{"id":504,"date":"2014-03-18T12:55:34","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T23:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/?p=504"},"modified":"2014-03-18T13:43:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-18T00:43:00","slug":"tino-rangatiratanga-a-constitutional-problem-child-presentation-at-colonial-origins-of-new-zealand-government-and-politics-dunedin-8-march-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/tino-rangatiratanga-a-constitutional-problem-child-presentation-at-colonial-origins-of-new-zealand-government-and-politics-dunedin-8-march-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cTino Rangatiratanga: a Constitutional Problem Child?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lachy Paterson, \u201cTino Rangatiratanga: a Constitutional Problem Child?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the text of a presentation given at Centre for Research on Colonial Culture event, Colonial Origins of New Zealand Government and Politics, Dunedin, 8 March 2013.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Treaty of Waitangi is important, perhaps central, to current discussion on New Zealand\u2019s constitution.\u00a0 The government established the Constitutional Advisory Panel largely at the instigation of the M\u0101ori Party, who in their own press release squarely saw the review in terms of the Treaty.[1]<\/p>\n

Now in 2011, we have a great opportunity to make good on that invitation, to breathe new life into the call from the people to honour the Treaty.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n

\u2018On December 8, both parties announced a wide-ranging review to include matters such as the size of Parliament, the length of the electoral term, M\u0101ori representation, the role of the Treaty and whether New Zealand needs a written constitution.<\/i><\/p>\n

The \u201crole of the Treaty\u201d sits within the Panel\u2019s Terms of Reference, and the Treaty features prominently in the panel\u2019s publication, The Conversation So Far<\/i>.[2]\u00a0 In addition it is the role that the Treaty might play in our country\u2019s constitutional future that is most contentious.\u00a0\u00a0 For example, \u2018in response to the Maori Party’s plan to replace our constitution with one based on the Treaty of Waitangi to give the tribal elite supreme power in New Zealand\u2019 the right-wing New Zealand Centre for Political Research set up its own Independent Constitutional Review of politicians and academics.\u00a0 Without appearing to have consulted with anyone, this body has rejected the Treaty and its principles out of hand.[3]<\/p>\n

What is not being talked about, yet is surely implicit, is what is so attractive, or so noxious about the Treaty and its place within the constitution, the concept of \u201ctino rangatiratanga\u201d, and what constitutional rights M\u0101ori might get that others will not, and how will these rights might impinge on others.\u00a0\u00a0 Despite the Treaty\u2019s prominence in The Conversation So Far<\/i>, including five pages specifically to its role, the only attempt to define rangatiratanga that I can find is that the Treaty gave chiefs \u2018absolute authority for chiefs (or rangatira) to be chiefs and to hold sway in their territories\u2019. The document also states that \u2018The Waitangi Tribunal is responsible for defining what the Treaty means in a modern context\u2019, something that actually appears beyond the scope of the Treaty of Waitangi Act.[4]\u00a0 In the event of a written constitution, I would imagine, for both judicial and political reasons, that courts will be tasked with defining rangatiratanga rights rather than the Tribunal.<\/p>\n

As we all know, there are differences between the English-language Treaty of Waitangi and the M\u0101ori-language Te Tiriti o Waitangi.\u00a0 To a large extent, current academic assumptions of Te Tiriti stem from Ruth Ross\u2019s essay in 1972 which suggests that M\u0101ori saw k\u0101wanatanga (government) as somewhat limited in scope, certainly not the sovereignty ceded in the Treaty, and that the guarantee of tino rangatiratanga was significantly more than mere ownership of land and possessions.[5] Ross\u2019s observations were not necessarily new: M\u0101ori had been saying this at least a century earlier, and New Zealand\u2019s first Chief Justice, Sir William Martin, before that.\u00a0 Ross\u2019s interpretation happened to emerge concurrently with educated urban M\u0101ori asserting their rights and grievances, and has since fostered a new Treaty orthodoxy, at least as lip service, within church, state, and academia.\u00a0 However, notwithstanding the largely homogeneous nature of this public \u201ctreaty discourse\u201d, there is no real consensus on what rangatiratanga might actually mean in practice, to M\u0101ori, or to P\u0101keh\u0101.[6]\u00a0\u00a0 What P\u0101keh\u0101 may have to give up, to placate the unknown of rangatiratanga,<\/i> remains for them, a continuing site of unease.\u00a0\u00a0 Rangatiratanga is obviously not a straightforward concept.\u00a0 Nor was it so during New Zealand\u2019s colonial past.\u00a0 The point of this discussion is to investigate the term, rangatiratanga,<\/i> within historical contexts.\u00a0\u00a0 Hopefully this will stimulate some debate.\u00a0 What did rangatiratanga actually mean during New Zealand\u2019s colonial past, and why might this be relevant for the panel.<\/p>\n

