A Survey Of Maori Life

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31215, 12 November 1966, Page 4

A Survey Of Maori Life

The World of the Maori. By Eric Schwimmer. A. H. i A. W. Reed. Wellington. 160 pp.

As one time editor of New Zealand’s first modern Maorilanguage magazine, “Te Ao Hou,” Mr Schwimmer comes well equipped for this survey of Maori life. He has written widely on Maori affairs since his arrival in this country in 1940 and is at present reading for a PhJ>. in anthropology at the University of British Columbia. He has attempted a most difficult task: a survey of classic Maori culture in an attempt to discover how it has influenced Maori thinking and behaviour today, and in doing so has produced a book which is most interesting. The subject matter deals not so much with what the Maori did in the past, but how he did things, and includes a great deal of really interesting information on behaviour and motivation. The reader is left to himself to decide which of the two current theories of settlement he prefers, the traditional belief of the Maoris, or the recent controversial suggestion by Mr Andrew Sharp, but, quite rightly, this is a minor point in a book which is making a comparative culture study. Most of the essential mythological stories are treated, and this section of the book is a most profitable source of material for the reader who wants to get at the essence of Maori belief. There are the stories of the origin of Man and an excellent section which explains the meaning of tapu, better than any other attempt which the reviewer has come across.

Maui is of course mentioned and the book then moves to the subject of kinship, which is an area of the Maori social structure which needs to be understood fairly clearly if one is to understand the Maori as he finds himself in society today. Aspects of education, law and order and life in the village precede another particularly interesting section dealing with a further aspect of Maori life which needs to be understood clearly—mana. This is always a difficult concept to describe, but Schwimmer does it well. "Without it no enemy could be defeated, no crops would grow, the people were at the mercy of every misfortune.”

The mana of tribes, chiefs, people and objects is treated, also the spiritual beliefs and the place of the Tohunga, or expert. Warfare played a fairly large part in the life of the classic Maori and there is a brief mention of this plus a brief mention of distribution and ownership. Other authors have made extended studies of these points (Buck and Firth) but sufficient is included to convey the message and to preserve continuity in

the word picture of the early Maori.

Before turning to the modern Maori, Mr Schwimmer has something to say about the cultural achievements of the ancient Maoris—song, speech, dance and the decorative arts. The author traces the decline in decorative arts, which followed the Maori wars; the revival, under Sir Apirana Ngata, is dealt with in a subsequent section. Mr Schwimmer defines the modern Maori thus: “the ancient Maori was a member of the Stone Age culture I have tried to reconstruct in the preceding pages; the modern Maori is, above all else, a member of an ethnic minority which stands in special relationship to the dominant white majority.” It is here that the book enters into its own as a sociological or anthropological study of the Maori today, and offers a concise interpretation of where the Maori is today and why he is there. The effects of early contact with Europeans are traced; then follows the acculturation period, through to the. missionaries and the inevitable inter-racial conflicts which inevitably followed. Some of the misunderstandings between the two peoples, such as the meaning of land ownership, are dealt with, as is the breaking down of the Maori social structure of Tohunga and Chief, etc., without this being replaced by anything equally effective.

The Maori “drift to the cities” is one of the effects of European colonisation, and Schwimmer points out that most Maoris congregate in districts, clubs, churches, etc., of their own choice and so become highly visible ethnic groups on the urban scene. Most Maoris are placed in the wage-earning group of society and provide the labour force rather than the managerial force. As well as this they are inclined to have larger families than their European neighbours but have to manage on lower incomes. The final question is: “What is the Maori role in the wider framework of New Zealand Society? At the outset we have to acknowledge that as a group, Maoris supply New Zealand’s workers rather than her managers, that educational qualifications are still, on the average, lower; that Maoris tend to earn less than pakehas while supporting larger families, and that they tend to live in more crowded housing conditions. In addition they still have to contend with a certain amount of colour discrimination, even though this rarely takes an extreme form.” Neither Maori nor pakeha accepts this as a permanent situation and Mr Schwimmer suggests that the Maori prefers to withdraw from pakeha society rather than become a lower “caste.”

Government and people, Maori and pakeha, regard any remaining difference in status as wrong, and with large-scale urbanisation, improvement in housing conditions, the changing pattern of intermarriage and the increasing public condemnation of colour discrimination the two peoples are slowly but certainly closing the gap. What of the Maori in the future? Mr Schwimmer answers: “All we can say is that the anxieties of the past and present have imparted to Maori culture and Maori identity a very special value in the eyes of the Maori people and certainly, as long as this anxiety lasts, the culture and identity will also endure. New Zealand would have nothing to lose and much to gain if it endured for ever.”

This book would give the Initiate an excellent introduction into the cultural life of the classic Maori and should be read by those concerned with Maori life today and how it has been influenced by the past. Indeed the modern Maori cannot be understood without reference to his ancestors, and for those with an interest in Maori affairs the reviewer would place this book on the highly recommended list.