Running, Jumping and Rowing to Marginalisation: THE MAORI ...

Geoffrey Vincent

Description

to a dozen people) disappeared altogether as competitive sports.37. However, the primary influence on changing traditional Maori sporting practices may have ...

Sujets

• Sport

Informations

• Publié par: Sportif
• Nombre de lectures: 52
• Langue: English

Extrait

Running, Jumping and Rowing to Marginalisation: THE MAORI EXPERIENCE OF SPORT IN CANTERBURY, 1850-1880 Geoffrey Vincent  is a contract librarian and an independent historian who conducts research and writes on the history of sport in New Zealand during the colonial period,  Catriona E. Timms,  known as Kate, is of Ngati Raukawa and Scottish descent. She is a doctoral finalist in Maori Studies at the University of Otago, and works as a Kaiawhina and part-time lecturer. Her PhD topic examines instances of language revitalisation in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Hawai'i, Eire/Ireland and Alba/Scotland,  Toby Harfield  is a contract researcher at Unitec New Zealand. Her interest in New Zealand history extends well beyond sports and has included the wine industry, the building industry and women missionary teachers.

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Introduction In his concise history of organised sport in Australia, Richard Cashman writes t t spohrt 'did anot exist as a separat e compart ment people of the continent. 1  Similarly, according to Robin McConnell, sport was 'inseparable from ritual and daily life' for Maori, 2  the tangata whenua (native people) of New Zealand. McConnell details the nature of traditional Maori sports prior to 1840, and the reasons for their demise under the impact of steadily increasing colonisation. 3  However, with the partial exception of some material relating to rugby football, 4  virtually nothing has appeared in the scholarly literature regarding the participation of Maori in the sporting activities organised by the New Zealand settler population during the nineteenth century. This paper, which is based primarily on information drawn from the province of Canterbury during the period between 1850 and 1880, is an attempt to rectify that omission. The concentration on a particular province is a consequence of the fact that no similar study of the subject has been undertaken in relation to any other region. 5  The evidence presented below clearly indicates that Maori were increasingly marginalised from sporting activity as a consequence of colonisation. Pakeha missionaries and educationalists instigated the demise of traditional Maori sports, 6  and the subsequent efforts of Maori to participate in sporting activities organised by

Sporting Traditions, vol. 21, no. 2 (May 2005), pp. 57-74. Published by the Australian Society for Sports History.

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Pakeha colonists were increasingly hindered by a combination of adverse material circumstances and growing antagonism from some within the settler population. The course of events will be illustrated in detail, firstly, by providing a definition of what constituted sport for Maori prior to 1840 and, secondly, through a discussion of the factors that facilitated the extinction of traditional Maori sporting practices. The difficulties subsequently experienc- ed by Maori when attempting to participate in sports organised by Pakeha will be demonstrated through an examination of rowing regattas held at Akaroa during the 1860s and several festive athletics events arranged in north Canterbury during the 1870s. Finally, a number of possible explanations will be suggested to account for the marginalisation of Maori from the vigorous sporting culture that developed among the colonists in Canterbury.' The Nature and Context of Traditional Maori Sporting Activities Because pre-contact Maori sports and games were so embedded in their culture, there was no single Maori word for the general activity called 'sport'. A wide range of Maori words could be understood as signifying sport. In addition to the words used to express the general concept, there is an extensive vocabulary relating to particular physical activities. Kaipara referred to athletic games, on the other hand para whakawhai or whakahoro rakau signified activities involved in training with weapons. 8  Eventually, takaro became the noun for 'sport' and purei the verb meaning 'to play'. 9  The word r t e e h r ia m ,   s o   r a i h g u in ar a e ll k y a     t a h n e d t   e n r g m a  for 1 a 0 ll recreations, was eventually superseded by the hau. In tradition al Maori society, the creation of the domain recreation and pastimes was attributed to the gods. Although tribal histories differ, there is reference to a variety of different ancestors such as Raukatauri, Raukatamea, Takataka-putea, Marere-o-tonga and Ruhanui as the originators of the arts of amusement. 11  Annette Golding refers to 'the origin of dances, games and other "arts of pleasure'" being from the God of Peace and Agriculture, Rongo-marae-roa. 12  Rongo who ruled over the planting and gathering of the kumara (sweet vegetable, sweet potato) crop, was honoured at harvest time in songs, dances and games. 13  In the traditional Maori world the relationships and boundaries between work and play, sport and exercise, recreation or entertainment and leisure pastimes were difficult to delineate. 14 Some types of activities were undertaken at times when Maori were free from the constraints of work. However, the concepts of time and work in the Maori differed markedly from those that dominated the nineteenth-century New Zealand urban settler culture. 15  Rather than engaging in rigidly structured work schedules on a daily or weekly basis, the commitment of Maori sustained labour fluctuated with the seasons. 16  For example, for the

