THE ORIGINS OF THE MAORI WARS

Te Ao Hou, July 1958, Page 54

THE ORIGINS OF THE MAORI WARS by Dr Keith Sinclair, University Press of New Zealand, Wellington, 1957. I have had the privilege of attending a great many Maori functions on a good many maraes. over a long period of years, and I have found that the Maori wars, and especially the Taranaki and Waikato wars, are not “old far-off forgotten things” by any means. They have played a very real and important part in Maori thinking during past generations and they still influence Maori thinking today. And pakeha thinking too, for that matter. Wars and their consequences of land-confiscation and their heritage of bitterness and misunder-standing are important things. Nobody wants to see the bitterness and misunderstanding continue. The best way to get rid of them is to know the facts about them and that is where Dr Sinclair's book on the origins of the Maori wars is so important. Dr Sinclair deals with facts as facts, where so many of our historians have dealt with the interpretation of those facts to prove something or other. And I do not mean just the professional historians either. Dr Keith Sinclair is Senior Lecturer in History at Auckland University. His training has given him two things. The knowledge of how to go about getting the facts and the ability to see them as facts, and not as arguments for or against a point of view. That is why his book is not only interesting but very important to both Maori and European. He has spent years in filling up the gaps n known history. When the gaps had been filled to the best of his ability he has re-examined existing knowledge and opinion in the light of the fresh facts he has brought to light. Consequently, anyone who reads his book cannot fail to get a new insight into the conditions and the forces which caused the Maori wars to be fought. During my lifetime I have heard a lot of discussion, by Maoris among Maoris, by pakehas among pakehas, and by the two peoples together. Frankly, there were often times when I felt they did not really know what they were talking about. How should they, and unless they devoted years and years to painstaking fact finding, how could they? There are not many of us, of either race, who have had the time, or the opportunities, or the facilties to make a thorough, detached study of the subject. Dr Sinclair has had all these things. He has gathered all the obtainable facts. Having gathered them he has assembled them and presented them in a form which any thinking person can absorb. We cannot get away from the fact that these things happened, because their consequences still affect us in some way or another. There has long been a need for someone to find out why they happened and how they happened, and to assemble all the information possible. Dr Sinclair has not only found out these things, but he has made the information available to any one who can read with his mind as well as with his eyes. Even if you do not really go in for this sort of reading. I think you will be interested in at least dipping into this book. Once you have gone that far, then I think you will go the rest of the way and read the book from cover to cover with interest and enjoyment. Then if you find yourself talking about the Maori wars and their causes you will know what you are talking about. Leo Fowler.