HOW TINO RANGATIRATANGA
HAS BEEN DELIBERATELY MISINTERPRETED TO MEAN WHAT IT DOES NOT MEAN.
(by Julian Batchelor M.ED (Hons), B.Th, Dip.T’ching)
SYNOPSIS: To Maori activists, Tino Rangatiratanga means ‘absolute sovereignty’. The correct interpretation of this Maori phrase is ‘ownership’. Maori chiefs in 1840 understood this word to mean ‘ownership’. But over the years since 1975, Maori activists have twisted the meaning to mean ‘absolute sovereignty’. Why? So that, they claim, the British agreed that they would have ‘absolute sovereignty’ over all of New Zealand forever. Please read my article below which gives more detail.
Recently, I had an email exchange with a lady called Sue. She was making a comment on a blog post on another web site www.bassettbrashandhide.com
SUE
As Julian Batchelor says in his blog yesterday, National’s majority win in the election “is infinitely better than Labour, the Greens, and the Maori Party returning.”
National aren’t renaming co-governance as partnership. National has simply ignored any reference to cogovernance or co-management in their policies. The tangible example of co-governance, 3 waters, is to be repealed and Co-governance can be consigned to the history blogs. Done and dusted!
JULIAN
No Sue, you are not correct about this. National is going to keep co-governance going with respect to the management of natural resources. They are calling it “co-management” or “partnership” to try and fly under the radar. Luxon and his cabinet believe, wrongly, that the Treaty is a partnership. The reason that only giving Iwi opportunity to partner with government is wrong? If the government wants to co-manage natural resources (or anything) with private enterprise, they should use a tender process to allow all the 160 cultures living here to have a go at winning the tender. This is called equal opportunity. It’s what democracy is all about. Why should one cultural group be given priority, to the exclusion of all others? This is apartheid, and racist, and a breach of the Treaty which guaranteed equality for all. (Article 3)
SUE
A tender process allowing all 160 cultures a go at winning? I think you misunderstand that co management of natural resources is not granted on race or ethnicity or to a cultural group, but it is granted on the basis of a treaty to the only party to sign the treaty with the Crown i.e. Māori. The treaty guaranteed ‘te tino rangatiratanga’ over their lands, villages and taonga. Similarly in the English version of the treaty Māori are granted full, exclusive and undisturbed possession of their lands and estates forests fisheries and other properties.
This is not racism but abiding by an agreement, can you not see that? If there were no Treaty or 160 other cultures had signed it too, then yes, it would be unfair, but by allowing co management of resources with their treaty partner, the Crown is honouring the words of the Treaty, and that my friend is one example of equality.
JULIAN
‘Tino RANGATIRATANGA’ does not mean what you say it means. There are some things you seem not to be aware of. Let me explain. Cook landed in New Zealand 1769, and he claimed it for the British. This was entirely legal through what’s known as ‘discovery’. It did not matter that Maori were already here. It was international law (The Law of Nations) at the time that colonising countries could do this. Britain could have triggered ‘discovery’ to simply move in to New Zealand and take the country over, with no treaty. But they decided not to. Why?
Fast forward to the 1830’s. In the 1830’s in Britain, Christian missionary lobby groups were powerful and influential.
They lobbied the House of Commons to protect Maori and their land. They argued that Britain could not simply come to New Zealand and claim the land as their own. They wanted the House of Commons to acknowledge, that New Zealand was a sovereign country and that Maori owned the land.
What they also insisted upon, and this is crucially important, is that to colonise New Zealand, the British would have to ask the chiefs to cede sovereignty.
Why did the British come here? Answer? The reasons were multiple. The British were invited by Maori to come to New Zealand, to save Maori tribes from self annihilation, and to save them from the French who wanted to claim New Zealand as theirs, taking it by force. Britain also wanted a strategic base in the South Pacific. Maori also wanted a slice of British trade, which would open the door to British goods, wealth, and technology. They were hugely attracted to these things. Maori wanted law and order too. Chiefs wanted the British to establish a government on these islands, a democratic government, because all attempts by Maori to form a government had failed. These were the main reasons the British colonised New Zealand and why Maori invited them here.
Obtaining sovereignty was Britain’s bottom line. After sovereignty was obtained, the British planned to buy land from Maori, on sell it to settlers, or retain it for use by the government in the development of the nation. This is what Article two of the Treaty was about, no more, no less. Here is article 2 of the Treaty.
