;., : ~~.j In tbis submission I will aim to establish the likely me~ ~ both Maori and

Transcription

1 " 1 SUBMISSION FOR W AlTANGI TRIBUNAL - MURIWHENUA LAND CLAIM ;::~---. -~i~,i My name is Anne Salmond. I am an. Associate-Professor of Maori Studies and =t~. Social Anthropology at the University of Auckland. I trained as a sodal I,.:. ~ ~ ~r an.t~rop?jogist and lingui~t at the Uni~ersity of Auckland, and subsequ~nt1y,at the... --?i: ~tr-'::- ~ Uruverslty of Pennsylvarua. 1 have wntten a number of papers on the hlstoncal. ::> ~... ~ ~l semantics of Maori, in addition to other works on contemporary Maori life and a ; ~~~. -,. -:.,3 ::J;j forthcoming book on the first meetings between Maori and Europeans. l~~' O~; ::~_;TIr~.~ :S:!~ ;., : ~~.j In tbis submission I will aim to establish the likely me~ ~ both Maori and. : ~ ii, -~;Europe~n prota~?nists ~t the time, of the words ~ <?-nd. k as used in land deeds - '-_._-_. -.,,-,~~.. wntten ill Maon ill Munwhenua up to My oplmon Wlll be based on a consideration of the following sources: A semantic analysis of the words tuku and hokq as they appear in a selection of early Maori texts. TIus analysis was carried out after a computer-aided search of a range of early Maori writin~s, held in the data base established by Dr Cleve Barlow at the Department of Maon Studies, University of Auckland. A close inspection of the land deeds from several key transactions in Muriwhenua, viz. The 1834 and 1840 Kerekere (CMS) transactions; the 1839 and 1840 Orum (or Ford) transactions; and the 1840 and 1841 Muriwhenua North (Taylor) transactions; and the Wazl and Rigby reports covering the historical background to these and other transactions in Muriwhenua. Background kn.owledge derived from many years of research into the life of early contact Maori communities; and an evaluation of recent independent research in.to the concept of, sale' ill the Bay of Islands during the contact period before 1840, carried out by PhHlippa Wyatt at the Departm.ent of Historyl University of Auckland. THE SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF TUKU AND HOKO IN EARLY MAORI TEXTS The analysis began with print-outs from Dr Barlows data base of approximately one thousand occurrences of the words tuku and hoko in Maori written texts, including Te Paipera Tapu (The Holy Bible), Nga Main a Nga Tupuna edited by Sir George Grey, and N a Moteatea edited by Sir Apirana Ngata. From the pnnt -outs I returned to the onginal texts, to examine and analyse the ways in which tuku and hoko were used in various sentences, and from that to deduce a range of meanings for the terms, at least as they were used in early texts ill Maori. In particular r have focussed on early versions of Biblical textsl since these seem most likely to reflect the Janguage used in missionary-drafted land deeds i.n Muriwhenua THE FINDINGS HOKO Hoko is used often in the Maori translation of the Bible, with the translation meanings 'buy, sell, hire, exchange, redeem'. The basic meaning of hoko here appears to be 'exchange'. In the Biblical texts examined, hoko refers to exchanges of people (as bondmen and women, or 'pononga'), animals, foodstuffs including wheat, wood, stone, and land: 'A ka haere nga tamarijd a Iharaira Id te hoko wid i rota i te hunga i Iwere mal ' 'And the sons of Israel came to f211 corn among those that come: (Genesis 42 v.s) S/T'd

2 2 'Kaua e ljqkqna te whenu~ he mea oti tonu atu; noku hold te whenua: 'The land shall not be sold forever; for the landis min.e: (Leviticus 25 v 23)?Va ka tatau ia, raua ko te tangata nana ia i ~ ka timata i te tau i hokona ai ia Id a la' 'And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was.smd..,, (Leviticu..<; 25 v. 50) 'E l1t2k!!.na ana e Naonti, i Iwere mai!lei i te whenua 0 MoapZ. te wahi 0 te mara i to fatou tuakana.. ' 'Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, which was our brother's... ' (Ruth 4:3) 'Katahi a Poaha ka mea, ate ra e hoko ai koe i te mara i te ri!lga 0 Naomi '" ' 'Then said Boaz, what day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi... j (Ruth 4:4) It should be noted that in the Biblical texts, the use of hoko in connection with land is translated as 'buy', 'sell', and 'redeem', and that it refers to transactions among kinsfolk, rather than to sales in the open m.arket. Fu.rthermore it must be said that this evidence can best be taken as