Sidestep: A peaceful people?

No race has been entirely peaceful. They fight among themselves, those that would invade them, or they go and invade others. Man is man regardless of skin colour. Here in NZ, modern textbooks have begun to eliminate the aggressive side of Maori though... it's politically expedient to do so. Violent aggression occurred all over what we call NZ (I don't like using 'Aotearoa' as that was never the original name of the three islands. There was no name for the combined three islands until Europeans came).

But let's take just the Pouto peninsula as an example...

Descendants of the Māhuhu crew settled around Pouto and the South Head of Kaipara Harbour, possibly in the 13th century CE. Some of the crew of Aotea may have joined them in the 14th century. In the 15th century, Taramainuku, a grandson of the Arawa captain, settled at Pouto near the North Head, killing or driving away some of the previous occupants. In the late 17th century, or early 18th, Ngāti Whātua occupied the Pouto Peninsula as part of their move southwards.

In 1820, during the Musket Wars, Ngāpuhi laid siege to Ngāti Whātua's Tauhara pa near Pouto, but were unable to capture it. A truce was agreed, to be cemented by the marriage of a Ngāpuhi chief to the daughter of a Ngāti Whātua chief. During the festivities, Ngāpuhi and their allies suddenly turned on their hosts and massacred them. Try imagine that - think of world news and mass shootings at weddings (they have occurred). Think of the media outrage and how you felt.

In just about every modern school book are tales of the Maori co-existing as a people. That's 90% bullshit (apologies for the language but let's call things as they are!) You will find heaps of pictures of the Land Wars (The Crown against the Maori), but almost no illustrations of Maori fighting and killing each other. That is no accident. It is deliberate and it is slow manipulation of the masses of school children right now.

They were as good and bad and human as every other race and every of colour at any other time in history. There are numerous conflicts noted between tribes, mostly small scale due to equality of weapons... but the advantage of the musket had Ngapuhi venture as far as Southland (1700km away!) to kill men of tribes they didn't like. Why do that? Good question I ask - go ask Ngāpuhi.

But to be fair - that was just the way it was. If we have to ignore the past as far as Maori are concerned, then we should do the same with the British. The point here was... a truce was made between two Maori groups and then a massacre planned - under the guise of a wedding (it sounds like something from Italy or Greece in the 1970's doesn't it?) That's not just brutally devious, but it is also very clever. And that is just the way it was.... and Ngāpuhi say the Crown broke the treaty? The irony of that is clear... They are no better human beings than the European was, or any other race.

Ngapuhi are the most violent, cunning, clever, yet unforgiving tribe in the whole country. But I like that. They were what they were in the times they lived, until about 1860. Passion and pride can be a good thing.