Rangatiratanga is a derived noun: rangatira means chief or chiefly, while rangatiratanga denotes abstract qualities, such as, according to the Williams Dictionary <\/i>\u2018evidence of breeding and greatness\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Given that M\u0101ori society was hierarchical, and that superior whakapapa (or breeding) gave one greater standing and mana (power and authority), rangatiratanga was thus a positive attribute.\u00a0 Lyndsay Head, sifting through Ng\u0101 Mahi a ng\u0101 Tupuna<\/i>, a volume of M\u0101ori traditions, <\/i>claims that mana related only to religious contexts, and that rangatiratanga was reserved for worthy behaviour rather than political power. Head also asserts that rangatiratanga was a P\u0101keh\u0101 construction, a \u2018semantic improvisation\u2019 to translate the new concepts of power and authority M\u0101ori were encountering, and that \u2018it fitted the new world better than the old, hence its scarcity in accounts of the former.\u2019[7]<\/p>\n

When P\u0101keh\u0101, such as missionaries, sought to introduce words for new items or concepts into M\u0101ori, they sometimes employ loanwords, such as Paipera for Bible, hoari for sword, H\u012bh\u0101 for Caesar.\u00a0\u00a0 However, for more metaphysical concepts, they often borrowed M\u0101ori words with a similar meaning.\u00a0\u00a0 They added an additional specific definition, the subtleties of which they would then need to explain to M\u0101ori.\u00a0\u00a0 Thus atua (spiritual entity) and tapu (restricted) have pre-contact meanings, but also gained Christian definitions.\u00a0 When missionaries were looking for a term to translate \u201ckingdom\u201d (or similar terms) they often used rangatiratanga, building on its attributes of chiefliness, hierarchy and status.\u00a0 The word appears over 200 times in the M\u0101ori Bible, mostly in the New Testament where it is commonly used for the higher kingdom of God, although it was also used to used to define more earthly realms.\u00a0 The word k\u012bngitanga was also used for kingdom, although mostly in the Old Testament.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The transfer of rangatiratanga for kingdom from spiritual to secular can be seen in this 1831 land deed, where the United Kingdom is described in terms of\u00a0 rangatiratanga.[8]<\/p>\n

…na taua Kirepeti Mea kaihanga kaipuke o te kainga i huaina ko Pitahere, i Koterani no nga rangatiratanga huihui o Piritane Nui, a Airirani.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201c…whereas the said Gilbert Mair shipbuilder by trade, of and from the town or place called Perhead of Scotland in and of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland…\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

But what of political authority?\u00a0 In these two examples from the 1840s, we can see M\u0101ori using rangatiratanga in terms of abstract political power.\u00a0 This goes beyond mere personal qualities, even if \u2013 according to Head \u2013 this had not been the case in pre-contact times.[9]<\/p>\n

…engari au e rima rau oku tangata i roto i toku rangatiratanga.<\/i><\/p>\n

[…but I have 500 men within my chieftainship.]<\/i><\/p>\n

…e kore ahau e hui i toku rangatiratanga ki to nga tangata o Wairarapa.<\/i><\/p>\n