testimony of the translation meanings of b&/s;q as understood by the missionary translators, and only indirectly as evidence of any Maori understandings at the time. Hoko very rarely appears either in. Nga MQteatea, or Nga Mabi a Nga I.up,una, and none of the occurrences in those texts adds anything further to this analysis TUKU 'l:.!:!:k11. is more commonly used in all the texts examined than is!j,qkq. In the Bible it has a complex array of translation meanings, including 'send~ deliver, let down, give, let go, offer, let, allow, release.' The basic meaning here appears to be 1directed transfer', with a connotation of either to 'pass' (eg send, dihver, offer, give, let down) or to 'release' (eg let, let &0, allow, release)... Sometimes the meaning of w..ku 1S made m.ore specific by the addition of a qualifying particle eg: tuku atu -let go, send, go [atu = away from speaker] tuku mai - give, deliver, come [mal ~ towards speaker] tuku ilto - let down.,pass down [iho = down from speaker] tuku ake - give up, yield rake ::: up from spealcer] tuku noa - freely release [noa = without restriction] I found only one instance in the Biblical texts of tuku used in connection with land: 'Na ka mea a lhowa ki ahau, Titiro, lala timata ahau te tuku ki tou aroaro i a Hihona, i tona whenua ; anga am. tangohia tona whenua hei kainga... ' 'And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have begun to give Sihon and his land before thee = begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land': (Deuteronomy 2:31) Here tuku has the translation meaning 'give" and it clearly refers to the beginning of a process which starts with possession, and which may lead later to more secure tenure (in this case, inheritance). S/Z"d SvZEZ0E >ljntj,..\hlil Hlt-ltJ ldj(] 21 : E,[1 Tlf

3 3 In Nga Moteatea, t!jjs:m. has the translation meanings 'release, send, offer, go, come, let go, despatch, allow', and I found no occurrences of its use with respect to land TUKU AND HOKO IN TIlE MURIWHENUA LAND DEEDS: In what follows I will focus on the translation meanings of tl!lsy. and /:1QkQ in the 1834 and 1840 Kerekere (or ems) transactions, the 1839 and 1840 Oruru (or Ford) transactions, and the 1840 and 1841 Muriwhen.ua North (or Taylor) transaction KEREKERE (ems) TRANSACTIONS: In the 1834 Kerekere deed, the phrase 'kua oti nei te t1:i!:s!j. e ma/ou e Panakareao 111a Ida te Paid. rno te hwtga 0 te Hahi Mihanare tetahi wahi wenua oti tonu atu '" ' is translated in the English version of the deed as 'I Panakareao and tribe have sold to Mr Puckey for the Church Missionary Society a piece of land,' and later 'ka itqgtu nei e Te Paid Ida Panakareao ma nga mea nei hei 'f!:11!:.' is translated as 'Mr Puckey has ~ to Panakareao and tribe as a payment these things '" ' The same key terms are repeated in the 1840 deed. On the basis of the semantic analysis of tuku given above, it does not seem to me that /am oti neue tl:jjsjj.. could be accurately translated here as have sold. A more accurate translation would have been 'completed the release.' The utu (return exchange) referred to in the 1834 deed served to balance the release of the land from Panakareao to Puckey for the Church Missionary Society. Note that in the last sentence of this deed, 'lata oti te tuka' is translated not as ~ butas 'have ~', indicating that the author knew that tuku was not strictly synonymous with sell'. In the Kerekere deed the same phrase 'kua oli te tuku' is used with the same translation. 'have sold', and the deed goes on to specify that this includes the mana and the rangatiratanga over the land. 1 do not think it is plausible to suggest that the chiefs concerned would have a$reed to 'sell' m.ana or rangatiratanga to the land, and the translation ~have released' IS again strongly preferred. 