Polynesians

Te Ao Hou, 1973, Page 25

Polynesians Speaking about ‘Polynesians and the Law’ we have first of all to think of this term ‘Polynesians’. Who are the Polynesians? They are, of course, members of a not very large, but famous, historical race described by one of their own great members, Te Rangi Hiroa (Dr Peter Buck) as the ‘Vikings of the Sunrise’. He said that he might be criticized for applying the term ‘Vikings’ to his Polynesian ancestors, but he felt that in English the term had come to mean bold, intrepid mariners, brave seamen, and could be used just as well in the Pacific, as it was used many centuries ago to apply to the hardy Norsemen of the North Atlantic. To the Polynesian, the sunset in the west symbolised death and the spirit land to which they returned, but the sunrise in the east was a symbol of life, hope, and the new lands that awaited discovery. Peter Buck said that he hoped this term ‘Vikings of the Sunrise’ could include all his kinsmen in the seattered islands of Polynesia. He said: “We have new problems before us but we have a glorious heritage, for we come from a people that conquered the Pacific with stone-age vessels that sailed full towards the sunrise”. Of course, this happened ages ago sailing from the legendary Hawaiki; and, only very recently, in terms of human history, arriving in the ‘Polynesian Triangle’ again specified by Dr Buck. One of the more recent-off-shoots of this great migration comprised the Maori people, who on their last voyage came to Aotearoa. There they lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. There they became ‘Tangata whenua’. We can imagine what this beautiful land of ours—and I say ours, because that is what it is—what this beautiful land of ours looked like and felt like in those far-off old days when the hand of industrial man had not been felt. It is no wonder that the Maori people came to love this land. This inspired one of our famous national poets, Thomas Bracken, who was the author of ‘God Defend New Zealand’, to say this: They loved the land With all the love intense a Maori feels For childhood's home! The hist'ry of their tribe Was written there on every rock and hill

That sentinelled the scene; for these had known Their deeds of prowess and their father's deeds of valour! And the caverns held the bones of those from whom they'd sprung. Then came the Pakeha—the stranger. First not very many. The Pakeha brought with him his law—the concept of allegiance to a single sovereign—a Queen who made laws. The Maori agreed to be subject to the Queen and to her laws. Of course, the Queen did not then, and does not now, make the laws herself. She and her Parliament do so. In the early days, it was the Queen and the Parliament in the United Kingdom—nowadays the Queen and the Parliament of New Zealand. These are the laws then—the Acts of Parliament—to which the Maori became subject due to the processes of history.