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Nga Tau Tohetohe: Years of Anger
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Published January 1, 1987
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October 1, 2025
In the 70s you can have had a sheltered Māori upbringing through farmland and education. But unrest from displaced Māori youth from oppressive systems leads to activism or gangs which form as a result of these systems (at a glance not unlike the origin of HAMAS, recourse that’s come out of oppression).
Nice to have a personal introduction to Ranginui. It’s inspiring to hear his aggressive academic approach. His self-perception re: mana.
“The pākehā tends to think of the half caste as less than, with the vices of both and virtues of neither.” He says multiculturalism makes one more worldly, and makes no mention of the displacement of not feeling like one belongs or can be understood by either culture. But as far as Walker’s stance in this introduction is that one proves their own mana and has their role within society to make the world better regardless and because of identity.
“Lack of sexual restraint.”—Erwin in ‘Māori Stereotypes in Early NZ Lit.’
“A pākeha living with a tribe constituted safety from attack by other tribes.”
And in accidentally rereading the start of ‘Ocean-Going Vessels’ I feel like I’m reading my own thoughts.
Some useful pop culture references from this one article:
Goldie’s painting of emancipated Māori voyagers.
“Drift Voyage Theory”
Pitcairn must research who and when occupied
Compares the navigation in medieval times to the achievement of modern engineering (Boeing)
Land rights:
Right of discovery
Ancestral right
Right of conquest
Relating to mana whenua, land once annexed will be under:
Ahi kā (burning, iwi members with ancestral rights to the land live on it)
Ahi tere (flickering)
Ahi mataotao (extinguished)
“Now many pākehās by descent, intermarriage and simply identification with the land of their birth can rightfully claim a dual heritage. With the passing of time it is inevitable that all New Zealanders will eventually make that claim.”
Little exhausting reading essays by subject back to back, but makes sense for reference book formatting.
Ngati Whatua eight hectares left, subsumed by the crown into a trust of which it “buys up” the rest of the land and provides housing on 1.2 hectares of land Ngati Whatua dont own. Ngati Whatua have the ancestral claim to 280 hectares of Auckland.
Jo Hawke protested at Bastion Point on behalf of the whole 280 hectares. Dr Hugh Kawharu asked for four hectares on top of the 1.2 hectares occupied for Ngati Whatua in the deal conceding the right to the 280 hectares of Auckland to New Zealand. It was rejected and 600 police removed 200 protestors from the Point after 506 days of occupation and bulldozed the marae.
Emotive term “Idle Māori land.” Idle being in the negative. Acquire develop and profit.
Pupuri whenua
The attempt to raise the drawbridge on further land sales, closing immigration in withholding prospective land.
Reify
Spread fake news.
Kotahitanga
Māori unity movement
Interested if native-americans were left on the cutting floor or weren’t thought of in writing ‘Tyranny of the Majority.’ At the end of this article Walker says “because of the warrior tradition of the Māori when he is backed up against the urban wall, the Māori will fight (as has already been don in some cities). I don’t know if this sentiment is valuable. As fear mongering, it’s in line with the Walker’s stern self image. I guess the negative quality of the stance is what has built up the need to fight back, but the closing paragraph is solely focused on the warrior spirit and Māori fighting back against an otherwise unknown, fighting the reader perhaps.
Mana motuhake
Seperate/discrete power
‘Hiwi Tauroa’s Seperation’ may be the most moving article so far. It sums up why four guaranteed Māori seats are important, and the idea of losing them (which never crossed my mind) is a backwards idea. We’ may never have got them. But as Walker equates with the U.S.A. to not have that influence would’ve pushed the oppression further and caused more violent revolution. It was U.S. Race Relations Conciliator Hiwi Tauroa, who returned to NZ with admiration for the roots African-Americans planted in the political system.
If one believes Māori affairs are “seperate” (oft-used word) and were to seperate them from pākehā it would be to strip them of a right to regulate pākehā desires and lead to further oppression. The argument of not committing broadcast time to Pacific audiences for “one people,” makes the desirable audience all the same.
Being a Maori is -
Having the greatest grandparents in the world.
Respecting your elders because they have earned it.
Having 250,000 brothers and sisters.
Fouling up the Government and its statistics.
Having nowhere for the kids to go, and getting a visit from the police who want to see them.
Not laughing at your children when they mispronounce your language.
Talking tough.
Vot giving up the struggle for survival.
Vaiting patiently for another Ngata, Buck or Te Kooti.
To love paua and mussels and to be told you have to have a
Pakeha permit.
