This book is an ethnohistorical reconstruction of the establishment in New Zealand of a rare case of Maori home-rule over their traditional domain, backed by a special statute and investigated by a Crown commission the majority of whom were Tūhoe leaders. However, by 1913 Tūhoe home-rule over this vast domain was being subverted by the Crown, which by 1926 had obtained three-quarters of their reserve. By the 1950s this vast area had become the rugged Urewera National Park, isolating over 200 small blocks retained by stubborn Tūhoe "non-sellers". After a century of resistance, in 2014 the Tūhoe finally regained statutory control over their ancestral domain and a detailed apology from the Crown.
Following on from Volume I on the formation of the Urewera District Native Reserve, this monograph examines the period from 1908 to 1926, during which time the Crown subverted Tūhoe control of the UDNR, established a mere decade earlier. While Volume I described how the Tūhoe were able to deploy kin-based power to manipulate Crown power as well as confront one another, this volume describes ways in which the same ancestral descent groups closed ranks to survive nearly two decades of predatory Crown policies determined to dismantle their sanctuary. A relentless Crown campaign to purchase individual Tūhoe land shares ultimately resulted in a misleading Crown scheme to consolidate and relocate Tūhoe land shares, thereby freeing up land for the settlement of non- Tūhoe farmers. By the 1950s, over 200 small Tūhoe blocks were scattered throughout one of the largest National Parks in New Zealand. Although greatly weakened by these policies in terms of kinship solidarity as well as land and other resources, Tūhoe resistance continued until the return of the entire park in 2014—with unreserved apologies and promises of future support. In both volumes of A Separate Authority (He Mana Motuhake), Webster takes the stance of an ethnohistorian: he not only examines the various ways control over the Urewera District Native Reserve (UDNR) was negotiated, subverted or betrayed, and renegotiated during this time period, but also focuses on the role of Māori hapū, ancestral descent groups and their leaders, including the political economic influence of extensive marriage alliances between them. The ethnohistorical approach developed here may be useful to other studies of governance, indigenous resistance, and reform, whether in New Zealand or elsewhere.
In this book, social anthropologist Steven Webster provides an ethnohistory of sustainability among the indigenous Andean community of Hatun Q’ero since the 1960s. He first revisits his detailed ecological research among the remote Q’ero in the high Andes of Southern Peru in 1969–1970 and 1977. At that time, Q'ero was a community comprised of several hamlets in converging valleys based primarily on alpaca herding at about 4,300 meters, and composed of about 400 persons in about 80 families. He then relies on the few ethnographies by other anthropologists to document changes in Hatun Q'ero by 2020 , spanning 1980-90s when the nation was immersed in agrarian reform followed by virtual civil war between Maoist guerrillas, the government, and the highland peasantry. Through all of these ideological and political-economic developments the sustainability of Q'ero as an integral ecological and social community as well as a famously Incaic cultural tradition becomes a global as well as national issue. This book argues that while the commercial expansion of ceremonial and shamanist tourism can be seen as extractivist similar to industrial mining, the assertive form of independence characteristic of the Q'eros appears to remain sustainable in the face of both these extractive threats. While the Q'ero community is internally reinforced by their reciprocal relationship with the same non-human forces these forms of extraction seek to exploit, they are externally reinforced by the global as well as national rise of indigeneity movements. Ironically, given the moral force developed in some aspects of shamanist tourism, it can even be argued that it supports environmental sustainability against climate change, globally as well as in Q'ero. This book analyzes the increasing importance of indigeneity in the national politics of Peru as well as the other Andean nations in the last few decades, but it remains to set this form of identity politics in its wider “intersectional” context of social class and ethnic conflict in the Andes.
This book is an ethnohistorical reconstruction of the establishment in New Zealand of a rare case of Maori home-rule over their traditional domain, backed by a special statute and investigated by a Crown commission the majority of whom were Tūhoe leaders. However, by 1913 Tūhoe home-rule over this vast domain was being subverted by the Crown, which by 1926 had obtained three-quarters of their reserve. By the 1950s this vast area had become the rugged Urewera National Park, isolating over 200 small blocks retained by stubborn Tūhoe "non-sellers". After a century of resistance, in 2014 the Tūhoe finally regained statutory control over their ancestral domain and a detailed apology from the Crown.
For Europeans during the nineteenth century, the Urewera was a remote wilderness; for those who lived there, it was a sheltering heartland. This history documents the first hundred years of the ‘Rohe Pōtae’ (the ‘encircled lands’ of the Urewera) following European contact. After large areas of land were lost, the Urewera became for a brief period an autonomous district, governed by its own leaders. But in 1921–22, the Urewera District Native Reserve was abolished in law. Its very existence became largely forgotten – except in local memory. Recovering this history from a wealth of contemporary documents, many written by Urewera leaders, Encircled Lands contextualises Tūhoe’s quest for a constitutional agreement that restores their authority in their lands.