3.2 ORURU(FORD) TRANSACTIONS In the 1839 Ford deed the phrase 'Iala oti te tuku e matou E Nopera Pallakareao ma ki ate Poari tetahi wahi wenua, oli tonu atu' is translated in the En&lish text as 'We Noble Panakareao have ~ to Mr Ford a portion ofland to be hls forever'; a much more accurate rendenng of t1:l!sj&.; and the deed goes on to specify joint occupancy rights in perpetuity for Ford and local people and their descendants, It is made very clear in this deed that tz4:u was not referring to a 'sale', ie. a complete surrendering of all rights in perpetuity. In the endorsement to this deed, mu'eh of the land was returned to the local inhabitants except for one piece of which it was said: 'kua Iwata tenei kainga e Nopera Panakareao fa' a Te Poari me nga mea kaloa 0 faua whenua.., InO te Poari me an.a tamariki ake ake ake,' translated in the English text of tbe endorsement as ~Noble Panakareao has ~ this land to Mr Ford and his heirs for ever and ever,' HQatu would be more accurately translated here as handed over, rather than.s.clq, and it is made clear in the deed that this land has been handed over to Ford and his descendants in perpetuity, as long as the joint occupancy arrangement between Ford and his descendants and local people was upheld, S/E'd

4 4 3.3 MURIWHENUA NORTH (TAYLOR) TRANSACTIONS In. the 1840 Taylor deed (which had no paranel deed in English) 'kua 06 te tuku e matou e Nopera Pana Kareao ma Ida Reihana Teira tetahi wahi whenua oti tonu atu... me te ran$atiratanga me Ie mana i rnnga i taua Whefw.a', translated by Waerete Norman III 1990 is 'We consent to the release of a small piece of land to Richard Taylor... and the authqrity and mana over this land... ' Here it is made clear that the release (fylill.) included the rangatiratanga and the mana on the land. The deed goes on to say 'mo Reihana Teira te wenua kua oti nei te wakarite mo ona tamarild ake ake ake" translated by Waerete Norman as 'This land as set out shall be for Richard Taylor an.d bis children. in perpetuity.' I take this deed to state that Panakareao had passed over the mana and the rangatiratanga of this land to Richard Taylor and his children in perpetuity. The deed goes on to say that Taylor in tum agreed that the rest of Te Aupouri could peacefully occupy the land, and that he would reserve a place for them to live. Further, the sale of any place within these boundaries was declared to be in hr~<!~h of this agteement (my translation of Qoka1Jo.a in this context) The deed was signed by 29 'kai tuku' or 'parties to the release.' The 1841 Taitimu addendum to the 1840 Taylor deed includes the phrase 'ta!a.~ whakaaetanga ki te hokonga a Nopera i Muriwhenua ki. a te Teira' - 'my agreement to Nopera's exchange of land in Muriwhenua to Taylor.' This addendum goes on to state that Taitimu was bappy to go and live at Waikuku, Taylor's dwelling-place, as a guarantor for Taylor. Ta1t1ffiu's statement says;1 will not allow those people to live there who don't agree that this is Taylor's dwelling-place.' Taitimu (described on the addendum al\ 'chief of Te Aupouri') along with three other men, wa<; evidently agreeing to the exchange of land in Muriwhen.ua from Nopera to Taylor, and to go and Hve at Waiku.ku; Taylor's dwelling-place. to hold it for Taylor and to keep out any people who contested Taylor's right to the place. It seems that Taitimu was anticipating that Taylor would come to live at Waikuku, and that he would do so in co-occupancy with Te Aupouri people. 4.0 INTERPRETATION OF THE MEANINGS OF TUKU AND HOKO WITH REGARD TO NORTHERN LAND TRANSACTIONS BEFORE 1841 It is not possible to fully interpret the meanings of tij:ki1 and!:jj2lsq in various Muriwhenua land deeds from the evidence of the written texts alone. Although tjj.ku is evidently best translated as 'let go, release' in these contexts, and 'hoko' as 'exchange', yet what precisely was being relea')ed or exchanged in these transactions is not clear from the written texts. In the deeds examined, the object of tuku 'release' was given variously as 'tetahi wahi whenua' (an area of land), 'tend kainga' (this dwelling - place), and '(aua whenua' (that land), but in my judgement such releases or exclianges did not amount to sales in the European sense (ie. the impersonal, enforceable and permanent extingujshment of all rights, in return for a consideration). On the contrary, the arrangements entered into in the Ford and Taylor transactiom; for instance, were clearly personal and genealogical in nature, intended to be carried on by the children of the European protagonists, and in both cases specifying co-occupancy arrangements between the jncomin~ European family and local people. For a better grasp of the uses of tjj./gf and hoko m the Maori language deeds, therefore, it is necessary to briefly consider pre~contact precedents. for transfers of land, and how these changed in the course of early contacts with Europeans in the North. 4.1 PRE-CONTACT LAND TRANSFERS I t is obvious but important to note that in pre-european times, there was no market economy, and thus no notion opcommodity'. Foodstuffs, carved items, cloaks, valuable stones and other goods moved along pathways of relationship - especially S/p-d

