One nation, many peoples
Posted 18 March 2008 // Jock Phillips
Enjoying a multi-ethnic festival
For this post on Race Relations Day, let’s look at three ‘Your stories’, which we have just put up on Te Ara. They are now part of the entry about Te Tau Ihu tribes, from the top of the South Island.
Originally the entry was called ‘Whakatū tribes’ (Whakatū is Nelson). Last year three of the iwi – those who claimed descent from the Kurahaupō waka – contacted us and said that they would like the entry name changed to ‘Te Tau Ihu’ or ‘the prow of the waka’, because their lands extended beyond the Nelson region. While they were happy with the entry, they wanted to tell their own stories as separate iwi with their own distinct traditions. Last week, with the full support of the authors Hilary and John Mitchell, their stories appeared.
The story is apt because there was a time when New Zealand was very much a mono-cultural world. By the 1950s most white New Zealanders expected everyone to conform to the behaviours and attitudes of ‘real New Zealanders‘. They had forgotten the range of accents, foods, religions and traditions that came with their ancestors from different parts of Great Britain and Europe. They expected Māori to become ‘honorary whites‘, who earned membership in ‘mainstream’ society by taking part in its wars, its factories and its sporting pastimes. Those who looked different, like Chinese and Indian New Zealanders, largely kept to themselves.
In the last forty years there has been a remarkable change. Faced with the visible evidence of immigrants from the Pacific, Asia and the Middle East, New Zealanders have also begun to recover the amazing cultural richness in their own history. In Te Ara, we have noted the Irish with their St Patrick’s Day and their fiddles, the Scots with their bagpipes, the Dalmatians with their wine-making skills, and the Samoans with their stunning musical and artistic talents. In New Zealand Peoples we tried to document some of these distinctive traditions; and we were delighted when the entries sparked a highly successful television series, Here to stay. In Māori New Zealanders, we tried to uncover the stories of some of the many iwi of the country.
It is our hope that this rich coverage of both the immigrant and indigenous peoples does something for race relations in New Zealand. Understanding of difference is a key to good relationships, yet it is easy to overlook just how important small differences can be to identity. Thank you, Kurahaupō, for reminding us of this. We hope you enjoy their stories.
