30: tangata Whenua

Who are the tangata Whenua? Legally it is recognized as the collective Maori tribes and this was put into law in 1974 to help with claims against the crown. Legal recognition of the name only had to do with land, ownership of, and compensation for. But what does it really mean, and why would Maori push for that term to be entrenched in law and therefore the education of all future generations? These following definitions are from various Maori dictionaries including...(H.W. Williams': A dictionary of the Māori language)

TANGATA

Meaning: person, man, human being, individual. people, men, persons, human beings.

WHENUA

Meaning: Land, ground, territory, domain, placenta. It is an ancient Austronesian word with cognates across the Malayo-Polynesian world, from Malay benua to Rapa Nui henua.

Unlike European thinking; where people own land, in Māori lore the land is regarded as a mother to the people. Where did they learn this, the land was something they came to, their heritage was elsewhere they knew that. We suggest they learned that from those who had lived here for much much longer. Regardless, the relationship to land is not dissimilar to that of the foetus to the placenta. There are even certain Māori rituals involving burying the afterbirth of a newborn in ancestral land, which may further shed light on the use of the word whenua for both land and placenta. If that is correct, then Maori could never sell land. Yet they did. Huge tracts of land were sold or transferred for goods. Maori also took over land from other tribes. So if you couldn’t sell it but you could take it from another…where does the issue of the Crown taking land become a problem? And if you don’t own land...how can Maori claim financial compensation for it? Well, there is a little more it than that.

Now in this year, 2016, it has been acknowledged that Maori businesses have finally evolved from asset to earnings. In other words something has to be productive. Leon Wijohn, a Deloitte private partner and the firm's national Maori business sector leader, says the true gauge of Aotearoa's powerhouse Maori economy...is operating income. Wijohn sees a clear evolutionary path for big Maori businesses as they grow, gradually moving away from their historic property or real estate interests into two related but clearly distinct sectors. "Initially, they're all around property and the primary sectors - fishing, farming, forestry and land. That's a factor of Treaty settlements - the assets they can acquire back as part of the settlement process," Wijohn said. Now while this is true, it is agreed the treaty settlement was about asset (as stated above) yet Maori culture does not recognize ownership. They had rights and they were constantly changed and negotiated. Confused?

Tupu is the Maori word for ‘own’, but it really means ‘to grow’. When you were on a piece of land you owned what you grew on it. Everything else belonged to earth mother. That is why they didn’t just cut trees down without proper ceremony. Well, except those that burned the forest indiscriminately to flush out Moa in the 1400’s. This shows that their religion evolved or the group that did that, the so called Moa Hunters, were from a different place altogether. Whoops, we digress yet again. Back to the words...

TANGATA WHENUA

Meaning: local people, hosts, indigenous people - people born of the whenua, i.e. of the placenta and of the land where the people's ancestors have lived and where their placenta are buried.

Tangata Whenua therefore is a people belonging to a particular place. A group living exclusively at Raglan for example are called the tangata Whenua of that location. But Maori collectively, who live everywhere, do not fit the original intention of the word because when you came to this land you lived in one place, you had children and they were born of that land you worked upon to survive. You were the tangata Whenua of that specific piece of land.

Maori have never been a united group, so to call the fragmented tribes of Maori the tangata Whenua of NZ is incorrect use of the true meaning of the term. Tangata Maori as a wider group - yes. But Waitaha in the South Island who lived all over the South Island could call themselves that. Ngai Tahu cannot in the true sense. If they do, then so can Europeans living in the south who were born there. I’ll repeat that for effect. If Ngai Tahu are tangata Whenua of the South Island so is any person born in that place yet of European, Chinese or African heritage. The intended meaning of the word implies and enforces it. 'Tangata Whenua' therefore, is more a spiritual term with a wider reach - those 'indigenous' to this land is what we at [tangatawhenua16] seek proof of.