To know the difference between a Maori, a Maori-Pakeha, a Pakeha-Maori and a Pakeha and to beware of the last two. o never drink alone.
To be able to dodge daggers at Pakeha social gatherings. o listen to all-white administrators and Uncle Toms tell you that we are all New Zealanders and not to know what that is.
To pray to God before a meeting.
Having a Pakeha tell you it is wrong to believe in more than one God and listen to him tell you about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, St Patrick,
St Francis, Joseph Smith etc.
To welcome a Pakeha at a marae with the height of Maori poetic art and to receive a cup-of-tea conversation in reply.
To miss work because so many of your relations are dying.
Fighting for the New Zealand Government to save the country from the evils of communism and fighting the New Zealand Government to save your land.
Owning land and not being able to use it.
Going to school to eat your lunch.
Watching the teacher teach the other kids.
Punching a Pakeha in the mouth for saying you are dumb.
Getting your Pakeha spouse to go and ask the landlord for the flat.
Belonging to a particular tribe which is the best in the country.
Believing that your canoe is most certainly better than the
Queen Mary.
Having your friends and relatives accuse you of being a traitor if you earn more than $7,000, wear a tie and drive a new car.
Thinking there's something wrong with your television when it appears to be always hooked up to Great Britain.
Watching Tarzan save Africa.
Liking Air New Zealand's tail.
Feeding everyone who comes to the door and hunting for
your best china for the Pakehas.
Running yourself broke to service the marae to service the whole world.—Anonymous?
Being Maori is hard, being Maori is sad, being Maori is to laugh, being Maori is to cry, being Maori is forever.—Ranginui Walker
‘Tohunga Territory.’
Tohunga dealt with neurotic issues. A child couldn’t be born because of the mothers guilt of it being a different father than believed. When she heard the tohunga use the correct father’s name in an adjusted incantation the child came easier.
Doctors cure patients through time (the body), medicine working against the symptoms, or through placebo of taking medicine.
‘Heads or Tails?’
“Silence may be used ‘to express dissent on the one hand and highest admiration or approval on another. Which it is is conveyed by the quality of the silence and body language.’”
Being a Polynesian is—
Thinking of New Zealand as the paradise of work and money.
Eating corned beef, taro and tinned fish.
Having only one bed for three people and sometimes no bed, just the floor:
Saying kia ora, kia orana, talofa, fakalofa Lahi atu, sa bula, and malo lelei to everyone you see.
Sending bad children back to the Islands so they won't get into more trouble.
Pinching from the rich and selling to the poor at half-price.
Being good-looking and chasing all the girls in sight.
Being scared when a man in a suit visits the house.
Having an argument and letting the whole street hear about Being called a coconut and pretending to be happy about it.
Being called an overstayer in our own part of the world.
Being hassled by the police when walking alone at night.
Working in a factory to be with one's mates.
Being communist long before Karl Marx was thought of.
Being bilingual.
Having your name mispronounced by people who don't care or won't try.
Having untold fathers, mothers, uncles, aunties, cousins and relatives.
Being exploited as a cheap labour force by the Government.
Welcoming a lavalava in the middle of a crowd.
Wearing only a T-shirt and pretending not to be cold.
Knowing that somewhere out there in the Pacific is a place called 'home' when racism gets too heavy.
Being a Polynesian is hard, being a Polynesian is to laugh, being a Polynesian is to cry, being a Polynesian is forever.
‘Being a Polynesian’ as an article is helpful to put it into simple historical perspective.
Waewae tapu
Sacred feet
Whangai
Feeding a child/adoption
“It was an axiom of the anthropologist James Frazer in his The Golden Bough that magic is the bastard sister of science. Elders would make metaphysical explanations for the physically inexplicable (microscopic evidence required).
‘Proper names’
“Accordingly, knowledgeable Māori cringe during the Lemon and Paeroa commercial depicting a Maori hangi at a Pakeha party.
The advertisers, apparently in an effort to include Maoris in the commercial, give offence near the end when a young man up to party antics puts a rourou (flax food basket) on his head. To a Maori this is an act of defilement of personal tapu. The young man has debased himself to the level of food. In traditional times such an offence was punishable by death.”
I’ve tried to find information on the 1867 Natives School Act regarding the punishment of use of Māori in schools—thr “linguistic genocide” which my mum would often lament on regarding her older relation’s childhood and the direct effect she must reckon with as that discouragement to language had on her.
‘Anger exorcised’
“Maori men were also berated for their failings symptomatic of an oppressed people whose men in the past had been great but were crushed and emasculated by the trauma of the colonial experience.”