Stories Without End is a testament to nearly 40 years of groundbreaking historical research by one of New Zealand’s leading scholars. Sitting alongside her major works – including the 2010 Book of the Year, Encircled Lands – these essays explore sidepaths and previously unexamined histories. They notably delve into the lives of powerful early Māori figures, including the prophets Rua Kenana and Te Kooti, their wives and their descendants, and the leaders of the Urewera. Binney brings figures out of the shadows, explores place and revives memory, ensuring that the histories that matter do indeed become stories without end.
Whatiwhatihoe investigates a complex bundle of issues often referred to simply as a tribal "resource claim" but that really concern factors spanning the total social, political, and economic spectrum. Whatiwhatihoe tracks the origins and history of the Waikato raupatu claim, focusing particularly on the ways the claim has been handled.
**2014 Must Read** Otago Daily Times 'The life, the health, the intelligence, and the morals of the nation count for more than riches, and I would rather have this country free from want and squalor and unemployed than the home of multi-millionaires.'—Richard Seddon, 1905 *** Casting a long shadow over New Zealand history, Richard John Seddon, Premier from 1893 to his untimely death in 1906, held a clear vision for the country he led. Pushing New Zealand in more egalitarian directions than ever before, he was both the builder and the maintenance man – if not the architect – of our country. Challenging popular opinion of New Zealand's longest-serving Prime Minister as a ruthless pragmatist, cunning misogynist and Imperialistic jingoist, this landmark biography of Seddon presents an altogether more sympathetic, erudite appraisal. Reconciling two generations of New Zealand scholarship, Richard Seddon: King of God's Own demonstrates that, while holding fast to common ideals, Seddon was successful by mastering the art of the possible. He knew instinctively what his electorate would tolerate and remained in step with public opinion. Despite contradictions in his attitudes towards other races, he fought to ensure privilege did not become entrenched in what he envisioned as a white man's utopia. In this perceptive new evaluation, political historian Tom Brooking explains Seddon's complex relationship with Maori and shows how he in fact held a progressively bi-cultural vision for the future of 'God's Own Country'. Seddon was no saint. Somewhat autocratic and given to petty nepotism, he nevertheless remains the most dominant political leader in our country's history. Internationally, his high profile within the Empire helped put New Zealand on the map. Domestically, he sought a middle ground between free-market extremism and full-blown socialism. And more privately, Seddon was a devoted family man, his actions shaped much more by his supportive wife and assertive daughters than has previously been realised. Richard Seddon: King of God's Own is a superlative achievement in New Zealand history writing. Absorbing, wide-ranging and beautifully articulated, it reframes and repositions one of the founding fathers of modern New Zealand. *** 'The definitive biography of one of New Zealand's most influential political leaders.' —Paul Moon, author of New Zealand in the Twentieth Century 'King of God's Own is a nuanced and generous assessment of our most famous Premier, a man very much of his own time.' —Gavin McLean, co-editor of the bestselling Frontier of Dreams: The Story of New Zealand 'An excellent biography, and a major revision of an important period in this country's history.' —Barry Gustafson, acclaimed biographer of Sir Keith Holyoake, Sir Robert Muldoon and Michael Joseph Savage Also available as an eBook
During the nineteenth century, Maori women produced letters and memoirs, wrote off to newspapers and commissioners, appeared before commissions of enquiry, gave evidence in court cases, and went to the Native Land Court to assert their rights. He Reo Wahine is a bold new introduction to the experience of Maori women in colonial New Zealand through Maori women's own words – the speeches and evidence, letters and testimonies that they left in the archive. Drawing from over 500 texts in both English and te reo Maori written by Maori women themselves, or expressing their words in the first person, He Reo Wahine explores the range and diversity of Maori women's concerns and interests, the many ways in which they engaged with colonial institutions, as well as their understanding and use of the law, legal documents, and the court system. The book both collects those sources – providing readers with substantial excerpts from letters, petitions, submissions and other documents – and interprets them. Eight chapters group texts across key themes: land sales, war, land confiscation and compensation, politics, petitions, legal encounters, religion and other private matters. Beside a large scholarship on New Zealand women's history, the historical literature on Maori women is remarkably thin. This book changes that by utilising the colonial archives to explore the feelings, thoughts and experiences of Maori women – and their relationships to the wider world.
