It was suggested to me years ago that one of the reasons NZ had a "better" reaction to Maori than Aus had to indigenous people was a simple matter of who was prettiest. 19th century Britons could understand Maori. They lived in "village" settings, had agriculture and warfare, and by English standards were handsome and well-made. Nice brown coloured skin, good height, muscular, nice wavy hair. Indigenous Australians are extremely black, skinny, frizzy haired and very "other" in features, with heavy brow bones, big lips and noses, and worse! They seemed to have no concept of ownership or anything that "made sense". They were treated as animals from very early on (and I mean, literally. You could get a licence to hunt them.)
The truly key issue, though, was land ownership and, ironically, a fundamentally different understanding of what that meant. When a particular iwi granted Settler X a piece of land in return for some muskets, their intent wasn't ownership in perpetuity - rather, the right to use it. Of course, the Crown saw it differently and purchased vast tracts of land (and in some cases just stole), leaving Maori going "the hell"? Cue the Land Wars. Some Maori did OK. Most didn't.
And of course there was just straightout racism from Pakeha NZers, who considered themselves British till the 70s. Maori were dirty, lazy, etc. But very good singers. Over time, as NZ became more "gentrified" quite a few people who could get away with it hid their Maori ancestry. There was a lot of intermarriage at first. Still is actually. Disliked on both sides, by some people.
Maori had their own political movements, sometimes tied to religion, in the 19th century as well. There are also famous Maori NZers like Sir Apirana Ngata who was the first Maori to get a degree in NZ (read more about him here (http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/N/NgataSirApiranaTurupa/NgataSirApiranaTurupa/en).
But despite everything looking fairly jim-dandy on paper, the reality has been that Maori are overrepresented in lower socioeconomic groups, have worse health, smoke more, drink more, are in jail more, have higher infant mortality etc.
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timeasmymeasure
Part 2!
Date: 2006-07-20 08:40 pm (UTC)The truly key issue, though, was land ownership and, ironically, a fundamentally different understanding of what that meant. When a particular iwi granted Settler X a piece of land in return for some muskets, their intent wasn't ownership in perpetuity - rather, the right to use it. Of course, the Crown saw it differently and purchased vast tracts of land (and in some cases just stole), leaving Maori going "the hell"? Cue the Land Wars. Some Maori did OK. Most didn't.
And of course there was just straightout racism from Pakeha NZers, who considered themselves British till the 70s. Maori were dirty, lazy, etc. But very good singers. Over time, as NZ became more "gentrified" quite a few people who could get away with it hid their Maori ancestry. There was a lot of intermarriage at first. Still is actually. Disliked on both sides, by some people.
Maori had their own political movements, sometimes tied to religion, in the 19th century as well. There are also famous Maori NZers like Sir Apirana Ngata who was the first Maori to get a degree in NZ (read more about him here (http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/N/NgataSirApiranaTurupa/NgataSirApiranaTurupa/en).
But despite everything looking fairly jim-dandy on paper, the reality has been that Maori are overrepresented in lower socioeconomic groups, have worse health, smoke more, drink more, are in jail more, have higher infant mortality etc.