News came last week that early Maori ‘probably’ discovered Antarctica. The evidence being a tribal story of a fella named Hui Te Rangiora journeying deep into southern waters where researchers say he was ‘likely’ to have sighted the Antarctic land mass.
Well, my uncle, the ex-sailor told some pretty tall sea tales but I don’t count it ‘likely’ that he actually made love to a mermaid or head-butted a great white. But being a tolerant, liberal, unbiased bloke I paused to consider whether my scepticism was just another example of how colonialism has suppressed the achievements of early Maori.
Attempting to take off my Paul Goldsmith glasses (they made me look like Dame Edna anyway) and look through the ‘lens’ of Tangata Whenua, I decided to consult an authority. Cultural studies professor Bill Pucki (Ngapuhi, Ngai tahu with a light dusting of Scots-Irish) was only too glad to help. He holds a chair at Waikato University and pulls it out from under any Pakeha who tries to sit on it. Over several whiskies, at the student bar, he outlined some of the Maori discoveries and inventions that I was sadly ignorant of.
FIRE
Conventional wisdom has fire being first used by human ancestors in Africa some 1.5 million years ago. Not so says the Professor. “My research has uncovered a lost genius named Rangi who, observing lightning one day, theorised it was caused by two clouds colliding. So he began trying to recreate it by bashing things against other things. He tried grass and a rock, a fish and a rock and his brother’s head and a rock until finally, he made the breakthrough: a rock and another rock. Unfortunately the spark it created caught his piupiu on fire and he had to run to the river to put himself out, making him also the first Maori to run a sub four-minute mile.”
VEGETARIANISM
After another slug of whiskey, the professor continued; “Early Maori were also the first vegetarians. They foraged and grew food but never killed a living being. They lived in complete harmony with Papatuanuku.”
Now it was my turn to take a drink. This was quite a revelation. I needed to ask some questions.
“What about moa? Weren’t they hunted out of existence by Maori?”
“No, they died of natural causes. Clumsy animals. Fell off cliffs a lot.”
“And what about cannibalism?”
The professor folded his arms and glared at me.
“Early Maori were not cannibals…it is a racist myth created by the colonisers.”
And, I thought to myself, the people they ate. The Prof must have picked up on my cynicism.
“Well, OK. There was a little bit of cannibalism. But it was only for special occasions. Birthdays, weddings…like pavlova or something.”
No, professor, not like pavlova at all.
THE SCARY FACE
Professor Pucki drained his glass and called for another. “Maori also led the way in warfare techniques none more so than the pukana or as you would know it the ‘scary face’. It was extremely effective in intimidating the enemy. It became in wide use during the early 1600s until it was supplanted by the ‘really scary face’ in the 1700s developed by the legendary warrior Ihaka ‘ten-inch tongue’ Kewa.”
ADVANCED AGRICULTURAL TECHNIQUES
“Early Maori were also at the forefront of agricultural innovation”, the professor went on. “To better develop crop land they began huge burn-offs of forests. This was a planned and environmentally sound practice and not as some racist historians have conjectured a result of some silly bugger lighting a pa fire too close to a dry flax bush.”
PHILOSOPHY
As the scotch surged through his bloodstream the Prof became a mite belligerent.
“You Europeans think you invented philosophy.”
“Actually I’m not European, I’m from Henderson.”
“Whatever…did you know that Maori invented the Socratic Method? We had a philosopher named Hone who asked everyone in his village ‘Why is the sky blue?’ and ‘Why is water wet?’ and ‘Why does the moon come out at night?’ until they all got fed up and one of them said ‘Why don’t we hang him by his balls from a tree until he stops asking questions?’ and the rest chorused back ‘Why not?’”
BUNGEE JUMPING
“And bungee jumping that was one of ours. A man called Rua jumped from the Huka Falls convinced that life was nothing but misery. His feet got tangled in a vine and he hit his head on the rocks below and then he came up and did it, again, again and again, confirming his belief.”
COMPUTERS
I started to look for the exits when the professor claimed Maori had invented computers.
“Our lost genius, Rangi again. He used to count ‘zero, one’ ‘zero, one’ never getting to two. This is the binary system, the basis of computer programming.”
I’d had enough.
“Perhaps he was just thick and couldn’t count?”
The professor flew into a rage, hurling his whiskey glass to the floor (after checking it was empty).
“I knew it!” the Prof screeched. “You’re nothing but a white privileged inheritor of the colonial mentality! You will never understand the true wonderfulness of tangata whenua. We are exceptional! We are unique!”
But before I backed out of the bar (never turn your back on a drunk professor of cultural studies) I had to correct the good professor. The idea that your own ethnic group has virtues not shared by others does not make Maori unique.
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