Tangata is man. Whenua is land. Tangata Whenua is man of the land. It has nothing to do with Maori in an exclusive sense, unless there was no one here before they arrived. But there was. Those between the 1790's and 1840 talked about it to Europeans often. To those they trusted, Maori told many stories of lore and legends to those who were genuinely interested. Who would you believe? What was recorded from an old elder of 1830, or a 1/16th blood Maori in 2016 telling you what was true in 1827 was, in fact, incorrect. Back then, tangata Whenua was a term used by Maori in the same way those before them used it. Some say what was recorded was a lie. Ok, why would an old Maori man lie? Maori transferred information by word of mouth. If those old Maoris were wrong, then everything they ever said is wrong. Be real and sensible. There was no treaty, no money at stake, no major problems other than Ngapuhi killing 60000 Maori at the time those stories were told. Why would an old Maori man who was born before Europeans even arrived, lie (about what he was taught) to a people with nothing to gain by knowing it at the time they were told? (re-read and try understand that sentence again) And why is it that non-political Maori I talk to, whether they be from the far north or Taranaki, all agree that there were people here before Maori, They heard that from their matua’s, who heard it from theirs, who heard it from theirs, who heard it from theirs… as far back as those that had seen them.

Even within Maoridom today there are words specific to localities. There was back then too. The Maori language is different in variations to other pacific nations due to the fact they adopted words, cultural applications, designs, folklore, Gods and other meanings of those already here. Tangata Whenua then, in its simplest modern usage, is a person or persons born in the land. The placenta has no bearing on your conception or birth – it is the afterbirth. You are not of the land because your placenta is buried there, you are of the land because you are born in that land…citizenship right effectively. But Maori would bury the placenta (whenua) where the traditional birth place of your ancestors was. That practice still occurs today. In those days of course, you died where you were born for you lived in that one place all your life.

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(It is worth diverting for a bit to examine the practice of burying the placenta. Ancient people all around the world did it. The Navajo Indians, Cambodians, Bolivians and even the Costa Ricans. Those in Turkey, China, Japan, Dalmatia (now Yugoslavia), and Austria. The Masai of Africa did the same. In the Pacific the practice was followed by Nuie, Marquesas Islands, Tahiti and Hawaii. Samoans burned it, and Tongans threw it in the ocean. Therefore the practice did not come from Tonga or Samoa and neither did Maori. It would suggest the Maori practice came from Marquesas, Tahiti, or Hawaii originally. In the case of burying the afterbirth, the land is seen as a mother who nourishes them back and provides food for the one born. Regardless, the true Tangata Whenua had a practice of burying the placenta as did Maori. If you arrived at a new land you could bury a placenta for the reasons stated above, but the first generation arriving could never be tangata Whenua, because they were not born of the land. Only those first born here could be. So where did the term really originate from? Whether they copied it or brought the practice with them it became part of their culture and called themselves the same thing the true tangata Whenua in a generic sense. Only since Maori had become political and the treaty involved large sums of money has the term tangata Whenua become to mean Maori exclusively. But tangata Maori was the correct term, and tangata Whenua the generic term for all inhabitants of the land in the true sense of the word as Waitaha originally meant. Waitaha was made up of many different people of different races and origins. Anyone of true Waitaha decent would agree with this. I had one old Waitaha man tell me so – but he warned much of the truth of things is being eroded in time.)

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Tangata Whenua is not mentioned in the treaty

The only mention of the word 'tangata' in the Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was in relation to tangata Maori. Tangata Whenua was never mentioned - at all! Nor could it have been in 1840 for everyone knew there were those there before Maori, it was just that they had gone and the treaty was with those alive at the time...the tangata Maori. That then acknowledges that there were other people of the land too. Waitaha, MoriOri etc. Collectively, they were the tangata Whenua. Now, Maori have taken the word to mean just them. The proof is the treaty as spelled out in the ‘Maori’ version and you can view that here... http://www.treaty2u.govt.nz/the-treaty-up-close/treaty-of-waitangi/ Please understand that the words, as written in Maori, were read out, and then debated and discussed for five hours, and the words remained unchanged when they signed it. I do not care for argument saying the word is wrong. To say so demeans and insults the hundreds of chiefs who accepted what it was as they signed. Back in 1840 it was often talked about, which isn’t now - that people were here before they arrived. Those that deny it cannot argue the treaty wording. But a lot of history can be changed, hidden, misunderstood or even lost.

However, to find evidence of a people Maori hierarchy say do not exist, with DNA that is different, carbon dated to a time well before they got here, would be proof enough wouldn’t it? That is all we are after - the rest, like this post, is just interesting stuff to discuss and debate. That is the purpose we have - to present the evidence in due time.

Therefore, we accept all and any disagreement until that proof is delivered.