Article two:
“The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and the tribes and to all the people of New Zealand, the possession (tino rangatiratanga) of their lands, dwellings and all their property. But the chiefs of the Confederation of the United Tribes and the other chiefs grant to the Queen, the exclusive rights of purchasing such lands as the proprietors thereof may be disposed to sell at such prices as may be agreed upon between them and the person appointed by the Queen to purchase from them.”1
The word ‘possession’ was translated by Henry Williams (left) on the night of the 4th of February 1840 into Maori ‘tino rangatiratanga’.
I have an actual 1840 Henry Williams Dictionary of Maori words. Rangatiratanga means ‘evidence of breeding and greatness’. (right). This is a photo of the dictionary entry.
What were the Treaty writers trying to achieve by using tino rangatiratanga?
First, they were saying to Maori chiefs “via the Treaty, you will still own (i.e. possess / be the chiefs of and over) your land, dwellings, and property. i.e. that which you own as at 6th of February 1840. 2 We are not taking these
1 The English version of the Treaty I am using here is Busby’s final draft, known as the Littlewood draft. It mirrors the Treaty in Maori exactly, with the exception of the date (the draft is the 4th, the Treaty in Maori the 6th), and the insertion of the word Maori in article 3.
2 As it happens, Maori had sold roughly 1/3 of New Zealand prior to the Treaty being signed. Eventually, they went on to sell 92% of their land. None of this 92% was ‘stolen’ or ‘confiscated’. It was simply sold.
away from you.” This is the main thought that the British were wanting to convey through the use of tino rangatiratanga. Chiefs were fearful that the British would take their land without paying for it. But it was much more than this. Much more. Why was Henry Williams so insistent on using tino rangatiratanga’? There is a good reason, and I will tell you why.
To fully understand what the Treaty writers were intending when they chose rangatiratanga, we have to have knowledge of Maori society prior to 1840.
All Maori knew that only a person of greatness and breeding in a tribe could ‘own’ anything. And who was the only person in a tribe who fitted this description?
Correct. A chief. He (occasionally a she) was the only person with “breeding and greatness”.
So the Treaty writers carefully chose this phrase tino rangatiratanga to convey the idea to all Maori who were not chiefs, that the British would view them, before the British law, as “people of greatness and breeding” i.e. Before the law, with respect to land, dwellings, and property, all Maori would have the same status as a chief.3
By using tino rangatiratanga, the British were doing what an earnest parent would do to express a difficult concept to their child - put it in terms that the child would understand i.e. tino rangatiratanga. They were saying to the chiefs on the one hand “You are going to have to share your stuff” and to non-chiefs on the other “You can now be like a chief and own land, dwellings, and property.” In a nutshell, that was it.
Ordinary Maori, all those other than a chief, would have clicked. “Wow! We can now be like a chief and own land, dwellings and property!” For them, this would have represented a momentous shift in their thinking, a lotto win.
Prior to the Treaty, all Maori other than a chief were viewed by the chief as sub-human, people worth nothing, having nothing, expecting nothing, other than to be used by the chief as instruments of war or labour or a source of food. They could not ‘own’ anything.
Prior to 1840, life expectancy for an average Maori was in the 20s. For anyone other than a chief, life was gruelling. “Furthermore the life expectancy of Maoris, which was around 25 years at the time of first contact with Europeans, was 75.1 years for women and 70.4 years for men by 2007.”4
For the chiefs, relinquishing their right to be the only person in a tribe to own land, dwellings, and property would have been no small thing.
3 Did this mean that all Maori would achieve the status of a chief in their tribe? Of course not. It was only through the lens of British law that Maori who were not chiefs in their tribe would achieve chiefly status with respect to land, dwellings, and property. In their tribal world, they were still non-chiefs. Did chiefs lose their status as a chief in their tribe? No, of course not. Chiefs could still be chiefs within their tribe but after the Treaty signing, only within the limitation of British law. Once chiefs became British citizens, as they did, pretreaty behaviours such as slavery, war, murder, cannibalism, infanticide, and human sacrifice were illegal. HERE is a section from Lord Normanby’s brief to Hobson saying as much. Other than that, they could still carry on being chiefs in their tribes.
4 Twisting the Treaty. The Tribal Grab For Wealth And Power. Tross Publishing. 2014. Page 12
Instead of hoarding land, dwellings and property for themselves, as sole owners of everything, they were, via the Treaty, having to release all Maori to own the same. Essentially, by signing the Treaty, the chiefs were opening the door of the cage, setting their own people free (non chiefs) to own land, dwellings, and property.