[…I will not associate my chieftainship with that of the people of Wairarapa.]\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Given the context of the M\u0101ori scriptural lexicon of both heavenly and earthly kingdom, it is perhaps not surprising that missionaries, when translating the Northern chiefs\u2019 1835 Declaration of Independence, rendered the word \u2018independence\u2019, that of M\u0101ori chiefs, as \u2018rangatiratanga\u2019, and \u2018all sovereign power and authority\u2019 with \u2018k\u012bngitanga\u2019 and \u2018mana\u2019.\u00a0 These were logical extensions of the Biblical lexicon.\u00a0 What is less clear is why missionaries, five years later, when translating the Treaty of Waitangi by which Britain annexed New Zealand, used rangatiratanga (with the intensifier tino) to define mere land possession in the second article.\u00a0 Head suggests that it was to downplay the fears of Northern chiefs about losing their lands.<\/p>\n

However, as seen in the old land deed below, where missionaries, buying land just one month before the Treaty was signed, included the words mana and rangatiratanga in the M\u0101ori-language version of the deed to reinforce the nature of the transfer.[10]<\/p>\n

…kua oti te tuku e matou e Panakareao ma ki te Hahi Mihanare tetahi wahi wenua oti tonu atu me nga rakau katoa me nga aha noa me nga aha noa katoa e tupu ana i taua wenua me nga mea katoa o raro i taua wenua, me te rangatiratanga me te mana <\/span>i runga i taua wenua.<\/i><\/p>\n

[…that I Noble Panakareao and tribe have sold to the Church Missionary Society a piece of land forever, trees and everything else that grows on it and all things below it.\u201d [<\/i>and the rangatiratanga and mana on that land.]]<\/i><\/p>\n

Clearly rangatiratanga could also refer to land ownership.<\/p>\n

Whatever the M\u0101ori understanding of the Treaty was, chiefs who signed thought that the rangatiratanga of their lands and taonga [valued possessions] was guaranteed, and Governor-to-be Hobson considered, once sufficient signed copies of the Treaty were back, that the Crown had gained sovereignty.\u00a0\u00a0 However, Hobson was hardly in control.\u00a0 While M\u0101ori authority was real in 1840 \u2013 however it was defined \u2013Crown sovereignty was liminal at best.\u00a0 The government sought to realise its sovereignty, which could only come at the expense of rangatiratanga.\u00a0 I think that this is signalled in the Treaty, where it talks not of rangatiratanga per se, but transitively; the rangatiratanga of things, including land.\u00a0 The Treaty\u2019s second article also states that M\u0101ori who desired could sell their land to the Queen.\u00a0\u00a0 This was one way that Crown control could be extended over the country, and by implication, rangatiratanga diminished.<\/p>\n

In the two decades after the signing of the Treaty, the term rangatiratanga for the most part is absent from both governmental and recorded M\u0101ori discussions on the nature of institutional power, with the term mana \u2013 specifically \u201cte mana o te Ku\u012bni\u201d, [the Queen\u2019s mana] the preferred term. \u00a0Rangatiratanga, however, developed new meanings in the colonial setting.\u00a0 It was being used to define P\u0101keh\u0101 customs, and concepts such as civilisation, prosperity, and knowledge \u2013 all things that both missionaries and officials thought M\u0101ori should aspire to.\u00a0\u00a0 The government did not use the term to define chiefly authority: it was proactive in directing all discourse on power, including the Treaty, and perhaps did not want to cloud the desired M\u0101ori acquiescence to Crown sovereignty with any notions of chiefly rule. For example, when Governor Browne reiterated the [government\u2019s] principles of the Treaty to assembled chiefs at the Kohimarama Conference in 1860, the M\u0101ori re-translation of the second article avoided rangatiratanga completely, and his speech asserted that M\u0101ori \u2018completely gave up to the Queen of England all the processes and mana of government that they all had, or that one or another of them had, and all things like that which they are thought\/said to have\u2019.[11]\u00a0 Browne also threatened that M\u0101ori who did not align with the Crown would lose the Treaty\u2019s guarantees.\u00a0\u00a0 In effect, it was the Crown of the 1860s that was holding up the Treaty \u2013 its interpretation \u2013 against any ideas of M\u0101ori autonomy.<\/p>\n

Some M\u0101ori paid lip service to this colonial discourse, but those who did not \u2013 such as the K\u012bngitanga of the 1860s, and its sympathizers\u00a0 \u2013 saw the Treaty as a fraud.\u00a0 Its own newspaper, Te Hokioi<\/i>, expressly rejected the Treaty, first because many chiefs hadn\u2019t signed it, and second because those who had signed had been duped.\u00a0 It was a \u2018covenant of the blind\u2019.[12] The K\u012bngitanga defined its authority in terms of mana, in effect sovereignty, relating to land as yet unsold.[13]<\/p>\n

