified with whānau as with tohunga (tribal experts), or rather unforgiving gods.

The story about Moses and the Ten Commandments is not so different. Experience had taught the children of Israel, as they fled Egypt, that some conduct was in the interests of the well-being of the whole community while other behaviours would compromise group survival. To enforce the message, ten points were codified into a set of laws, the Ten Commandments, endorsed no less by Jehovah. My guess is that the stone tablet handed down to Moses was the final version of several drafts – the product of a long period of trial and error which saw the gradual evolution of a desirable way of doing things in order to increase the chances of group survival. Attributing the commandments to God converted a survival strategy into a moral code.

So it seems to have been with tapu and noa. Initially they were part of an agenda for survival. Later, the survival aspect took on a spiritual guise and to some extent the original point was lost. Or, maybe the spiritual explanation made better sense and continued to provide a reason for sensible behaviour even after the threat to survival had actually passed.

I do not really want to embark on a lengthy discussion about the laws of tapu. However, this brief excursion into tapu and noa, and the codification of the laws of survival, has a purpose. It is primarily to illustrate one of the ways in which whānau survived. Adaptation to the cold, to dense bush, to ocean swells, to tough fern roots, to mountain peaks, took its toll on human life. Survival of future generations required adherence to safe practices that were relatively risk free. I do not know of any application of tapu which is not about safeguarding life. Tapu is closely linked to health risks. And for the most part, safety is synonymous with the state of noa.

Procreation

Developing rules for safe living was only one survival strategy. The other was to ensure the vitality of future generations. In their scholarly study of the Tainui iwi, Nga Iwi o Tainui, Pei Te Hurinui Jones and Bruce Biggs recount some of the more colourful histories relating to individuals and hapū. They give a graphic description of the Tainui