The next article talks about quotas. Being taught about quotas in school left me with the impression that quality is limited by their restrictions. But in staffing it’s about representation and sociological effects of getting specific people into these roles so as to reflect the society we want to see.
Nice to have a personal introduction to Ranginui. It’s inspiring to hear his aggressive academic approach. His self-perception re: mana.
“The pākehā tends to think of the half caste as less than, with the vices of both and virtues of neither.” He says multiculturalism makes one more worldly, and makes no mention of the displacement of not feeling like one belongs or can be understood by either culture. But as far as Walker’s stance in this introduction is that one proves their own mana and has their role within society to make the world better regardless and because of identity.
“Lack of sexual restraint.”—Erwin in ‘Māori Stereotypes in Early NZ Lit.’
“A pākeha living with a tribe constituted safety from attack by other tribes.”
And in accidentally rereading the start of ‘Ocean-Going Vessels’ I feel like I’m reading my own thoughts.
Some useful pop culture references from this one article:
Goldie’s painting of emancipated Māori voyagers.
“Drift Voyage Theory”
Pitcairn must research who and when occupied
Compares the navigation in medieval times to the achievement of modern engineering (Boeing)
Land rights:
Right of discovery
Ancestral right
Right of conquest
Relating to mana whenua, land once annexed will be under:
Ahi kā (burning, iwi members with ancestral rights to the land live on it)
Ahi tere (flickering)
Ahi mataotao (extinguished)
“Now many pākehās by descent, intermarriage and simply identification with the land of their birth can rightfully claim a dual heritage. With the passing of time it is inevitable that all New Zealanders will eventually make that claim.”
Little exhausting reading essays by subject back to back, but makes sense for reference book formatting.
Ngati Whatua eight hectares left, subsumed by the crown into a trust of which it “buys up” the rest of the land and provides housing on 1.2 hectares of land Ngati Whatua dont own. Ngati Whatua have the ancestral claim to 280 hectares of Auckland.
Jo Hawke protested at Bastion Point on behalf of the whole 280 hectares. Dr Hugh Kawharu asked for four hectares on top of the 1.2 hectares occupied for Ngati Whatua in the deal conceding the right to the 280 hectares of Auckland to New Zealand. It was rejected and 600 police removed 200 protestors from the Point after 506 days of occupation and bulldozed the marae.
Emotive term “Idle Māori land.” Idle being in the negative. Acquire develop and profit.
Pupuri whenua
The attempt to raise the drawbridge on further land sales, closing immigration in withholding prospective land.
Reify
Spread fake news.
Kotahitanga
Māori unity movement
Interested if native-americans were left on the cutting floor or weren’t thought of in writing ‘Tyranny of the Majority.’ At the end of this article Walker says “because of the warrior tradition of the Māori when he is backed up against the urban wall, the Māori will fight (as has already been don in some cities). I don’t know if this sentiment is valuable. As fear mongering, it’s in line with the Walker’s stern self image. I guess the negative quality of the stance is what has built up the need to fight back, but the closing paragraph is solely focused on the warrior spirit and Māori fighting back against an otherwise unknown, fighting the reader perhaps.
Mana motuhake
Seperate/discrete power
‘Hiwi Tauroa’s Seperation’ may be the most moving article so far. It sums up why four guaranteed Māori seats are important, and the idea of losing them (which never crossed my mind) is a backwards idea. We’ may never have got them. But as Walker equates with the U.S.A. to not have that influence would’ve pushed the oppression further and caused more violent revolution. It was U.S. Race Relations Conciliator Hiwi Tauroa, who returned to NZ with admiration for the roots African-Americans planted in the political system.
If one believes Māori affairs are “seperate” (oft-used word) and were to seperate them from pākehā it would be to strip them of a right to regulate pākehā desires and lead to further oppression. The argument of not committing broadcast time to Pacific audiences for “one people,” makes the desirable audience all the same.
Being a Maori is -
Having the greatest grandparents in the world.
Respecting your elders because they have earned it.
Having 250,000 brothers and sisters.
Fouling up the Government and its statistics.
Having nowhere for the kids to go, and getting a visit from the police who want to see them.
Not laughing at your children when they mispronounce your language.
Talking tough.
Vot giving up the struggle for survival.
Vaiting patiently for another Ngata, Buck or Te Kooti.
To love paua and mussels and to be told you have to have a
Pakeha permit.
To know the difference between a Maori, a Maori-Pakeha, a Pakeha-Maori and a Pakeha and to beware of the last two. o never drink alone.
To be able to dodge daggers at Pakeha social gatherings. o listen to all-white administrators and Uncle Toms tell you that we are all New Zealanders and not to know what that is.