What motivated them to make this sacrifice? Definitely not altruism (selfless concern for the well-being of others.). No.
To put it briefly, they wanted all the things the British were offering, which I have previously alluded to (e.g. Protection from the French, British citizenship, British Government, Christianity, British law and order to protect them from unruly settlers and from each other. Especially the chiefs wanted British goods and prosperity. Many chiefs had been to England or Sydney or both and had their eyes opened to the reality of ‘modern’ life and goods; participation in trade with Britain, etc). They wanted these things more than they were wanting to keep hoarding land, dwellings and property and Lording it over their own people. They wanted these things more than they wanted to retain their own sovereignty, so they ceded it. It was a calculated exchange.
This interpretation of tino rangatiratanga is entirely consistent with Article 3 where all Maori were given British citizenship. That is to say, if you were a British citizen, as Maori were made to be, you (chiefly Maori and non-chiefly Maori) had to have equal status with all other British citizens with respect to land, dwellings, and property.
This interpretation is also entirely consistent with Article one where Maori ceded sovereignty ‘entirely and forever’ to the Crown.
Here is Article 1.
Article One:
“The chiefs of the confederation of united tribes, and the other chiefs who have not joined the confederation, cede to the Queen of England forever the entire sovereignty of their country.”
What does this mean?
It meant that all Maori, including chiefs, would come under (i.e submit to) the British democratic system of property ownership and government.
What was that system? Land boundaries would be marked out by qualified surveyors, and titles formed. Rules for buying and selling land were clearly laid out e.g. the Maori selling the land had the authority to sell the land on behalf of the tribe; that the price was agreed to by all parties; that boundaries were clearly marked and documented; the purchase price was duly paid; that signatures of both buyer and seller were obtained; everything was to be in writing and signed by all parties, etc etc. The same system is still in use in New Zealand today.
The British democratic system meant one law for all, and equal property status and rights for all citizens. That is to say, all the citizens of New Zealand would be treated equally with respect to land, dwelling, and property.
This is what ‘ceding sovereignty’ meant, and this is what the chiefs who signed the Treaty understood it meant on February 6th, 1840.
If they were to be treated equally, then it was necessary that they must all have equal rights with respect to land, dwellings, and property.
Herein lies the downfall of Hugh Kawharu’s (right) interpretation of Tino Rangatiratanga. In 1989 he was invited by the government of the day to “attempt to reconstruct the literal translation of the Treaty.”
In other words, say what he thought the chiefs ‘might have been thinking’ when they signed the Treaty on February 6th, 1840.
Kawharu’s interpretation has been the basis of tremendous fraud and corruption since 1989.
He said tino rangatiratanga meant ‘unqualified exercise of chieftainship’.
Kawharu maintained that the chiefs did not give up their chieftainship at Waitangi on the 6th of February 1840, but signed up to remain being chiefs over all of New Zealand, forever. That is to say, they did not cede sovereignty i.e. they retained their right to govern New Zealand or have absolute sovereignty over New Zealand. This also meant that the chiefs were not equal with all other Maori. They were to retain their superiority.
What is the problem with this interpretation of tino rangatiratanga? It ought to be obvious. It creates multiple problems.
One can’t cede sovereignty in Article one, then take it all back in Article two. One can’t have equality in Article 3, and inequality in Article 2. This would make the treaty a complete nonsense.
Why? Because, according to law, Treaties, like all legal documents, can’t contain contradictions.
Lawyer and KC Garry Judd (right) says “In law, there is what is called ‘a contradiction principle’. It’s saying one thing, and at the same time saying another. It’s speaking out of both sides of ones mouth. In law, contradictions are impossible. So the Treaty could not contain a contradiction, or it would be a nonsense and therefore to be completely disregarded.”5
So how can one tell if an interpretation of a word in the treaty or any legal contract, any word, is correct or not?
Singularly, the interpretation, whatever it is, cannot create a contradiction. If it does, that interpretation must be discarded. Kawharu’s interpretation of ‘tino rangatiratanga’ created glaring contradictions so it must be discarded.
The truth is that Maori chiefs relinquished their right to be superior before British law at Waitangi on February 6th, 1840. 6 That is to say, before the law, they were made equal with everyone else. However, (and this is important), in terms of their culture, they could retain their chieftainship, with limitations, as detailed in footnote 3.7
5 https://www.stopcogovernance.kiwi/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/The-Treaty-does-not-trump-democracy-ifit-did-it-would-be-self-contradictory-and-meaningless.pdf
6 As I have said, this did not mean that chiefs would be stripped of their role as chiefs in a tribe, or that Maori would lose their culture. Maori could still have their chiefs, tribes, Iwi, hapu and culture. But what they could not have is chiefs being superior before the law compared with other Maori. No. All Maori, chief or non chief, before the law, were made equal through the Treaty.