\u2026koia ra tenei me tu te mana o kingi potatau ki runga o nga wahi o Nui tireni e mau nei ki a tatou, me tu te mana o kuini ki runga i nga wahi kua riro atu ki a ia…<\/i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

[\u2026it is this, let the mana of King P\u014dtatau stand on the parts of New Zealand that we still hold, and let the mana of the Queen stand on the parts that she has obtained\u2026]<\/i><\/p>\n

It was in the 1870s, the early post-war period that what might be deemed a modern treaty discourse emerged, in which rangatiratanga was posited as something more than a guarantee of land ownership.\u00a0 This can be seen in the pages of the M\u0101ori newspaper, Te Wananga<\/i>, which rendered rangatiratanga within its Treaty translations as both \u201cdominion\u201d and \u201cthe chieftainship\u201d.[14] This was also the period when the Repudiation Movement was challenging some very dodgy land sales through the courts, and local M\u0101ori r\u016bnanga were attempting to take control of decisions over land lest they be left to the P\u0101keh\u0101-controlled Native Land Court.\u00a0 Its successor, the Kotahitanga also engaged in these discourses.\u00a0 I imagine that the immediate post-wars period, when some of the naked realities of colonisation became apparent to M\u0101ori, that a M\u0101ori re-reading of the Tiriti became particularly attractive.\u00a0\u00a0 This interpretation may have troubled the government, which produced a new translation of the English version in 1869.\u00a0\u00a0 Sovereignty, formerly \u201ck\u0101wanatanga\u201d, became \u201cmana\u201d and \u201crangatiratanga\u201d, and the Article 2 guarantees, formerly \u201crangatiratanga\u201d, were downgraded to mere \u201ct\u016bturutanga\u201d (fixedness) of their lands.[15]<\/p>\n

Ultimately the Treaty was a stick and carrot with which the government tried to impose Crown sovereignty up until the early 1860s.\u00a0 It was only useful to the government in the early stages of asserting its power, and once it had decided that coercion was the method to solve its problems, the Treaty lost its relevance to the Crown.\u00a0\u00a0 We see this in 1877, when M\u0101ori were claiming rights in court based on Article 2, that Chief Justice, Sir James Prendergast, determined that the Treaty was \u201cworthless\u201d and a legal \u201cnullity\u201d.[16]<\/p>\n

The K\u012bngitanga and the Crown made peace in 1882.\u00a0 In 1862 the movement had suggested that the Treaty was a fraud, and did not apply to those who did not sign it.\u00a0 After 1882, the K\u012bngitanga, like the Kotahitanga, promulgated a Tiriti-inclusive argument.\u00a0 This was not expressed in terms of rangatiratanga, but of mana, mana motuhake (or separate authority).\u00a0\u00a0 However, the K\u012bngitanga now justified that mana<\/i> on the basis of Treaty guarantees, rather than that the Treaty did not apply to them.<\/p>\n

\"pic1\"<\/a>

Te Paki o Matariki, K\u012bngitanga newspaper<\/p><\/div>\n

The dynamic nature of M\u0101ori opinion can be seen too in the words of R\u0113nata Kawep\u014d of Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu.\u00a0 In 1860, he was sympathetic to the K\u012bngitanga and troubled by the Crown\u2019s aggression in the first Taranaki War.\u00a0 For this reason he describes the Treaty as having failed.[17]<\/p>\n

Inahoki kua he ano te Tiriti o Waitangi, i kiia ra hoki ko taua tiriti he Kawenata kei tikina mai e etahi iwi ke, te tae mai aua iwi kino ki te patu i a matou.\u00a0 Ka puta tonu mai i roto i a koutou i te iwi naana taua Kawenata nei te patu i a matou.<\/i><\/p>\n

[Moreover, the Treaty of Waitangi has failed.\u00a0 That Treaty is said to be a Covenant lest [we] be taken by some foreign peoples. Those bad people did not come to attack us.\u00a0 The attack on us came from among you, the people who made that Covenant.]<\/i><\/p>\n