To pray to God before a meeting.
Having a Pakeha tell you it is wrong to believe in more than one God and listen to him tell you about God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, St Patrick,
St Francis, Joseph Smith etc.
To welcome a Pakeha at a marae with the height of Maori poetic art and to receive a cup-of-tea conversation in reply.
To miss work because so many of your relations are dying.
Fighting for the New Zealand Government to save the country from the evils of communism and fighting the New Zealand Government to save your land.
Owning land and not being able to use it.
Going to school to eat your lunch.
Watching the teacher teach the other kids.
Punching a Pakeha in the mouth for saying you are dumb.
Getting your Pakeha spouse to go and ask the landlord for the flat.
Belonging to a particular tribe which is the best in the country.
Believing that your canoe is most certainly better than the
Queen Mary.
Having your friends and relatives accuse you of being a traitor if you earn more than $7,000, wear a tie and drive a new car.
Thinking there's something wrong with your television when it appears to be always hooked up to Great Britain.
Watching Tarzan save Africa.
Liking Air New Zealand's tail.
Feeding everyone who comes to the door and hunting for
your best china for the Pakehas.
Running yourself broke to service the marae to service the whole world.—Anonymous?
Being Maori is hard, being Maori is sad, being Maori is to laugh, being Maori is to cry, being Maori is forever.—Ranginui Walker
‘Tohunga Territory.’
Tohunga dealt with neurotic issues. A child couldn’t be born because of the mothers guilt of it being a different father than believed. When she heard the tohunga use the correct father’s name in an adjusted incantation the child came easier.
Doctors cure patients through time (the body), medicine working against the symptoms, or through placebo of taking medicine.
‘Heads or Tails?’
“Silence may be used ‘to express dissent on the one hand and highest admiration or approval on another. Which it is is conveyed by the quality of the silence and body language.’”
Being a Polynesian is—
Thinking of New Zealand as the paradise of work and money.
Eating corned beef, taro and tinned fish.
Having only one bed for three people and sometimes no bed, just the floor:
Saying kia ora, kia orana, talofa, fakalofa Lahi atu, sa bula, and malo lelei to everyone you see.
Sending bad children back to the Islands so they won't get into more trouble.
Pinching from the rich and selling to the poor at half-price.
Being good-looking and chasing all the girls in sight.
Being scared when a man in a suit visits the house.
Having an argument and letting the whole street hear about Being called a coconut and pretending to be happy about it.
Being called an overstayer in our own part of the world.
Being hassled by the police when walking alone at night.
Working in a factory to be with one's mates.
Being communist long before Karl Marx was thought of.
Being bilingual.
Having your name mispronounced by people who don't care or won't try.
Having untold fathers, mothers, uncles, aunties, cousins and relatives.
Being exploited as a cheap labour force by the Government.
Welcoming a lavalava in the middle of a crowd.
Wearing only a T-shirt and pretending not to be cold.
Knowing that somewhere out there in the Pacific is a place called 'home' when racism gets too heavy.
Being a Polynesian is hard, being a Polynesian is to laugh, being a Polynesian is to cry, being a Polynesian is forever.
‘Being a Polynesian’ as an article is helpful to put it into simple historical perspective.
Waewae tapu
Sacred feet
Whangai
Feeding a child/adoption
“It was an axiom of the anthropologist James Frazer in his The Golden Bough that magic is the bastard sister of science. Elders would make metaphysical explanations for the physically inexplicable (microscopic evidence required).
‘Proper names’
“Accordingly, knowledgeable Māori cringe during the Lemon and Paeroa commercial depicting a Maori hangi at a Pakeha party.
The advertisers, apparently in an effort to include Maoris in the commercial, give offence near the end when a young man up to party antics puts a rourou (flax food basket) on his head. To a Maori this is an act of defilement of personal tapu. The young man has debased himself to the level of food. In traditional times such an offence was punishable by death.”
I’ve tried to find information on the 1867 Natives School Act regarding the punishment of use of Māori in schools—thr “linguistic genocide” which my mum would often lament on regarding her older relation’s childhood and the direct effect she must reckon with as that discouragement to language had on her.
‘Anger exorcised’
“Maori men were also berated for their failings symptomatic of an oppressed people whose men in the past had been great but were crushed and emasculated by the trauma of the colonial experience.”
The next article talks about quotas. Being taught about quotas in school left me with the impression that quality is limited by their restrictions. But in staffing it’s about representation and sociological effects of getting specific people into these roles so as to reflect the society we want to see.
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