New Zealand, June 3, 2009
I apologize for the gap in postings. Sharon and I met up in Auckland on June 1. (May 31 for you. We are living in tomorrowland until next week when we again join you on that side of the international date line.) We have been touring the North Island for a couple of days. In this very civilized country, it’s hard to find free wireless and the hotels want to charge $10 for a half hour.
Our first tour was a two hour bus ride through gorgeous countryside from Auckland to Waitomo to Rotorua. Rotorua (‘second lake’ in Maori) is both a lovely town on the water, and the heart of Maori (MAO-ree) country. Wes, our cab driver, was a Maori who, in a completely disimpassioned way, pointed out places along our route sites of bloody battles between Maori residents, the settlers, and British troops that were called in to help the new settlers (who were getting seriously whooped by the Maori). As Wes tells it, as the numbers of British settlers increased, they broke treaties by settling on Maori land. At first the Maori allowed the “visitors” to stay until it became apparent that the object of these behaviors was not sharing the land, but stealing it. When the people would not leave, the Maori slaughtered them. Rather than accepting these nasty confrontations as the results of their own misdeeds, the settlers went on an all out, 20 year killing rampage with the help of the British military. These Land Wars, lasting from the 1860’s through the 1880’s, resulted in the nearly complete annihilation of the Maori people who were fighting to the death to retain their homeland, or a least part of it. Whereas the Maori people once populated the entire area between what is now the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, through the entire Rotorua region, they had now retreated to a small area around what is now Rotorua. On a later tour, another tour guide, also Maori, told is that the annihilation of the native people had been so complete that at one point they had been deemed extinct.
This is not an unusual story, but a sad one. It is easy to make a connection back to the Samoan people who gave up their beliefs and ways when white religion and culture were superimposed on theirs. From there, it is natural to make the connection to our own Native American people who were hunted to the brink of extinction, and to the people of Africa who were enslaved to enrich “our” new country. White makes might makes right. But back to the narrative.
The Maori are a Polynesian people who sailed to New Zealand about 800 AD, probably as other islands throughout the Pacific became over populated. New Zealand was uninhabited at the time and had no predators of any kind, no poisonous snakes, insects or plants—a virtual Eden. The Maori brought dogs and rats with them which began to tip the ecological balance of these islands. One of the tour guides explained that Maori tribes can talk to each other, although there are minor differences in “accent” or dialect. She also thought that Maoris could probably communicate with Samoans, Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, but with difficulty.
It was amazing for me to compare sound of the Maori language to Samoan as well as the tattoos and wood carvings. There could be no doubt that these people are cousins. It would take an educated eye to distinguish one culture’s weapons and art objects from the other. Even some of the words are the same. For example, in both Samoan and Maori, a haka is this crazy, ritualized dance used to get warriors pumped with adrenalin. My students had acted out their haka during a class exercise, and we observed a Maori haka at one of the cultural shows two nights ago. (These shows always make me more than vaguely uncomfortable. There is something very sad about a vanquished people having to trot out their old costumes, customs, and dances for the conquering people in order to make money. I have attended many of these over the years and I have a sneaking suspicious that we, as white people, are treated to only the most superficial aspects of the culture during these shows. I hope in my heart that they keep the strongest “medicine” and most meaningful rituals for their private use. Perhaps that will be a different post.)
I apologize for the gap in postings. Sharon and I met up in Auckland on June 1. (May 31 for you. We are living in tomorrowland until next week when we again join you on that side of the international date line.) We have been touring the North Island for a couple of days. In this very civilized country, it’s hard to find free wireless and the hotels want to charge $10 for a half hour.