However, in the following decade, due to the threat of the Pai M\u0101rire movement to his chiefly position, Kawep\u014d had re-aligned himself to the Crown and fought as their ally.\u00a0 By the 1870s, he was not totally content with the Crown\u2019s actions, but saw his chiefly position best protected by the Treaty.[18]<\/p>\n

Tenei toku kupu ki a koe, e takoto nui tonu ana taku mana, i tapiritia nei e te kupu a Te Kuini, ara, e tona Tiriti i Waitangi; e ki nei, ki au ano te mana o toku whenua.<\/i><\/p>\n

This is my word to you, my mana, which was confirmed by [the Queen’s word, that is] the Treaty of Waitangi, still remains in force.\u00a0 The Treaty of Waitangi, which declared that the mana of my land should remain with me.<\/i><\/p>\n

However, during this last quarter of the nineteenth century, despite the shift towards M\u0101ori viewing the Treaty as the bulwark of their rights, they tended not to use the term rangatiratanga in the context of these Treaty rights.\u00a0 Nearly always, the term used was mana.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For example, the Repudiationist H\u0113nare Matua used mana to define land rights in 1876.[19]<\/p>\n

Na te Tiriti o Waitangi i mana ai ta tatou pupuri i o tatou whenua, i mana ai nga Kooti, me nga mokete.\u00a0 Mei kore te Tiriti i Waitangi, kua penatia tatou me nga motu o te Ao nei.<\/i><\/p>\n

[It was through the Treaty of Waitangi that our holding of our lands was empowered [mana] and that Courts and mortgages were empowered.\u00a0 If it were not for the Treaty of Waitangi, we would have been like other countries in the world\u2019.]<\/i><\/p>\n

A correspondent to Te Wananga<\/i> also wrote, \u2018You heard the word within the Treaty at Waitangi, that is, that the mana of the land should be left to the M\u0101ori people.\u2019[20]<\/p>\n

Why did M\u0101ori not use the term rangatiratanga to assert these rights?\u00a0 In the post-wars period, the government considered that it was gaining the upper hand. M\u0101ori were increasingly being pushed to the margins politically, and swamped demographically by immigration.\u00a0 Less concerned about civilisation or social customs, the Crown increasingly used rangatiratanga in its own discourses to M\u0101ori in the context of governmental power.\u00a0 The United Kingdom became \u201cte Rangatiratanga Kotahi\u201d, and the Queen\u2019s sovereignty as \u201cte rangatiratanga o te Kuini\u201d.[21] The Crown continued to usurp the term in the services of colonisation, and even Te Wananga<\/i>, a M\u0101ori-controlled newspaper, used rangatiratanga in the context of colonial or imperial power.\u00a0 Even the Kotahitanga, whose full name was \u201cTe Kotahitanga o te Tiriti o Waitangi\u201d based its right to exist, in its discourses of the 1890s, on tribal mana rather than rangatiratanga.<\/p>\n

Not all post-wars M\u0101ori adhered to a Tiriti discourse.\u00a0 For example, James Carroll of Ng\u0101ti Kahungunu was a politician who, as can be seen in this discussion he had with Ng\u0101ti T\u016bwharetoa ariki<\/i>, te Heuheu T\u016bkino V, promulgated a more positivist legal interpretation of the Treaty.[22]<\/p>\n

124. . . .<\/i>Te Heuheu: <\/i>Ka korero atu au i taku ake whakaaro. Ae; kua takahia te wahi tuatahi o te rarangi tuarua o te tiriti.<\/i><\/p>\n

125. <\/i>Hon. Timi Kara: <\/i>I peheatia te takahi?<\/i><\/p>\n

Te Heuheu<\/i>: Koia tenei, kaore ano ona tikanga i whakatutukitia. Ko nga mana mo nga Maori i whakatuturutia nei e taua rarangi kaore ano i hoatu ki a ratou.<\/i><\/p>\n

126. <\/i>Hon. Timi Kara: <\/i>Kaore ano koia i hoatu nga taitara o o ratou whenua ki a ratou?<\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0– – –<\/i><\/p>\n