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duration of the harvest there was much work to be done and little time for recreational activities until the crops had been gathered in and stored. However, at other times, particularly during the winter months, there was ample time and many opportunities to participate in such pastimes. 17 It was during these periods that the whare tapere was very popular. The whare tapere was a large common building, larger than a usual whare (building), which was used during evenings and on wet or stormy days as a place to gather and to take part in recreational activities. James Cowan refers to the whare tapere as 'the hall of pleasure and song', 18  whereas Elsdon Best describes it as a 'play house [or] amusement house.' 19  According to H. W. W ' Dictiionalliramsy of t h e the members of the hapu (large extended family) met for amusement'. 20 Sedate activities such as story-telling, or competitive games such as ruru or koruru (knuckle bones) were common. A number of activities primarily related to music and dancing (though identifiable as traditional Maori sports), such as the practice of the poi (originally used as a means of 21 developing the muscles in the arms of young men for battle), and the haka (generic name for dance accompanied by chanting or singing) commonly took place in the whare tap 22 ere . On fine days recreational pursuits, including organised sporting events, took place on the marae atea, the community common. Children, who had much more freedom to engage in leisure activities than older hapu members, engaged in games. Impromptu sporting interactions between older members of a hapu were also common. Organised sporting competitions between mem- bers of a hapu or iwi (tribe) or specially arranged contests between members of different hapu were an aspect of larger tribal gatherings such as hakari, harvest festivals, and ceremonial and political meetings. The various contests could include martial arts such as taiaha (long club), para whakawai (tests of skill), kapa haka (performance arts, including stick games and poi, a dance with small balls on a string), canoe racing, ruru or koruru and kite flying. 23 Many traditional recreational activities were readily recognisable as sports by Pakeha colonists. Oma (foot-racing), moari (giant strides), tutoko (pole vaulting), tupeke (jumping), mamau, whaka toto, nonoke (all words for wrestling), tarere (swings) and teka or neti (dart throwing) all correspond very closely to categories of athletics. Similarly, kaukau (swimming), ruku (diving), whakaheke ngaru (riding surf waves) and waka ama (canoe racing) clearly resemble various aquatic sports. Hoops, toreherehe or, retireti (tobogganing), poutoti, pouturu, p o u ko ki , p somersaults, backwards and forwards), piu (skipping) and climbing all had their parallels among the sports and recreational activities in which children throughout Western societies were engaged during the nineteenth century 24

 

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Geoffrey Vincent, Catriona E. Timms, Toby HarfieldRunning, Jumping and Rowing to Marginalisation

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The Arrival of the Pakeha The land which became known to Maori as Aotearoa, and to European settlers as 'New Zealand', became and remained, from the late 1830s, a source of contention between the two groups. For a time during the early nineteenth century New Zealand was promoted as an ideal destination by those who formulated the systematic scheme of colonisation that was proposed as a solution to the rapid expansion of the population of Britain. 25  However, by the 1830s, even before the implementation of the first planned colonising initiatives, Maori were becoming apprehensive about the increasing number of Pakeha missionaries, traders and settlers residing in their territories. The growing complexity of local political and legal issues for both the British and Maori arising from the alienation of large tracts of Maori land, coupled with a growing lawlessness amongst many groups of the new arrivals, led to New Zealand becoming part of the British Empire. The Treaty of Waitangi, 26  which was signed in 1840, set out the terms which indicated cession by Maori of some degree of authority over their lands to Great Britain. The Treaty was signed by many, but by no means all, Maori chiefs. However, it was the signature of the representative of Queen Victoria, the designated Lieutenant Governor William Hobson, which effectively determined the future of all who lived in Aotearoa. Under the construction placed upon the Treaty by Hobson, the British Crown assumed sovereignty over all its lands, waters, resources and inhabitants. 27 Many scholars agree that the signing of the Treaty led directly to the marginalisation of Maori in their own homeland. 28  For example, by the time that the Pakeha 'Canterbury Pilgrims' arrived in Lyttelton Harbour in 1850, almost all the land in Canterbury had been alienated from the tangata whenua. Of the twenty million acres 'sold' for £2,000 under the terms of the 'Kemp Purchase' in 1848, the entire Ngai Tahu tribe were awarded reserves amounting to only 6,359 acres. Equating to a mere five acres per capita of the Maori population then living within the block, this estate was barely sufficient to enable subsistence farming and totally inadequate to provide a basis for economic development. These meagre holdings were principally concentrated near Akaroa on Banks' Peninsula, and in north Canterbury at the Tuahiwi Reserve and the pa (stockaded village) at Kaiapoi. 30  'In the long run,' concludes Ann Parsonson, 'many people were ... left in poverty.' 31 The decline of the customs and established lifestyles of Maori, including traditional sporting activities, accelerated after 1840 under the impact of systematic colonisation organised through the various Wakefield schemes and later by means of government-sponsored immigration. 32 With the arrival of the   Pakeha, Maori were for the first time seen from a viewpoint external to themselves, by people with deeply held cultural prejudices. The British colonists regarded themselves as civilised and 'normal', and Maori as

