The Discovery of Islands and the Stories of Settlement

Abstract

This article is a response to a paper presented to the New Zealand Historical Association in 1991 by J. G. A. Pocock, who suggests that Pakeha (European) settlers are now becoming tangata whenua (people of the land) in the same way that Maori did. The principal idea examined is what an 'indigenous' identity means once historical claims have been settled by Maori against the Crown, and whether there is any merit in the term 'indigenous'. The article then examines the logic behind the idea of 'original occupation' and the assumed rights associated with this concept.

On islands of truth in the Anthropocene: Kant, Rousseau and the loss of worlds

“…In a resonant passage, Kant (2012: 277) argues, ‘[the] chief success that the evil of unsociability had was the beginning of civil societies’. Waldron (2002: 136), for instance, interprets this as the precise condition for ‘distributive justice’ or what may amount to the ‘condition of unavoidable coexistence’ of good and evil (Tau, 2008: 18). In short, evil is not justified ‘unless a civil society is formed’ (2008: 21).…”

Keskidee Aroha: Translation on the Colonial Stage

“…The everyday use of this phrase refers to a kind of “no turning back now” situation. However, the proverb is rooted in a call to “indigenise” the lands of Aotearoa so that the Pacific islands, where the journeyers originated from, must now be rendered an ancestral home – Hawaiki (see Tau 2008). There is, of course, a similar sense of journeying across a vast ocean in the cultural memories of the African Diaspora of the Atlantic world, yet here, the journey is made in slave ships and the ancestral homelands are dislocated in far more violent and disturbing ways.…”

Living Memory and the Travelling Mountain Narrative of Taranaki

“…The anthropomorphic personification of Taranaki maunga reflects the concept of natural geological features being incorporated into the traditional Māori knowledge systems. Tau (2001Tau ( , 2001bTau ( , 2011 posits that tribal societies knew the world by absorbing it so that the person and the object were one. A mountain was an ancestor and therefore part of the person, the hapū and the iwi.…”

“…The process of sanctifying a place was enacted in claiming a place by karakia uruuruwhenua and burying bones within the earth. This process identified the ancestor with the landmark (Tau 2011).…”

“…Moreover this would place Taranaki maunga on the same level as one of the deities of the Māori. While it is common for ancestors to be depicted in significant landmarks and recognised as living beings by their descendants in Māori tradition, there must still be a coherent framework of knowledge represented by whakapapa (Tau 2011). There are no other tātai whakapapa to support this claim of Hohaia.…”