124. \u2026 [te Heuheu] I will give my own opinion.\u00a0 Yes; the first provisions of the second article\u00a0 of the treaty have been broken.<\/i><\/p>\n

125.\u00a0 [Carroll] How?<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

[te Heuheu] It has been trampled on in this way: it was never given effect to.\u00a0 The rights which that article assures to the Natives have never been given to them.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

126. [Carroll] Have they not got titles to their lands?<\/i><\/p>\n

Carroll was a mentor to \u0100pirana Ngata, leader of the Young M\u0101ori Party. This new movement saw M\u0101ori society as in need of reform to improve it socially, materially and spiritually.\u00a0 Ngata didn\u2019t see this as achievable through striving for self-determination, but through better education and engagement with the parliamentary processes.[23] In 1922 Ngata published a series of articles on the Treaty in Te Toa Takitini<\/i> in which he stated that M\u0101ori who sought mana M\u0101ori motuhake through Article 2 were mistaken.\u00a0 Sovereignty had been ceded to the Crown through Article 1, and rangatiratanga pertained to property ownership.[24]<\/p>\n

Ka puta nga wawata a nga Ropu Maori ki te mana Maori motuhake, ahakoa kiia he Kotahitanga, he Kauhanganui, he Paremata Maori he aha ranei te ingoa, e hoki ana aua wawata ki tenei upoko o te Tiriti. Otira na te pohehe i pera ai. Ara kei te mana o te Maori kua tapaetia atu e te Upoko Tuatahi o te Tiriti mo ake tonu atu.<\/i><\/p>\n

[Various M\u0101ori groups, whether Kotahitanga, Kauhanganui, M\u0101ori Parliament or some other name, have yearned for separate M\u0101ori authority and those dreams go back to this [second] article of the Treaty.\u00a0 But it is from mistakenness that they think so, because the mana of the M\u0101ori people has been covered over by the First Article of the Treaty forever more.]<\/i><\/p>\n

The Young Maori Party saw the M\u0101ori race as in danger of extinction, not just culturally but as an actual people and pragmatism was the only way to save it.\u00a0 In contrast, the religious and political leader, Tahup\u014dtiki R\u0101tana, who also sought to save the M\u0101ori people, regarded the Treaty of Waitangi as of pivotal importance to his mission.<\/p>\n

So what does this mean for the Constitutional Review?\u00a0 Unfortunately, most publically espoused positions fall into two opposing poles.\u00a0 On one side are those who wish to avoid addressing the Treaty.\u00a0 At least, they are happy to accept the Treaty having given the Crown sovereignty, but not that rangatiratanga ascribes any special rights to M\u0101ori.\u00a0 The New Zealand Centre for Political Research and its own Independent Constitutional Review fit this bill.\u00a0 On the other hand, the Crown, churches, iwi and many academics all believe that the Treaty is of fundamental importance to modern New Zealand society. For example, church and union groups \u2013 non-state agencies \u2013 still see a need for a \u2018Tiriti partnership relationship\u2019.[25]\u00a0\u00a0 Some have described the Treaty as \u201csacred\u201d, or as one Presbyterian minister told his congregation, a \u201csecular scripture\u201d.[26] Although many agree on the importance of rangatiratanga, there can be quite marked differences in interpretation.\u00a0 For example, Network Waitangi assert that the term equates with \u2018the continuance of Maori authority and sovereignty\u2019[27] whereas recent statements from the judiciary or Waitangi Tribunal talk more of resource management, or woolier terms, such as \u2018a claim to an ongoing distinctive existence as a people\u2019,[28] or \u2018self-management\u2019 or \u2018self-regulation\u2019,[29] or \u2018full authority status and prestige with regard to [Maori] possessions and interests\u2019.[30] In the case of the Mangonui Sewerage Report, rangatiratanga is the right to be consulted.[31]<\/p>\n

The Treaty is important to the constitution.\u00a0 It is a mechanism through which M\u0101ori can engage collectively with the state.\u00a0 However, the Treaty\u2019s past is far less cut-and-dried than it is sometimes portrayed. The historian can point this out, but it is for other professions to determine political and legal truths for today.\u00a0 However, there are four key points from this talk that I would like to stress.<\/p>\n