T g ARIDIT 5 sportin  MAY 200

Geoffrey Vincent, Catriona E. Timms, Toby HarfieldRunning, Jumping and Rowing to Marginalisation

uncivilised and 'abnormal'. This novel circumstance had devastating consequences for Maori. 33  Many of the new arrivals such as W. S. Swainson wrote about Maori and their civilisation, but from the perspective of cultural and social 'superiors' who were the rightful proprietors of the land. 34  Maori were initially perceived by Pakeha as 'Noble Savages', which enabled them to be regarded as an abstract ideal rather than as individuals with whom personal 35 interaction was required. For the most part, no attempt was made by the majority of settlers to understand the 'natives' and, as Alan Ward has argued, those Pakeha who did care only wanted to re-shape the Maori in their own image. 36  Despite this failure to comprehend the reality of Maori existence, European representations of Maori civilisation became part of the colonising agenda of 'racial amalgamation' in which the superior European race would bring the desired attributes of civilisation to the inferior Maori race. The demise of Maori sporting activities, which McConnell describes as 'Maori taonga or physical treasures', can be seen as one outcome of this process. For example, traditional Maori sporting activities such as running, swimming, diving and pole-vaulting, were also standard sporting events for the colonists. However, there were often marked differences in the techniques employed and Maori practices were rapidly supplanted by Pakeha norms. For example, in traditional Maori diving the practice was to dive feet first. This method has been replaced over time with the Pakeha practice of diving headfirst, even from the high cliffs which overlook many New Zealand waterways. In this way, many Maori sporting activities were lost to Pakeha practices that became increasingly normative as the process of colonisation escalated and the Pakeha population gained economic, political and social control of the country. Other traditional activities that had no parallel amongst Pakeha sporting practices, such as group skipping (performed in a squad of up 3 to a dozen people) disappeared altogether as competitive sports. 7 However, the primary influence on changing traditional Maori sporting practices may have been exerted less by the perspectives on and definitions of sport introduced by Pakeha and more by the characteristics of the introduced sports themselves. Pakeha settlers, especially the English, transplanted their own particular sporting and recreational practices that had grown in 8 popularity 'at Home' during early part of the nineteenth century. 3 The notion that these sports were superior to those of the Maori was supported by Pakeha during the early period of settlement. Indeed, by the 1860s they were considered by some settlers to be a means by which Maori might be 'elevated' into Pakeha culture and society at a time when some colonial politicians considered that Maori living in the North Island must either become 'civilised' or continue with their 'traditional... lifestyle' and be condemned to extinction. Motivated to some extent by the conviction that education would 'advance Maori away from their heathen culture and into