7 HERE is a link to Lord Normanby’s instruction to Hobson, saying as much.
One can’t be made an equal citizen (i.e. A British citizen) in one breath and then be treated differently (having superior rights) to all other citizens in another.
Sue, your interpretation of ‘te tino rangatiratanga’ is a false modern day invention, given to you by Hugh Kawharu. His wrong ideas have been fed to you via the media and activists.
When he wrote his interpretation of the Treaty, he was at the time a Tribunal member, a claimant, and a Maori. The conflicts of interest were glaring and he ought never have been invited by the government to do what he did.
What is the principle difference between what tino rangatiratanga really meant, and what today’s activists say it means? That’s easy.
The British were promising to protect the chiefs ownership of their land, dwellings, as at the 6th of February 1840. After 1840, the chiefs progressively sold 92% of their land fairly and squarely. So the amount of Maori land that the British had to protect decreased markedly. In the end, it was only 8% of New Zealand.
Maori activists say the Treaty guaranteed the chiefs their chieftainship (i.e. their right to rule completely) over all of New Zealand for ever, even if their sold 92% of their land. This is akin to someone today selling a property and demanding to continue total control of the sold property, inspite of the property having a new owner. Really, it’s a ridiculous notion, but this is what they believe. This is what they are demanding.
The idiocy of their interpretation of tino rangatiratanga is made even more ridiculous when one considers that the chiefs ceded sovereignty ‘completely and forever’ in Article 1 of the Treaty.
What does all this mean? It means, clearly, that the chiefs ceded their right to rule New Zealand when they signed the Treaty. They also lost the right to rule over / control the 92% of the land they sold.
In one sense, the desire of activists to rule New Zealand today has been cancelled out twice, once through ceding sovereignty in the Treaty, and the other through the sale of their land.
Conclusion? There is absolutley no mandate in the Treaty for Maori to rule New Zealand. They, like everyone else, can only rule over / have control over, the land they still legally own which amounts to 8% of New Zealand. Even the control they have over this 8% is restricted by local and central government rules and regulations.
Post script (put as simply as possible)
What you have to realise is that when the British arrived here, New Zealand was a mess in every respect. Tribes were fighting (Historian Michael Wright says “Maori had fought themselves to a standstill”8); there was cannibalism, infanticide, slavery, war, plunder, rape, and murder. Settlers were fighting each other and settlers were fighting Maori. Maori were fighting settlers too - lawlessness was everywhere and there was no one here in New Zealand to restrain any of it - no police, no army, and no judiciary.
There was no peace and no government. Chaos reigned. Maori invited the British to step in to fix this. This invitation was officially kicked off via the letter to King William, written by Ngapuhi chiefs in 1831.
As I said, the first thing the British needed to do was get permission from the chiefs to get complete control of
8 Michael Wright. Illustrated History of New Zealand. Bateman Press. 2013. p45
the country i.e. to have the chiefs cede sovereignty.
The British knew well, from other colonisation exploits, that you can’t have two cooks in the kitchen.
It was either settlers in control, or Maori in control, or the British government in control. Only one of the three could be in control.
There is absolutely nothing in the Treaty about co-governance or partnership or Maori chiefs maintaining their chieftainship or 50/50 power sharing, or Maori chiefs only given permission to the British to rule over the unruly settlers.
Talk of this in modern New Zealand is pure spin, lies. Justice Cooke did say the Treaty was ‘akin to a partnership’. He did not say it was a partnership. Judge Anthony Willy have written a brilliant analysis of Justice Cooke’s judgment where he said the Treaty was ‘akin to a partnership’. Judge Willy totally rejects the notion that the Treaty is a partnership between Maori and the Crown. You can read Willy’s commentary HERE
In the minds of the British it was either get complete control of New Zealand (i.e. sovereignty), or pull out. Lord Normanby had made this clear in his instructions to Hobson. Click HERE to see those instructions.
Well, what happened? Answer? The British got control. Maori ceded sovereignty in Article one.
Next, once sovereignty was ceded, the British had to sort out which chiefs owned what land.
