Light in odd corners of N.Z. history

Press, 7 June 1980, Page 17

Light in odd corners of N.Z. history

They Called Me Te Maari. By Florence Harsant. Whitcoulls, 1979. 188 pp. • . ' $9.95. Te Hemara: James Hamlin, Friend of the Maoris. By H. J. Ryburn. Pub- ' fished by the author, 1979. 151 pp. $lO. ■(Reviewed by: John Wilson) There remain many odd? corners of New Zealand history which are illuminated onlv- fitfully' in published works. “They Called Me Te. Maari’’ casts light into one of those neglected corners. It is: a book of. reminiscences, based bn a diary kept at the time and on conversations -taped recently for radio, of a woman who, brought up as the daughter of-a teacher at a remote ■Maori school'in'the.early.years of this century, was, between. 1913: and 1914, Maori Organiser for the: Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Drawing on her experiences in this post, and from her earlier associations with Maori people, Florence Harsant is able to bring back vividly the condition; of the Maori people in the . second-decade of this century, ■ at. a ■time when they were no . longer fashionable (as they had been in the late nineteenth century) as. a quaint cultural phenomenon. .They were, tunes of withdrawal and difficult cultural transition for the Maoris, and any intimate- record of their experiences,in

these times,. like this-book, should be welcomed. ■ '*• - is most useful, historically,‘-■for'the light it casts on the history-of. the Maori and of the )d e v e 1 o p m e n t of Maori-Pakeh relations, it deserves reading too for the vivid impressions it gives of New Zealand rural life in the first, two or three decades of this- century. The book is. a pleasure to read; it is disarmingly, unaffected, even innocent and ingenuous. At the same time Mrs Harsant is. clearlv shrewd and nobody’s fool, whether the “nobody” it an. ill-disposed pub-keeper or a capricious horse.The book . ends with ’ a question which’refers at’ one level, simply to Florence Harsant herself: “Can a Maori heart beat in a pakeha body?” It can also be read as a general inquiry about the ability of the two races to understand . each other’s different experiences: And-as such is a question that should preoccupy • New Zealanders; Florence Harsafit’s own experiences make a useful contribution to the answering of this broader question. ft , . • In “Te Hemara,” H. J... Ryburn writes of another individual whose experiences- also cast light on, and indeed influenced, the development of relations between the races in New Zealand:’But Dr Ryburn has worked

over more thoroughly cultivated ground. The importance of the missionaries, who in most districts preceded the settlers or organised European migration to New Zealand, is well-established and much-discussed in -New-Zealand historical writing.’ Nevertheless, by tracing the. life .and career- of a relatively obscure, but wide-ranging missionary who worked under.the Church Missionary Society, Dr Ryburn has been able to add to our knowledge and understanding of what the missionaries did and of what their historical importance is, especially: in early, contacts .. between Maori and European in New Zealand. The book ’ is occasionally disappointing. The author • accepts sometimes rather uncritically the “missionary” point of view, to the extent, even of not giving the Maoris themselves the proper hearing they deserve in a scholarly work. James Hamlin was indeed a friend of the Maoris, but on nineteenth century terms which will seem to many modem readers decidedly limited. Dr Ryburn often fails to see these limitations. He does not get-the’- proper distance from- his subject, as a professional historian would have, by setting him-in his entire cultural and historical context.-