Our first tour was a two hour bus ride through gorgeous countryside from Auckland to Waitomo to Rotorua. Rotorua (‘second lake’ in Maori) is both a lovely town on the water, and the heart of Maori (MAO-ree) country. Wes, our cab driver, was a Maori who, in a completely disimpassioned way, pointed out places along our route sites of bloody battles between Maori residents, the settlers, and British troops that were called in to help the new settlers (who were getting seriously whooped by the Maori). As Wes tells it, as the numbers of British settlers increased, they broke treaties by settling on Maori land. At first the Maori allowed the “visitors” to stay until it became apparent that the object of these behaviors was not sharing the land, but stealing it. When the people would not leave, the Maori slaughtered them. Rather than accepting these nasty confrontations as the results of their own misdeeds, the settlers went on an all out, 20 year killing rampage with the help of the British military. These Land Wars, lasting from the 1860’s through the 1880’s, resulted in the nearly complete annihilation of the Maori people who were fighting to the death to retain their homeland, or a least part of it. Whereas the Maori people once populated the entire area between what is now the heart of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, through the entire Rotorua region, they had now retreated to a small area around what is now Rotorua. On a later tour, another tour guide, also Maori, told is that the annihilation of the native people had been so complete that at one point they had been deemed extinct.
This is not an unusual story, but a sad one. It is easy to make a connection back to the Samoan people who gave up their beliefs and ways when white religion and culture were superimposed on theirs. From there, it is natural to make the connection to our own Native American people who were hunted to the brink of extinction, and to the people of Africa who were enslaved to enrich “our” new country. White makes might makes right. But back to the narrative.
The Maori are a Polynesian people who sailed to New Zealand about 800 AD, probably as other islands throughout the Pacific became over populated. New Zealand was uninhabited at the time and had no predators of any kind, no poisonous snakes, insects or plants—a virtual Eden. The Maori brought dogs and rats with them which began to tip the ecological balance of these islands. One of the tour guides explained that Maori tribes can talk to each other, although there are minor differences in “accent” or dialect. She also thought that Maoris could probably communicate with Samoans, Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, but with difficulty.
It was amazing for me to compare sound of the Maori language to Samoan as well as the tattoos and wood carvings. There could be no doubt that these people are cousins. It would take an educated eye to distinguish one culture’s weapons and art objects from the other. Even some of the words are the same. For example, in both Samoan and Maori, a haka is this crazy, ritualized dance used to get warriors pumped with adrenalin. My students had acted out their haka during a class exercise, and we observed a Maori haka at one of the cultural shows two nights ago. (These shows always make me more than vaguely uncomfortable. There is something very sad about a vanquished people having to trot out their old costumes, customs, and dances for the conquering people in order to make money. I have attended many of these over the years and I have a sneaking suspicious that we, as white people, are treated to only the most superficial aspects of the culture during these shows. I hope in my heart that they keep the strongest “medicine” and most meaningful rituals for their private use. Perhaps that will be a different post.)
Click here for more photos.
Just Sharon, myself, and a young woman from Great Britain were toured through Glowworm Cave and Glowworm Grotto by yet another Maori guide. That was a breathtaking experience. The caves are made of limestone, so they are like a white cathedral inside. The glow worms were viewed from a boat in a darkened chamber of the cave. The glowworms are pupae that have created these chemical lights to attract insects that also hang out in the caves. They all dangle down a little filament which the insects get tangled up in as they fly toward the light. Glowworms are all over the ceiling and walls of the cave. In the pitch black cave, it looked like constellations of stars above us.
The Rotorua area is geographically very interesting. There are cold springs and hot springs, boiling mud, spewing steam and geysers. Yesterday, we were treated to all of these as well as a lovely nature walk and a show at the Agrodome where we saw sheep shearing, and watched sheep being micromanaged by some very manic and determined dogs. The dogs, a couple specially bred variants on the border collie, are able to “persuade” the sheep to do just about anything, just by using intense eye contact. I was glad to see that the sheep did not seem afraid of the dogs, even the ones that are trained to run along their backs from the back to the front of the herd. Actually, they seem more annoyed than anything. In fact, the sheep and the dogs seem to be friends. One of the back-walking dogs was sitting on a sheep’s back, licking its head quite affectionately at one point. This world is a strange and wonderful place.
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