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Pakeha colonists were increasingly hindered by a combination of adverse material circumstances and growing antagonism from some within the settler population. The course of events will be illustrated in detail, firstly, by providing a definition of what constituted sport for Maori prior to 1840 and, secondly, through a discussion of the factors that facilitated the extinction of traditional Maori sporting practices. The difficulties subsequently experienc- ed by Maori when attempting to participate in sports organised by Pakeha will be demonstrated through an examination of rowing regattas held at Akaroa during the 1860s and several festive athletics events arranged in north Canterbury during the 1870s. Finally, a number of possible explanations will be suggested to account for the marginalisation of Maori from the vigorous sporting culture that developed among the colonists in Canterbury.' The Nature and Context of Traditional Maori Sporting Activities Because pre-contact Maori sports and games were so embedded in their culture, there was no single Maori word for the general activity called 'sport'. A wide range of Maori words could be understood as signifying sport. In addition to the words used to express the general concept, there is an extensive vocabulary relating to particular physical activities. Kaipara referred to athletic games, on the other hand para whakawhai or whakahoro rakau signified activities involved in training with weapons. 8  Eventually, takaro became the noun for 'sport' and purei the verb meaning 'to play'. 9  The word  th t rehia m ,   s   o a ri h g u i a n r a e ll k y a     t a h n e d t   e n r g m ah  f a o u r .   1 a 0 ll recreations, was eventually superseded by e er In tradition al Maori society, the creation of the domain recreation and pastimes was attributed to the gods. Although tribal histories differ, there is reference to a variety of different ancestors such as Raukatauri, Raukatamea, Takataka-putea, Marere-o-tonga and Ruhanui as the originators of the arts of amusement. 11  Annette Golding refers to 'the origin of dances, games and other "arts of pleasure'" being from the God of Peace and Agriculture, Rongo-marae-roa. 12  Rongo who ruled over the planting and gathering of the kumara (sweet vegetable, sweet potato) crop, was honoured at harvest time in songs, dances and games. 13  In the traditional Maori world the relationships and boundaries between work and play, sport and exercise, recreation or entertainment and leisure pastimes were difficult to delineate. 14 Some types of activities were undertaken at times when Maori were free from the constraints of work. However, the concepts of time and work in the Maori differed markedly from those that dominated the nineteenth-century New Zealand urban settler culture. 15  Rather than engaging in rigidly structured work schedules on a daily or weekly basis, the commitment of Maori sustained labour fluctuated with the seasons. 16  For example, for the

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modern civilization , settler politicians enacted the Native Schools Act in 1867. 39 ' Thus, under the provisions of this legislation, many young Maori entered an educational environment in which the sporting activities of the Pakeha were an integral part of the curriculum, while those of the Maori were ignored. Few among the settler population appear to have doubted the beneficial influence of this arrangement. For instance, one observer, evidently an educated Pakeha, wrote in Te Waka Maori o Niu Tirani, an early Maori language newspaper, that Ko nga purei Ingarihi kua whakaturua ki roto ki nga tamariki, a ahuareka rawa ana ratou ki nga mahi kiriketi, pooro aha atu ... Na, he mea tino tika tenei... kua tango ratou i nga purei whakangahau e ora ai te tinana, whakarerea ana nga mahi ahuareka, ngoikore a te tamariki Maori o mua. English games have been introduced among the lads and cricket, football, rounders, & co., have been eagerly adopted. In every sense this is an improvement ... healthy recreation has taken the place of the few inane and listless amusements which Native boys formerly possessed. 40 Clearly the introduction of Pakeha games into the curricula of children attending Native Schools was a significant means of marginalising traditional Maori concepts of sport. As noted missionaries also played a part in facilitating the dismantling of sports that were integral to the everyday life of traditional Maori. One evidently pious Maori wrote that Te ratapu kia taua ki te Maori he tino ra okiokitanga i nga mahi. Te takaro ki te Maori he mahi. Na reira kaore he mahi, kaore he takaro i taua ra. Heoi ano te mahi he karakia me ona whakapuputatanga katoa. Na nga mihingare i whakaako o tatou matua ki te tapu o tenei ra. To Maori, Sunday is a day of rest from work. To Maori, sport is a form of work. So there should be no work and no sport on that day. However, the work of that day should be prayer and its associated ceremonies. The missionaries taught our parents the sacredness of this day. 41 Changing the accepted meaning of work and play, new ways of distinguishing right from wrong, and introducing the Christian notion of the Sabbath as a day of rest all ensured that Maori sporting practices were marginalised by separating them from 'daily life'. Indeed, the loss of mana (integrity, charisma, prestige) associated with their traditional sports was probably a major factor in the eventual conversion of Maori to participation 42 in the imported sports of Pakeha settler society.

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Geoffrey Vincent, Catriona E. Timms, Toby HarfieldRunning, Jumping and Rowing to Marginalisation 63

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