5 5 those of kin'ship and alliance. A gift was eventually balanced by its counter - gift, and such gift exchanges kept social pathways open and alive. Transfers of land, on the rare occasions when they occurred, m.ight mark the birth of a namesake (Graham. 1948:270), or "the occasion. of peace-making between two tribes, as Y.tlf (compensation) for a breach of tapu, for a murder or for people killed in war, for assistance in war, on marriage, to atone for adultery, to a tribe who wished to settle, and to re-equip relatives who had suffered a calarrutt (Firth 1959:388). Only the most momentous events were marked by gifts of land, and to the best of my knowledge such transfers were always known as tufa/. whenua (and never as hoko whetj:ljg~ so far as I know: ego Ibid:389, Te Rangihiroa 1962:381). Of all of tbe early types of tribal transfers of land with which I am familiar, the case of 'tribes who wished to settle' seems to provide the nearest parallel with early land transactions with incoming Europeans. Tribes who wished to settle were allocated places for houses and gardens, were expected to give loyalty, assistance and regular offerings of food to host groups, were protected from outside attack, and could be evicted jf they abused or neglected the obligations inherent in the arrangement. If they ceased to occupy the land, it reverted to the host group. Land could also be transferred to allies for services rendered, in which case most of the same expectations applied. 4.2 EARLY CONTACT land 1RANSFERS TO EUROPEANS IN TIlE NORm: Pbillippa Wyatt, in her recent M.A. Thesis in History at the University of Auckland, has completed a close analysis of land transactions with Europeans in the Bay of Islands before It is clear from her account of these Northern transactions that tribal groups regarded Europeans in the early contact period as valuable sources of European ~oods: trade, knowledge an.d technologies, and eagerly sought to recruit them as allies and settlers for this reason. Offers of land were often made in the period before 1840 to entice particular Europeans to settle in. the territories of particular groups. Wyatt has, however, convmcingly demonstrated that when such offers were taken up, the incoming Europeans were treated as settler guests and allies, who were expected to give long-term practical service and loyalty to their cooccupant hosts. If such service was not forthcoming, if the lands were n.ot occupied or if loyalties had d~arly shifted, the host group characteristically regarded the arrangement ac; null and void and expected the land to revert to their control. The 'payments' made to mark such arrangements were evidently often regarded as initiatory rather than conclusive, and as marking the establishment of a relationship between the parties rather than the complete extinguishment of one partis rights m the land concerned. (Wyatt 1991: ) Wyatt makes the observation (with which I agree) that at first land could only be 'released' (tuhf) to Europeans. 111e idea that land was a commodity that could be bought and sold in impersonal; binding transactions was so fundamentally alien to pre-contact notions of both land and relationships that at first it was unthinkable (Ibid:66-67). Even when the term /1QJ;Q (exchange) began to be applied to lanel it appears to have initially referred to exchanges of goods and long-term service for occupation rights. In Wyatt's view the notion of 'sale' of land as a permanent extinguishment of all rights for a consideration was so foreign that it was only very slowly and imperfectly grasped by people in the Bay of Islands, and then not before CONCLUSION Arguments over whether Maori people, particularly before 1840, understood what was involved in 'sales' of land have often been confused. The understandings of mono-lingual Maori speakers at the time (which must have included the huge majority of Muriwhenua Maori) have been muddled with the understandings of bi- Sv2E20E E:. v9 )[)lltj,..\ulil HltJtJ Id3G vi :91 16, E:,0 TIL

