SOVEREIGN ASSUMPTIONS

There’s an insurance ad currently running on TV that shows a bunch of salesmen sitting around making assumptions about a client and passing judgments based on their frame of reference.  The problem for the salesmen is that their assumptions, judgments and frame of reference are all wrong. 

E whānau ma, the scenario portrayed in the ad has a familiar ring.  One that has echoed throughout the history of New Zealand, is still resonating in the present, and will likely segue into the future.  

I am talking about the judgments of people whose forebears assumed sovereignty over us based on a European frame of reference that was laid out in the 15^th century Papal Bull of Pope Alexander VI – aka the Doctrine of Discovery.

In past columns I’ve already covered the historical and present realities of those people and their wrong assumptions.  If you want or need to know more on the subject, my blog on http://hikoidiary.blogspot.co.nz/ is a starting point. For the present I address te kaupapa tuatahi. 

When it comes to other people’s assumptions and judgments about us, unless we caused or controlled them, we should only either watch them play out, or ignore them.  Any other response is a symptom of that psychological dis-ease called collective guilt. 

Next Tuesday is the 179th anniversary of the signing of He Hakaputanga o Te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni.  So it's timely to remember that we should either stay away from other people’s kutukutu ahi, or risk catching their dis-ease. 

We are better than that and have better things to do, like teaching and preparing our tamariki mokopuna to be Rangatira in all things, times and places. 

So, unless we are an affected party, or have kaitiakitanga over an affected party, Rangatira ought not magnify someone else’s faults. But if a fault or failing happens in our whānau or hapū, then we have a responsibility to reveal it rather than conceal it. 

Ultimately, because everything we do is based on intimate links with te ao wairua, our Rangatiratanga is a spritual endowment to us from the Gods in whom we believe. Tino hohonu.

Contrast that with those whose sovereign assumptions are based on a Western religious doctrine wrongly attributed to an Eastern God who most of them don’t even believe exists. Somewhat shallow.

Which brings us back to that insurance ad.  It ends when the client doesn’t fight or feed other people’s wrong assumptions about him, and doesn’t let their problem become his.  

Instead he simply exercises his Rangatiratanga within his own frame of reference and takes his business elsewhere.  

Ko tātou tēnā.

SOVEREIGN SYMBOLS

When teaching our tamariki mokopuna about He Hakaputanga o Nga Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, it helps enormously that the oral traditions from our tūpuna are very clear about the context in which it was drawn up and signed, and that it declared our sovereignty.  

It also helps that those oral traditions have remained consistent in both content and transmission down through the decades, and have been recorded in a growing body of literature that accurately conveys the context of our sovereignty.

As early as 1808, many of our tūpuna rangatira i te raki had become concerned about the “hapū hou” (new tribes) arriving on our shores, and the impacts they were having.

By 1816 those concerns had grown to include the lawlessness of many of the British immigrants (the largest of the new tribes) and their refusal to adhere to the law of the land, tikanga Māori.

These concerns were discussed over many years by the rangatira in their respective rohe as well as at hui of Te Wakaminenga o Nga Rangatira o Nga Hapū.  In 1820, a delegation of rangatira led by Hongi Hika, visited the British King, George IV of England, and asked him to send someone to control his lawless subjects.  In 1831 Te Wakaminenga wrote to the new British King, William IV of England, again asking that someone be sent to control his lawless subjects.

In all their interactions with British royalty, our tūpuna rangatira were very clear that whatever controls they imposed upon their subjects, the mana of the rangatira and the hapū remained intact in its fullness; it was only the lawless British who needed to be controlled.

In 1833 King William acceded to their request and sent a British Resident, James Busby who in 1835 drafted He Hakaputanga which declared, among other things, that the many hapū of Māori throughout the country each maintained our own mana and that no other system of government would be permitted to exist over our lands, territories, peoples and possessions.

Although the English translation document was inaccurate, in that it declared that all hapū had formed a collective and that sovereignty of the country resided in the collective and would never be ceded to any other power, King William of England acknowledged and recognised the correct and signed document when he endorsed He Hakaputanga o Nga Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni, having earlier accepted the kara that the rangatira had chosen to signal the identity and authority of our hapū.

These, then, were significant events that brought Māori on to the world stage, and become pivotal in establishing and protecting Māori sovereignty and international trading relations.

Personalised versions of the sovereign kara were made and flown by different hapū from 1835 onwards, and some of those original kara can still be seen to this day. 

 

As symbols, they too are enormously helpful when we are teaching our tamariki mokopuna about He Hakaputanga o Nga Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni.

CONSTITUTING SOVEREIGNTY

Te Whiringa-a-Nuku contains one of the most auspicious and important dates for sovereign whānau and hapū, in both Maramataka and Gregorian calendar terms.

In 1835, 28 October was a Tamatea-kai-Ariki day that coincided with Te Wakaminenga o Ngā Rangatira o Ngā Hapū, a longstanding hui at Waitangi of Rangatira from throughout Te Taitokerau. 

In 1835, it was also the day that 34 of those Rangatira signed He Hakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tireni. 

This Declaration says in full.

1. KO MATOU, ko nga Tino Rangatira o nga iwi o Nu Tireni i raro mai o Hauraki kua oti nei te huihui i Waitangi i Tokerau i te ra 28 o Oketopa 1835, ka wakaputa i te Rangatiratanga o to matou wenua a ka meatia ka wakaputaia e matou he Wenua Rangatira, kia huaina, Ko te Wakaminenga o nga Hapu o Nu Tireni. 2. Ko te Kingitanga ko te mana i te wenua o te wakaminenga o Nu Tireni ka meatia nei kei nga Tino Rangatira anake i to matou huihuinga, a ka mea hoki e kore e tukua e matou te wakarite ture ki te tahi hunga ke atu, me te tahi Kawanatanga hoki kia meatia i te wenua o te wakaminenga o Nu Tireni, ko nga tangata anake e meatia nei e matou e wakarite ana ki te ritenga o o matou ture e meatia nei matou i to matou huihuinga. 3. Ko matou ko nga tino Rangatira ka mea nei kia huihui ki te runanga ki Waitangi a te Ngahuru i tenei tau i tenei tau ki te wakarite ture kia tika ai te wakawakanga, kia mau pu te rongo kia mutu te he kia tika te hokohoko, a ka mea hoki ki nga tauiwi o runga, kia wakarerea te wawai, kia mahara ai ki te wakaoranga o to matou wenua, a kia uru ratou ki te wakaminenga o Nu Tireni. 4. Ka mea matou kia tuhituhia he pukapuka ki te ritenga o tenei o to matou wakaputanga nei ki te Kingi o Ingarani hei kawe atu i to matou aroha nana hoki i wakaae ki te Kara mo matou. A no te mea ka atawai matou, ka tiaki i nga pakeha e noho nei i uta, e rere mai ana ki te hokohoko, koia ka mea ai matou ki te Kingi kia waiho hei matua ki a matou i to matou Tamarikitanga kei wakakahoretia to matou Rangatiratanga. KUA WAKAAETIA katoatia e matou i tenei ra i te 28 Oketopa, 1835, ki te aroaro o te Reireneti o te Kingi o Ingarani.

By 1839 a total of 52 Rangatira had signed in behalf of their Hapū, and many more have since joined.

For some, He Hakaputanga is the only Constitution they will ever embrace.  For others, it is the foundation for a future Constitution which all may embrace.

Either way, 28 October 2014 is an Ōue day, and the annual hui of Te Wakaminenga at Waitangi is on again for all sovereign whānau and hapū.