RATANA; the man, the Church, the political movement

Te Ao Hou, July 1973, Page 54

RATANA; the man, the Church, the political movement by J. McLeod Henderson A. H. & A. W. Reed in association with the Polynesian Society, $3.95 reviewed by Roger G. Chapman Within recent years there has been a growth of interest in the Maori prophetic movements. It is as if the Maori prophet is at last becoming more widely regarded as an important figure in New Zealand history. In view of the topicality of the question the second edition of Henderson's Ratana is welcomed, the first edition having been unavailable for some time. However, the expectations which one has of a second edition of this type have not been fulfilled. It is unfortunate that Henderson's approach contains several flaws which have, for the reviewer at least, important implications for the study of Maori institutions as elements in New Zealand social history. One such implication is that since New Zealand is a multi-racial society there is both the need and the scope for greater co-operation between the anthropologist and the historian. Both are confronted with the problem of translating the meaning of either another place or another time into contemporary, universalistic terms. The anthropologist is painfully aware of the problems in confronting a culture other than his own. He realises that even after a prolonged stay in another culture he will still know less of the culture than the average child growing up within it. The European historian looking at an earlier period in his own society is almost as alien to it as an anthopologist in the field situation. However, even though the one culture appears very differently through time, the historian remaining within his own culture at least shares the heritage of that culture. One he steps into another culture for the first time he confronts the problem which the anthropologist calls ‘culture shock’. It certainly would not be valid to criticise a researcher on grounds other than those which he has explicitly taken into account

but I believe that Henderson's approach to the Ratana movement is lacking in the over-all perspective which anthropology could have provided. He clearly is aware of the anthropological research carried out on prophetic movements and mentions some of the more notable writers in the preface to the second edition. I searched in vain for his use of these sources throughout the text only to find them added on to the end of his original bibliography. One new source actually used in the text, however, is that of Smelser (p.10) and this rather fortuitously points to another flaw in Henderson's approach. With the benefit of hindsight it might apēpar a simple matter to see ‘most of the determinants of collective action’ (p. 10), but I question to what extent social action is ever determined. Why, for example, did the Ratana movement begin as a religious movement when earlier Maori responses to ‘structural strain’ had been so varied? Apart from religious responses there had been isolationism, warfare, other forms of political action, or various combinations of these. Those who later became followers of Tahupotiki Ratana were first confronted with a conscious choice. In return for the promise of a better life they had to restructure certain of their traditional ways. That so many did is of more importance than any statistics show. Why did they do it for Ratana? When so many of their problems were of the here and now, why did they in fact seek the religious solution? Such questions are as valid to the historian as to the anthropologist. The very anthrological sources which Henderson cited but never used provide some of the answers. Henderson quotes Bishop Selwyn who suggests that the Maori felt the missionary to be part of the government plot to subjugate him and goes on to say: ‘The shock to the Maori faith had caused the people to turn to the Maori messianic leaders’ (p.9). This is, at least, evidence of ethnocentricism. Is Henderson suggesting that had the missionary not failed the Maori the latter would not have turned to his own messianic leaders? The Maori messianic movements were more than a negative response toward the missionaries whom they felt had failed them. The Maori was responding to the whole Pakeha culture of which the missionaries were themselves part. Is it logically possible for the missionary as a partial cause of the problems perceived by the Maori to provide a solution to these same problems? We must look for explanations of Maori messianic movements from a positive, Maori point of view. Ad hoc explanations of the type which Henderson offers are just not defensible. The Ratana movement, like those which preceded it, was a natural response on the part of a highly religious people toward their problems. By this I mean that, traditionally, religion has pervaded all aspects of Maori life and Henderson points to this (p.9). From Papahurihia in the 1830s onward the Maori has embraced Christianity, but he could only have done this in his own terms. Here the institution of the marae already presented a model much closer to that of Biblical Christianity than that of Pakeha society. Furthermore the Pakeha preached of one God but were themselves divided into many denominations. Maori Christianity thus became a synthesis of two worlds, the world of the Maori and his view of the world of Biblical Christianity. There is an arrogance on the part of the Pakeha that, despite his own denominationalism, he implies there is but one form of Christianity. For example, Henderson says ‘… it is true that the prime influence has been Wesleyan in so far as the Ratana Church can claim to be still Christian’ (p.50). This is to deny again the nature of a distinctly Maori Christianity and the part it still plays in New Zealand society. The major criticism to be made is that the data which Henderson provides lack a general framework. No attempt has been made to link the Maori prophetic movements in terms of tradition and historical interconnections. Henderson has failed to show the systematic relationships between the sectarian and the non-sectarian aspects of the rise, course, and consequences of the Ratana movement. In the early years of this century two streams were emerging

in Maori political life. There were those who advocated a wider adoption of the European life-style and others, such as in Mana Maori Motuhake, who maintained a more separatist approach. In the two phases of the Ratana movement, Ture Wairua and Ture Tangata, there seems to have been an attempt to synthesize the division occurring in the political front. The Maori identity was realised for Ratana in religious terms and his wider appeal to Maori society was made initially in the well-established prophetic tradition. It seems as if the modern meaning of Maoritanga, although the term was not originated by Ratana, has almost taken on the spiritual expression of Maori identity used by him. The reviewer suggests that the genius of Ratana lies in his recognition of the need to transcend the problems created by divisions in the political sphere and he did this by establishing a new identity in the religious sphere. Furthermore, I suggest that Ratana was not, after the establishment of his Church, merely ‘… free to attend to the demands of the Morehu concerning their lands’ (p.55-6). The Church and the political movement can be shown in Ratana's view to be inseparable. This is a consequence of the traditional Maori world view. In all of this, Maori history is more than a negative response to Pakeha history.