First, that rangatiratanga has meanings outside of the Treaty, including notions of prosperity and civilisation, and even God\u2019s heavenly kingdom.<\/p>\n

Second that it was largely absent from Treaty discourses, or merely implied, for most of the nineteenth century.\u00a0 What\u2019s now expressed as rangatiratanga was more commonly known as mana.\u00a0 Its other meanings, and the Crown\u2019s appropriation to <\/i>define colonial rule, meant that it was not often used to define M\u0101ori treaty rights.\u00a0 However, this not mean those rights did not exist.<\/p>\n

My third point is that during the colonial period M\u0101ori attitudes and opinion towards the Treaty, and by implication rangatiratanga, had more to do with the pragmatics of politics than enduring principles.\u00a0 Some M\u0101ori barely considered the Treaty before the 1860s.\u00a0 In 1860, the Governor asserted the Queen\u2019s sovereignty as the Crown\u2019s treaty right, and threatened the removal of Treaty guarantees from M\u0101ori who did not accept this.\u00a0 Perhaps understandably the K\u012bngitanga, attempting to create a M\u0101ori state, rejected the Treaty.\u00a0\u00a0 In the post-wars period, as the state endeavoured to further impose its power over M\u0101ori, movements such as the Kotahitanga and the K\u012bngitanga promoted the Treaty as the bastion of their rights.\u00a0 In the early twentieth century Ngata, seeing more benefit for M\u0101ori through working within state institutions, rejected the tino rangatiratanga discourse and asserted Crown sovereignty.<\/p>\n

My fourth and final point is, when determining constitutional niceties for the twenty-first century, it does not hurt to remember the messiness of the past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NOTES<\/p>\n

[1] M\u0101ori Party Press Release, Constitutional courage, constitutional change<\/i>, January 2011, http:\/\/www.maoriparty.org\/<\/p>\n

[2]Constitutional Review Panel, New Zealand\u2019s Constitution: The Conversation So Far<\/i>, September 2012. http:\/\/www2.justice.govt.nz\/cap-interim\/<\/p>\n

[3] http:\/\/www.nzcpr.com\/ConstitutionalReview.htm ; http:\/\/www.nzcpr.com\/petition_EqualRights.php<\/p>\n

[4]The Conversation So Far<\/i>, p.8.<\/p>\n

[5] Ruth Ross. \u2018The Treaty of Waitangi: Texts and Interpretations\u2019, New Zealand Journal of History<\/i>, 6, 2, 1972, pp.129-157.<\/p>\n

[6]Macalister, John. 2008. \u2018Tracking Changes in Familiarity with Borrowings from te Reo M\u0101ori.\u2019 Te Reo<\/i> 51, p. 85.<\/p>\n

[7] Lyndsay Head \u2018The Pursuit of Modernity in Maori Society: The Conceptual Bases of Citizenship in the Early Colonial Period\u2019 in Andrew Sharp & Paul McHugh (eds) Histories, Power and Loss: Uses of the Past \u2013 A New Zealand Commentary<\/i> Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2001, pp. 106-7.<\/p>\n

[8] H. Hanson Turton, Maori Deeds of Old Private Land Purchases in New Zealand from the Year 1815 to 1840, with Pre-Emptive and Other Claims<\/i>, Wellington: Government Printer, 1882, pp. 76, 78.<\/p>\n

[9] Letter from Kawana Hakeke to McLean, Aug 1848.\u00a0\u00a0 Alexander Turnbull Library, MS-Papers-0032-0672C-06. Object #1031502; Letter from Hakaraia Te Rangiwakatakaura, Te Retimana to Te Kepa and Te Pere, 28 Nov 1848. Alexander Turnbull Library, MS-Papers-0032-0672E-08. Object #1031091.<\/p>\n

[10] H. Hanson Turton, Maori Deeds of Old Private Land Purchases in New Zealand from the Year 1815 to 1840, with Pre-Emptive and Other Claims<\/i>, Wellington: Government Printer, 1882, p.3.<\/p>\n