6 JLlL 0'3 '91 14:53 DEPT RNTH LItH V RUCK P.2/8 6 lingual missionaries and other settlers as evidenced in the English as well as the Maori texts that they created. Strictly speaking1 the English texts of bi-lingualland deeds are evidence only of the desires and intentions of the European who drafted them. The match between the English and the Maori texts is evidence of the integrity and the linguistic ability of those same Europeans. Only the Maori texts (in so far as they were read out to mono~lingual, and often exclusively oral audiences of Maori speakers) are good evidence of what Maori people might have understood and agreed to. fu my view, translated reports of Maori speeches or comments at gatherings (when reported in English, by Europeans) are not very convincing evidence of Maori attitudes and unaerstandings, given the selectivity and already - translated nature of such reports. In order to argue persuasively that particular land transactions before 1840 amounted to valid 'sales', therefore, it seems to me that one must show that: either some word in Maori had come by then to mean 11 a full and permanent extinguishment of all rights. in return for a consideration," and that this word appeared as a key term in the document that was signed; QI that the agreement included a comprehensive explanation of such implications in the document that was signed. In the case of the word ti&!ru., I do not believe that it has ever carried anything like the referential values of the En~lish word 'sell'. While it seems to me that Maori people who signed deeds in which tufa/. was a key term intended those transactions to be binding, I do not believe that they intended to permanently extinguish all of their rights in the land ~n question. ~ather, it is probable t~at they.1l:nderstood themselves to be entenng llto conditional releases of the kind farmharly referred to by the term 'tuku whenua' in Maori, in the expectation of establishing long-term relationships (with their attendant reciprocities) with the Europeans concerned. Even where all the conditions of the original tuku arrangement were faithfully upheld by the Europeans, therefore; I do not think that such transactions amounted to 'sales' in the European sense. Where those conditions were not faithfully upheld (as in the Ford and Taylor transactions, where both co-occupancy and genealogical conditions were breached), in my view the Maori protagonists would have regarded the tuku arrangement as having lapsed. Further. where such pre ~ 1840 deeds used the term t.11:ky:., ~ven. commonplace missionary translations of tuku as 'release' or 'give' (in the BIble, or in some of the deeds themselves), it seems to me that the missionary drafters must have been aware that this wa,<:; at best a very imperfect equivalent for the English word sell'. In the case of the word!jq.kq. on the other hand. in Muriwhenua as elsewhere, this seems eventually to have adopted most of the referential values of the English word 'sell'. This must, however, have been a slow and uneven process of semantic shift, with some implications being grasped later than others. Until there was a system of titles, laws of trespass and agencies for enforcing property rights established in New Zealand, it must have been extremely difficult for Maori people to grasp the full, practical implications of 'sales' of land. Wyatt has ar~ued that in the Bay of Islands, It was not until after 1840 that this process of semantic shift seriously began. It seems to me unlikely that understandings in Muriwhenua shifted earlier or (given their lesser contact with Europeans) at a faster rate than in the Bay of Islands. It is for this reason that I have consistently translated hoko as 'exchange' in land deeds in Muriwhenua up to 1841.

7 JUL 09 '91 14: 53 DEPT ANTH Ut'lIV AUCK P.3/8 \ \ 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY Firt~ Raymond, Economics of the New Zealand Maori, R.E. Owen, Government Printer, Wellington, Graham, George, 'Whangai Tamariki', Journal of the Polynesian Society 57 (1948) : Te Rangihiroa, The Comin of the Maori, Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.~ WeI IT ingtoll, Wyatt, Phillippa, The Old Land Claims and the Concept of'sale'; A Case Study, M.A thesis in History, University of Auckland; Church Missionary Society Press; Ko Te Pukapuka Tuatah1 a Mohi, E Karangatia net ko Kenehi, 1845 GNZMS 121 APL (MaunseU trans). Ekoruhe; RewitiJ... llha; GNZMS 122 APt (also Maunsell?) Rutu, GNZMS 251: 1 API.., c1848.