'Taonga' as defined by Hongi Hika

The Maori dictionary current in 1840 was the 1820 Grammar and Vocabulary of the Language of New Zealand by Cambridge University professor Samuel Lee.

Lee’s linguistic consultant was no honky with an axe to grind.

It was none other than the great Ngapuhi chief Hongi Hika.

(He loved axes too — tomahawks, to be precise — but was in England looking to upgrade to muskets.)

And Hongi defined taonga as property procured by the spear, etc.

It was purely physical

Hongi Hika’s down-to-earth definition of the 1820s could hardly be more removed from the ‘sacred relic’ status conferred by the Treaty negotiators of the 2010s.

To that corrupt one-eyed kangaroo court the Waitangi Tribunal, taonga now means anything our tribal clients can get their hands on.

Physical or metaphysical, doesn’t matter. If it can turn a dollar, it’s a taonga.

But to Hongi Hika, and Hone Heke and the other 511 chiefs who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi, their taonga was their stuff.

The Treaty, beautifully explained by a wise and honest Maori leader

Sir Apirana Ngata, MA, LLB, D. Lit — the man on our $50 note. (Put there by Reserve Bank Governor, one Donald T. Brash.) If only today’s Maori leaders shared Ngata’s high regard for truth. 

 

THE TREATY OF WAITANGI

AN EXPLANATION

by The Hon. Sir Apirana Ngata
M.A., LL.B., Lit.D.

Published for the Maori Purposes Fund Board

 First published in 1922

Translated into English by M. R. Jones

Spaced out a bit for easy reading by J. L. Ansell

The words that follow are those of history’s greatest Maori statesman… 

Don't be cowed by the 'racist' trick

I get this cowardly trick played on me a lot. It’s important we treat it with the contempt it deserves. 

Sorry if my last post came through incomplete. I pressed the Publish button instead of Save. 

All fixed now.

Time for a Colourblind State

Last night’s Close Up piece on Hone Harawira’s militant nephew shows what happens when a government pursues a policy of endless appeasement.

It’s time this chamber of Chamberlains started running New Zealand as though it were a democracy.

I propose to ensure it does this by launching a petition for a referendum on a colourblind state – a referendum that it can ill afford to ignore.

To ensure that the government listens to the will of the people, I’m fundraising for a major public education campaign to expose the 40-year brainwashing campaign that has denied New Zealanders their right to know the truth about Crown-Maori history.

I’ve spent the past year doing little else but studying this history, and believe me it is a very different history from the one we’ve been forcefed by our schools, universities, politicians and media.

Helping me prepare for this campaign have been nine authors who between them have written over 30 books on this subject.

Very soon I’ll be setting up a site where you can read the documents I have read. Prepare to be amazed – and enraged.

One of these documents is Governor Hobson’s final English draft of the Treaty, missing for 149 years and found in 1989 – but covered up by an embarrassed government and minimised by its tame historians.

Why?

Because, like the Maori ‘Tiriti’ into which it was translated, it makes no mention of Maori owning forest and fisheries, and makes it clear that the Treaty was with all the people of New Zealand, including settlers.

Tonight it’s my turn to appear on Close Up — with Hone Harawira and another Maori, Morgan Godfery.

(I’m getting used to these two-on-one ambushes, but will do my best to get a word in edgeways.)

More on the campaign when I return from Auckland.

If you’d like to donate to the very considerable costs of a high-profile advertising campaign, please do so here.

Before long, there will be a trust, Facebook page and website. But the first step is fundraising.