WHO IS MĀORI?

The crucial question that’s officially banned

It’s not clear why the question “Who is Māori?” is not allowed to be asked in politically correct circles. Perhaps it’s because the question might be construed to cast aspersions on the significance or strength of individuals’ Māori ancestries or “identities”. Perhaps the answer to “Who is Māori?” is too tricky to find or contemplate. Or, in racially charged Aotearoa New Zealand, is the question simply a Poser that should be Parked? 

But who cares if anyone might be offended by the question. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with asking “Who is Māori?” In fact, the answer to the question could become crucial and turns out to be simple, at least in theory - albeit not in practice.

There are many here among us who think that NZ is but a joke. Many New Zealanders believe our country doesn’t exist as a singular nation and that Māori (or at the very least some Māori tribes) have never ceded sovereignty to a central Government for all New Zealanders. These true believers include members of Te Pati Māori (the Māori Party), the Green Party and the Waitangi Tribunal, together with New Zealand’s minority multitudes of academics and Woke Folk.

A couple of recent events highlight just how germane the answer to “Who Is Māori?” could become.

First, the Waitangi Tribunal has just published a report on its Northland Inquiry into injustices allegedly inflicted on Northland’s Ngāpuhi tribe. The Tribunal’s Stage 2 Report reinforced a central finding in its 2015 Stage 1 Report. The relevant finding is that Ngāpuhi never ceded sovereignty over Northland. This finding necessarily means that, according to the Tribunal, members of Ngāpuhi comprise a distinct Northland Nation, separate from New Zealand. The Tribunal calls for constitutional changes to reflect its finding.

The Waitangi Tribunal’s finding that Ngāpuhi never ceded sovereignty is bizarre. Numerous Ngāpuhi chiefs signed the Māori language version of the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti O Waitangi) and Professor Sir Hugh Kawharu’s authoritative English translation of Article 1 of Te Tiriti O Waitangi, available on the Te Papa museum’s website, states:

The First

The chiefs of the Confederation and all the chiefs who have not joined that Confederation give absolutely to the Queen of England for ever the complete government over their land.

The second event highlighting the significance of the answer to “Who Is Māori?” is the recent vandalism of the replica English language version of the Treaty of Waitangi at Wellington’s Te Papa Museum. The vandalism was a protest against what the protestors described as the “lie” - in the English version of the Treaty - that Māori ceded sovereignty to the Crown.

(One amusing aspect of the protest is that the protestors defaced and otherwise vandalized the wrong Article of the Treaty.  It’s Article 1 of the English version that states Māori ceded sovereignty, but the protestors ruined Article 3, which simply – and politely - extended to Māori the protection, rights and privileges enjoyed by the English Monarch’s British subjects.)

The significance of the Sovereignty-Not-Ceded contention cannot be overstated. If that contention is correct, there exist at least one separate nation of “Māori” and the “Who is Māori?” question must be answered in order to determine who qualifies for citizenship of that nation.

The theoretical answer to “Who is Māori?” is simple and incontrovertible. Under both New Zealand law and Māori custom (tikanga), a “Māori” human is any person who has an ancestor who lived in what’s now known as “New Zealand” about 800 years ago, before any other strains of humans arrived.

New Zealand’s Electoral Act, which covers Māori electorates (the seven Māori “seats” in Parliament), defines a “Māori” as “a person of the Māori race of New Zealand, and includes any descendant of such a person”. Moreover, under universal Māori custom, qualification as Māori depends on “whakapapa”, which at its core means ancestry tracing back to the original Polynesian populations of New Zealand.

So, there we have it. That wasn’t too hard. A “Māori” is anyone who is genetically descended from any human who inhabited New Zealand about 800 years ago. The Ngai Tahu and Tainui tribes each apply the whakapapa test to applicants for membership of their respective tribes.

But…Far from Houston, we have a problem. There happen to be no genetic markers for having Māori ancestors, and no genetic test to determine whether any particular individual has Māori ancestry. It’s therefore simply impossible, in practice, to say whether a person is “Māori” by ancestry.

The genetic markers common to Māori indicate Asian ancestry, reflecting the fact that about 2000 years ago the intrepid progenitors of Polynesian and Māori people ventured out into the ocean from around Taiwan. So, all we can ever definitely tell from a genetic test is that a person is not Māori; such a person will have no Asian genetic markers. For the same reasons, it’s impossible to tell, genetically, how much Māori ancestry an individual might have.

Around 2015 there was a Culture Wars fuss about a woman from the U.S.A. named Rachel Dolezal. It turned out Dolezal had been falsely claiming to be “black”. In other words, she had been claiming that she was a descendant of slaves brought to the Americas from the West Coast of Africa. Dolezal became a brief but iridescent lightening rod in America’s Culture War debates. She was accused of “cultural appropriation”. In Dolezal’s defence, The Guardian claimed "Dolezal is correct to argue that race is largely a social construct rather than a science". In her own defense, Dolezal claimed she “self-identified” as black, and also as “trans-black”.

Make no mistake, Dolezal has a serious screw loose. But she was undoubtedly an ardent advocate for blacks and black civil rights and appears to sincerely believe that, at some level, she’s “black”.

In the New Zealand context, a person whose sole Māori ancestor is her great great great great grandfather (making her 1/64th genetically Māori) and who has no Māori cultural affiliations is officially “Māori”, whereas a person with no Māori ancestry but who lives in a distinctly Māori community, is deeply steeped in Māori culture (tikanga) and sincerely believes she is Māori nevertheless is not Māori.

Māori racial purists of course argue that Māori cultural tradition dictates that a person without Māori ancestry simply cannot be Māori. But remember, there is no genetic test for Māori. And keep in mind, it only takes one woman (adult biological female) with wandering ways to upset a genetic lineage.

This is not a Pie-In-The-Sky debate. What’s at stake, in answering “Who is Māori?”, is nothing less than eligibility for membership of the nascent Māori Nation.