Sisyphus
For an upcoming university course, one of the requirements is a stay on a local marae in order to get properly acquainted with Māori culture. None of us in the course are ourselves Māori, yet we must fulfill this requirement to pass.
One of the main requirements is that we perform a mihi. Which, if you don't know, has you list out a number of things, including your spiritual mountain, river, boat (which your family brought to NZ), tribe and a number of other things, ending with your name.
Obviously, for those of us who are not Māori, this exercise is slightly difficult, with everyone opting for some arbitrary mountain or river near where we were born. It is because, for us, the land around where we grew up is not a central factor in shaping who we are.
In all honesty, I don't think it necessarily is for Māori people either.
The need to think about all this and explain it all got me thinking about the benefit and purpose of it. What use is this information to the Māori people of the marae I am visiting?
I could understand that, in pre-European New Zealand, if a tribe saw a visitor they did not recognise, there is utility in learning from which part of the country they come and which tribe they are a part of. This is a good way to ensure they aren’t an enemy and to understand the purpose of their visit as well as honour whichever deities they must.
But at what point do you disregard traditions in which the original purpose of the tradition is no longer served?
What it now seems is the people at the marae almost want to hear my classmates and I say they are not from New Zealand. One of our ‘teachers’ says in his mihi that his ancestors are from England and Ireland, even though he was born here.
This feels like an attempt at forcing others into feeling some guilt. It separates us into two groups, those who may be ‘indigenous’ and those who are not. I can see this as creating a de facto class system based upon the ancestors of the person – something which cannot be changed and is, in a very multi-ethnic society like ours, very complicated.
The way I think about myself is that of an individual. I also do not think of myself as English, or Irish or wherever the hundreds of people who are my ancestors came from 200 years ago (200 years is approximately eight generations: eight generations back you have 256 great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents. How on earth can these people be relevant to me?).
I consider myself (as an individual) as indigenous to New Zealand. I was born here, originate from here and only occur here. I am a native of New Zealand, as much as everyone else who was ever born here. Another nation is also not in any of my families living memory – New Zealand is it.
This may sound needlessly inflammatory and radical, but I do not like feeling as though I am a lesser or guilty class, simply by virtue of people who came before me.
This idea fundamentally is Marxist in nature. If you take Marxism as a tactic, not an ideology, we can read it as a tactic to separate a country into two distinct groups, pitting one against the other. In this case, it is Māori vs non-Māori.
I see it as the great achievement of the West to have done away with this attitude. We champion the idea that everyone is free and equal at birth.
Yet in New Zealand, we are left placing a great importance on incorporating this part of Māori culture into our lives, which sees that you can be judged on the tribe you come from, your ancestors and even the mountain you grow up near. It posits that these are important facts of your current character.
There is nothing wrong with this sort of thing as a historical line of study – it is always interesting to see how cultures developed. But to suggest this is the way we should go in New Zealand – that this is a superior or even equal way of doing things – flies in the face of our liberal ideals.
I want to be judged on my actions, not my ancestors.