As I have said, the British government had made it clear that they considered that Maori owned all of New Zealand i.e. their land, dwellings, and property.
That is to say, Maori owned all the land in New Zealand, other than that which they had sold to settlers prior to February 6th, 1840. Herein lay a great challenge for the British.
With tribes continually stealing each others land and possessions, taking slaves from each other, eating each other - the problem of sorting out who owned what on any given day was enormous. That is to say, tribal land ownership was continually shifting and moving.
We can only imagine what the British said in their discussions, but it would have gone something like the following. “OK, on February 6th, 1840, the brakes go on. Whoever owns what at that moment in time is what they own. No more stealing, plundering, slavery, cannibalism, infanticide, raping, and pillaging.
Whatever you own / possess as at the 6th of February 1840, we’ll protect so that no one can steal it from you. In the months / years following the signing, we’ll send in surveyors to survey off who owns what land and make it all official. We are not taking this land off you. You can still be the chiefs of your land.
From now on, you can legally buy and sell land, through the Crown, and titles will be issued. We have to get ‘order’ with respect to the buying and selling of land.
Oh, and one more thing. We’ve heard that settlers have been doing lots of deals with Maori to buy land on the cheap, and Maori too have been ripping off settlers by selling the same piece of land to 2, 3, or 4 buyers at the same time, so let’s stop all that too.
To protect Maori, and settlers, we’ll make a law that only the crown can buy land from Maori. This will protect
Maori from unscrupulous settlers and protect settlers from unscrupulous Maori. We, the British government, will clip the ticket on our land sales to settlers. The profits we make will help pay for the cost of colonising NZ.” This was all achieved in Article two.
Next, the British said “None of this is going to work unless we make New Zealand a democracy, the same as we’ve had in Britain. We’ve trialled democracy in Great Britain and it works. This is the only way to get peace, order, and prosperity. So, to do that, we have to make everyone British citizens. In this way, all people will be equal before the law. This also means that they would have to obey the law handed down to them by the British AND all citizens of New Zealand will have the same rights and responsibilities. In New Zealand, it will be one law for all, and one democratic government for all. Above all, Maori will get what they REALLY wanted which was the protection of the might of Britain.”
Thankfully, we have the testimony of Rev. Samuel Warren (right) writing in 1863, an eye witness to the Treaty signing at Waitangi, February 6, 1840: He says:
“I was present at the great meeting at Waitangi when the celebrated treaty was signed, and also at a meeting which took place subsequently on the same subject at Hokianga. There was a great deal of talk by the natives, principally on the subject of securing their proprietary right to the land, and their personal liberty. Everything else they were only too happy to yield to the Queen, as they said repeatedly, because they knew they could only be saved from the rule of other nations by sitting under the shadow of the Queen of England. In my hearing they frequently remarked, “Let us be one people. We had the gospel from England, let us have the law from England.” My impression at the time was that the natives perfectly understood that, by signing the treaty, they became British subjects, and though I lived amongst them more than fifteen years after the event, and often conversed with them on the subject, I never saw the slightest reason to change my opinion. The natives were at the time in mortal fear of the French, and justly thought they had done a pretty good stroke of business when they placed the British lion between themselves and the French eagle.”9 He is pretty clear, isn’t he. Maori were thrilled to have Britain take control of New Zealand, thrilled to have the British rule over them. It’s hard to argue with an eye witness, someone not pushing a political barrow.
Making Maori British citizens was achieved in Article three.
Article three:
“In return for the cession of their sovereignty to the Queen, the people of New Zealand shall be protected by the Queen of England and the rights and privileges of British subjects will be granted to them.”
There was never an idea of two governments, Maori and the rest, one rule for one group and one for another.
There was never an idea of Maori being ‘partners’ with the British. Remember, you can only have one cook in the kitchen. There could never be one group having special rights which others did not have.
To do this would have been the absolute opposite of democracy, a ridiculous idea to the British. The British would never have been successful in bringing order, government, and peace to New Zealand had there been a dual government. The idea of the British setting up a dual government arrangement is a modern day nonsense, simply made up by activists to suit their fraudulent deceitful purposes.
As I have said, it is a fact that Maori ended up selling 92% of New Zealand. The reality is, Maori today in 2024 can only be chiefs over the land they now own, and only the land they own, which is 8% of New Zealand. This 9 Twisting the Treaty. Tross Publishing, p48.
rule, if you like, applies to all New Zealanders. It is only on the quarter acre section that we own that we can be a chief, the king of our castle AND we can only be chiefs within the boundaries of New Zealand law i.e. we have to obey central and local government rules, laws, and regulations.
