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accepted or rejected at either extremes.” The traditions are consistent in terms of the period of migration, and although there appears to have been no “Great Fleet”, the facts do not support the idea that there were people in Aotearoa before Māori. He says unequivocally: “Polynesian seafarers were the first human inhabitants of New Zealand when they arrived about 800 years ago”, and this was a “common understanding of people throughout Polynesia.” However, he also gives little support to “the idea of Kupe and Toi arriving in the tenth or twelfth centuries respectively.” He discusses the development of the vital technology of sail, and double-hulled canoes (“seemingly a Polynesian invention”) that dramatically allowed the advent of migrations into the remote eastern Pacific. He says: “It is probable that sailing reached Southeast Asia around 3,500–4,000 years ago.” However, he discounts Taiwan as being our principal origin, and suggests it is more “realistic” to regard the origin as a result of a conjunction of factors that coalesced around the Bismarck Islands of Papua New Guinea about 3500 years ago. As he says, “sailing into exile was generally a solution of last resort to problems of hunger, boundary disputes, personal feuds, and warfare”, and that “it is not difficult to imagine such scenes in the case of migration to New Zealand.” Downwind voyaging “would have been relatively easy and quite fast.” Anderson also discusses the difference between the mythological spiritual Hawaiki to the west, and Hawaiki as the origin of migrations being to the north-east of New Zealand. This brief book fulfils its promise, and “gives an excellent sense of the lives of our Māori ancestors as they voyaged through centuries toward the South Pacific.” PANGURU AND THE CITY: KĀINGA TAHI, KĀINGA RUA AN URBAN MIGRATION HISTORY
Nā Melissa Matutina Williams Bridget Williams Books RRP: $49.99 Review nā Gerry Te Kapa Coates
Melissa Williams was part of the urban migration in the middle of the 20th century following WWII, from Māori rural communities such as the one centred on Panguru on the west shore of the Te Hokianga-nuia-Kupe and Auckland city. It was a major cultural shift which happened for many reasons, and this is a first-hand and thoroughly-researched story to help understand
how and why it happened – and how connections with the home community were maintained. Williams points out that 1854 was a peak year for Māori selling their produce in Auckland, but ten years later a slump in markets and a hardening of settler attitudes following the outbreak of war in Waikato and Taranaki squeezed Māori out of the market. This heralded a new phase of colonialism led by voracious land sales, that “would render future generations homeless in their own land.” But in “a cruel twist of fate”, in 1952, the need for workers drew Māori from other tribal areas back to Tāmaki Makaurau, not as land owners but as factory hands and office workers. The book follows 42 individuals from Panguru who migrated to Auckland from the 1930s to 1970. It is lavishly illustrated with photographs, and underpinned by the interviews of the author for her doctoral research, which shaped “the framework, concepts and overall arguments” of her book. Williams was mindful that stories such as these can be both empowering and also a tool to “perpetuate negative Māori stereotypes or to determine what is best for Māori communities.” The destructive approach from Māori leading to official policies of assimilation and integration was at odds with research by anthropologists and social scientists such as Keesing, Sutherland, and the Beagleholes, who were generally in favour of more constructive policies respecting Māori culture. The 1960 Hunn Report’s recommendations were major – some would say last ditch – attempts to embed assimilation in a Māori
policy that would be “ complete when Māori attachment to their homelands and culture was severed.” In 1952 the Māori Women’s Welfare League revealed Māori were living in Auckland in “atrocious conditions”, with an urgent need for better housing, something which still haunts us today. The stories in the book reflect the attempt by migrants to Auckland to transform an unfamiliar innercity environment into a home for their families, where the values and goals they brought from Panguru were supported by cultural forces like whānau, whakapapa, and the ties of religious faith to provide a solid framework. It was important that whānau also had their elders alongside the parents and children of this new urban community whenever possible. Racism became a movable feast, as the Ākarana Māori Association joined the frenzy of “moral panic” over assimilation to align with the anti-Asian White New Zealand League in a fragile arrangement. Life was different in a Pākehā dominated city – housing, food and even using Te Reo – and sometimes it was only visitors from Panguru who reminded them of their roots, by being able to use Te Reo freely. How did it all end? Williams says, “To have found beauty amidst daily discrimination and coercive state policies required optimism about their futures… and the ability to accept if not be happy with their lot in life.” For the people of the Panguru hapū, it meant surmounting these challenges for themselves and future generations, and ultimately having that “beautiful ending”. TE KARAKA KANA 2016 51