[11] TKM 14\/7\/1860: 6.\u00a0\u00a0 Translation of M\u0101ori text.\u00a0 \u2018…tino tukua rawatia ana e ratou ki te Kuini o Ingarangi nga tikanga me nga mana Kawanatanga katoa i a ratou katoa, i tenei i tenei ranei o ratou, me nga pera katoa e meinga kei a ratou.\u2019<\/p>\n

[12] Te Hokioi<\/i>, 15\/2\/1862: 2.<\/p>\n

[13] Te Hokioi, <\/i>8\/12\/1862: 2.<\/p>\n

[14] Te Wananga<\/i>, 22\/1\/1876 p.38; 3\/6\/1876, p.215.<\/p>\n

[15] Appendix to the Journal of the Legislative Council<\/i>, 1869, p. 68.<\/p>\n

[16] Wi Parata v Bishop of Wellington (1877) 3 NZ Jur (NS) 72 (SC).<\/p>\n

[17] R\u0113nata Kawep\u014d.\u00a0 \u2018Letter Answering the Letter of Thomas Fitzgerald, The Superintendent of Napier, H.B.\u00a0 P\u0101 Whakairo, February 1861.\u2019\u00a0 Folios 30 & 31, McDonnell Papers, MS-Papers-0150 [ATL].<\/p>\n

[18] R\u0113nata Kawep\u014d, addressing Sir George Grey. 15\/1\/1877.\u00a0 Te Wananga<\/i>, 29\/1\/1877, pp.507, 510.<\/p>\n

[19] Te Wananga<\/i>, 15\/4\/1876: 167.<\/p>\n

[20] Te Wananga, <\/i>21\/2\/1876: 77.<\/p>\n

[21] Te Waka Maori o Niu Tirani<\/i>, 15\/12\/1874: 311; 29\/12\/1874: 322)<\/p>\n

[22] Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives<\/i>, 1898 Session I, I-03a.<\/p>\n

[23] In 1897 he stated that people who knew M\u0101ori, \u2018would not sympathise with the leaders of the [Kotahitanga] movement in their efforts to secure Home Rule and the power to legislate and administer Native Lands. The time would be better spent in agitating for the increase in Maori representation in Parliament…\u2019A.T. Ngata \u2018Maori Politics and Our Relation Thereto\u2019, in Papers and Addresses read Before the First Conference of the Te Aute College Students Association, February, 1897 <\/i>(Gisborne: Herald Office, 1897) p.34<\/p>\n

[24] Te Toa Takitini<\/i>, 1\/6\/1922, p.6.<\/p>\n

[25] Example from Tertiary Education Union: Te Haut\u016b Kahurangi o Aotearoa, Te Tiriti o Waitangi \u2013 TEU Policy, http:\/\/teu.ac.nz\/2011\/12\/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-teu-policy\/<\/a>, Updated 8 December, 2011.<\/p>\n

[26] Allan Davidson, Waitangi Day, 2011. The Community of St Luke, Accessed 18 March, 2014.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.stlukes.org.nz\/?sid=42527<\/p>\n

[27] Network Waitangi, Treaty of Waitangi: Questions and Answers<\/i>, 4th revised edition, (Christchurch: Network Waitangi, 2012), p.12.\u00a0 http:\/\/nwo.org.nz\/files\/QandA.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

[28] Janine Hayward, \u201cPrinciples of the Treaty of Waitangi\u201d, appendix to the National Overview<\/i>. (Taiaroa v the Minister of Justice (1994), p. 482.<\/p>\n

[29] Hayward (Manukau Report, p.486; Ngawha Geothermal Resources Report, p.492)<\/p>\n

[30] Hayward (Manukau Report, p.486.)<\/p>\n

[31] Hayward, p.492.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lachy Paterson, \u201cTino Rangatiratanga: a Constitutional Problem Child?\u201d This is the text of a presentation given at Centre for Research on Colonial Culture event, Colonial Origins of New Zealand Government and Politics, Dunedin, 8 March 2013.   The Treaty of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17527,17444],"tags":[17475,45154,17474,17529,17528,45155],"class_list":["post-504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-discussion-piece","category-symposium","tag-colonial-culture","tag-constitution","tag-crocc","tag-mana","tag-rangatiratanga","tag-treaty-of-waitangi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/crocc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}