What the loss of land did to Maori life and prospects

Press, 6 May 1988, Page 20

What the loss of land did to Maori life and prospects

This is the ninth of 10 historical articles giving the background to the Ngai Tahu land claim in the South Island. This one, by BILL DACKER, is about the social consequences to the Ngai Tahu of the loss of their land. The last article will be published next week. The articles have been written for the Ngai Tahu Maori Trust Board and will later be published as a booklet by the board.

THE TREATY of Waitangi was supposed to protect the Maori from the excesses that had marked European colonisation elsewhere. The promises extracted by Kai Tahu from the servants of the Crown during most of the land purchase negotiations, as conditions of those sales, were also intended to ensure that future Maori generations would benefit and not suffer from the effects of colonisation.

However, the Crown’s failure to ensure that Article 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi was honoured meant the loss of traditional resources as Europeans gathered in the land, destroying the habitats of the animals and plants upon , which the Maori economy depended. And the failure of the Crown to fulfil the promises made by its servants as conditions of the land purchases and the meanness of the reserves set aside after the purchases, deprived the Maori of land which should have been their main economic asset in the new economic order.

Participation in the cash economy of the European was their choice in the first half of the nineteenth century. By the end of it, as the Maori economy declined, there was no choice. Through lack of land the Maori could only compete with the European in that cash economy at the lowest level — that of the wage labourer. From the mid-1830s the Maori welcomed opportunities for commerce with the European. In the 1840 s and 1850 s schooners owned and operated by rangatira such as Tuhaawaiki, Karetai, Taiaroa, Potiki, Waruwarutu and Topi, traded along the coast and between Port Nicholson (Wellington) and southern ports. Crops of wheat, corn, potatoes and carrots, were grown at Waikouaiti, Otakou, Ruapuke and Tuahiwi for sale to immigrants. Fish were caught and sold to settlers. In 1859 a ton of groper was sold at Lyttelton, the price rising from 4 shillings each to 10 shillings, so great was the demand.

But as European numbers grew they no longer were dependent on Maori produce, transport and labour. In the resulting competitive world, the European had the advantage of greater experience in a commerce for which they set the rules and,

through the injustices of the land purchases, they also possessed nearly all the land. Thus Maori agriculture could not be significantly developed, and wage labour provided the only means of participating in the cash economy. In 1859 the missionary Wohlers noted that despite their best efforts “... the Maori are still poor while the Anglo-Saxons soon become well-to-do people A combination of factors made the situation worse. The people were strongly motivated to become respectable members of the new society. But to improve the little land they did possess required capital for implements and fencing. Wages, however, were increasingly spent on food as mahinga kai (traditional food resources) disappeared.

Thus capital had to be obtained by the leasing of land. And the considerable costs of seeking justice for their grievances were also often met by leasing land. Often there was no land left for even their own crops.

In 1872 the missionary James Stack described the Canterbury Maori as “condemned” by “the scanty yield from a scanty patch of soil ... to a life of poverty and privation ...” In 1880, he observed that: “... in spite of

poverty, they never relax their efforts to clothe and house themselves like their European neighbours. The privations they are forced to undergo, in order to do this, none but those who live amongst them can have any idea of.”

The Ngai Tahu Petition of 1874 described the condition of the people: “The condition of the Natives of the Middle Island is bad. As long as we have strength to work as servants to the Europeans, as long as the Market is accepting that servitude we are keeping ourselves and our families above want. Should this strength fail — and the time will come when it will — then we will be little better off than a mass of paupers thrown upon the present Lords of the land.” That strength did at times fail. In 1881 in Parliament H. K. Taiaroa acknowledged the aid given by the Government to aged and “indigent” natives of Kaiapoi and East Taieri but he pleaded for the destitute people of the other twenty-seven Kai TahuKati Mamoe settlements.

This poverty was beginning to break up the Maori communities by the 1890 s. Statistics from Alexander Mackay’s 1891 Commission of Inquiry show this clearly. The official census of that year counted 1231 Kai Tahu living at the Native settlements. Mackay’s total of 1663 included those living elsewhere.

His statistics show that landlessness was far greater amongst those living elsewhere, those without a place of permanent residence or with a European name but no “blood” designation. Only one of this group had “sufficient” land (more than 50 acres), while 216 were landless. Of the rest, only 128 had sufficient land, while 457 were landless. These statistics show the lack of land also beginning to break down the cultural bonds that bound the individual to hapu

(sub-tribe), to iwi (tribe), and to the land.

From 1890 to the present day, that breakdown has continued. Today only seven, possibly nine (depending on the definition of kaika [settlement]) of the 27 places Taiaroa mentioned in Parliament in 1881, have retained a significant Maori population.

The lack of land and its poor quality of land when retained, saw some small communities disappear well before World War 11. People with some acreage of reasonable quality were able to cling to it with the development of small dairy farms in the 1890 s. This happened at Kaiapoi, Waikouaiti and Otakou.

Even that advantage was lost after World War 11, when small dairy farming became no longer economically viable. Seasonal work also declined with increasing mechanisation, particularly devastating to Kai Tahu of places such as Arowhenua, Moeraki and Wairewa, because they had so little land.

The last 100 years history of Kai Tahu-Kati Mamoe speaks overwhelmingly of the problems caused by lack of land. The histories of a few rangatira families fortunate to have larger acreages show the advantage land gave.

They were able to invest income from leasing land and from farming, in their children’s education. By the turn of the century among their children were doctors, lawyers, a sur-

veyor and ministers. Migration from their communities left the people very exposed to the negative attitudes to Maori culture of the majority of Europeans amongst whom they then lived and worked. Maori culture had changed to cope with the early trade, the impact of the introduced diseases, the decision to give their spiritual and temporal loyalty to the Crown and Christianity, and early intermarriage with Europeans. The lack of land, the nearly complete loss of traditionaL resources and the resulting dispersal of their communities, changed a vital culture into a substantial cultural loss. The failure of successive Governments to settle the grievances also ensured cultural change would become cultural loss. Many rangatira tried to redress a decline in traditional knowledge as early as the 1870 s. Success with their land claims would have given the leadership the time, the resources and the mana to effectively deal with it. Continual failure bred a feeling of hopelessness that led many to give up much of their heritage. Kai Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Waitaha have in the 148 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi experienced immense changes. Some changes were welcomed, some were stoically endured and some still are strenuously resisted. In their attempts to be in control of their own destiny, Te Kerema (“The Claim”) remains as important as it ever was.

Note: Kai Tahu and Kati Mamoe are southern dialect forms for Ngai Tahu and Ngati Mamoe.

BILL DACKER of Dunedin is a history graduate of Otago University and has specialised in the oral history of Kai Tahu and their leadership .in the nineteenth century.

Despite poverty Maoris never stopped trying to live like their neighbours

Families with land turned their children into doctors, lawyers, etc.