Author and Treaty commentator Mike Butler (left) writes:
“During the 19th century, most land in New Zealand was sold by its Maori owners to the government. Maori sovereignty radicals say it was “stolen” but, apart from 1.6 million acres that were confiscated after the 1860s conflicts, and the land that remains in Maori customary title, nearly 66 million acres (the entire land area of New Zealand) was actually sold. Claims about land sales before 1840, about sales between 1840 and 1865, and sales through the Native Land Court, amount to claims for more money for those old sales.”
For references, Click HERE and HERE
And what about so called ‘land confiscations’?
Sir Apirana Ngata (right) writes:
“Some have said that these confiscations were wrong and that they contravened the articles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Government placed in the hands of the Queen of England, the sovereignty and the authority to make laws. Some sections of the Maori people violated that authority. War arose from this and blood was spilled. The law came into operation and land was taken in payment. It was their own chiefs who ceded that right to the Queen. The confiscations cannot therefore be objected to in the light of the Treaty” 10
Sue, I need to point out to you that you are using the wrong version of the Treaty too.
Te Tiriti, the Treaty in Maori, makes no mention of forests and fisheries.11 Why? There was no need. First, Maori had absolutely no concept of ‘fisheries’ as we would understand ‘fisheries’ today (i.e. from mean high tide to 12 nautical miles out) belonging to anyone. All they were concerned about, and what the British promised they could retain, was their local fishing and shell fish gathering spots which particular tribes were using on their particular patch of the coast.
The following is an eye witness account of ‘Maori fisheries’ pre 1840. “These people [Maori] are very industrious in attending to their fisheries, which are here numerous and well supplied [i.e. abundant fish]; the coves in particular have a great abundance, and the right of fishing in certain places is recognized among them, and the limits marked out by stakes driven into the water. We observed several rows of these stakes belonging to the different tribes, each having respectively their prescribed boundaries, beyond which they durst not venture to
10 Sir Apirana Ngata. The Treaty Of Waitangi. An Explanation. pp 15-16
11 The Treaty of Waitangi Act cites what it calls “the English Version of the Treaty”. What is cited in the Act is, in fact, not the final English draft of the Treaty at all. It differs wildly from the Treaty in Maori. Why? This is because it’s a rogue James Freeman English version of the Treaty. The authentic final English draft of the Treaty, written by Busby, in his handwriting, and which matches the Treaty in Maori perfectly, has come to be widely known as the Littlewood draft. It was given this name by a government official after the document was found in 1989 in house in Pukekohe. The house was owned by a family whose surname was Littlewood. In 1840, Busby’s final English draft of the treaty was given to a lawyer whose surname was also Littewood. Miraculously, this draft was handed down through generations of the Littlewood family, finally being discovered in the Littlewood home in 1989. Suppressed by activists in government, it sits in archives New Zealand today.
trespass, without incurring the resentment of all the others, who would instantly punish them for their violation of the general compact.” 12
Conclusion? Maori were only fishing on the beaches. They had absolutely no idea about what they are claiming today. Which is? That pre-1840 Maori had fishing areas from mean high tide out to 12 nautical miles. Conclusion? All the fisheries need to be given back to all New Zealanders. We’ve been shafted.
So what about forests? Whatever forests were on the land owned by a particular tribe as at February 6th, 1840, would remain in their possession. Why are forests and fisheries not mentioned in the Littlewood draft, or Te Tiriti, the Treaty in Maori? Answer? Because what I have written above was taken for granted that ‘fisheries’ and ‘forests’, as I have just described, would be retained by the chiefs and their tribe. In other words, whatever fishing spots and forests were part of the land a tribe owned as at 6th of February 1840, these they would retain under the terms of the Treaty.”
Sue, you also mention the word Taonga. This word means “property acquired by the spear” not treasures, as Hugh Kawharu said. How do we know? You’ll remember that Article Two of the Treaty reads “The Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the chiefs and the tribes and to all the people of New Zealand, the possession of their lands, dwellings and all their property.”
The word for ‘property’ here in Maori is ‘taonga’
Historian Bruce Moon (right) says “The word has an interesting history. In 1820 while assisting Kendall and Lee of Cambridge in compiling the first Maori dictionary, Hongi Hika had defined it as “property procured by the spear – tao”. In an appeal for protection by 13 Ngapuhi chiefs to King William in 1831, they said “We are a people without possessions. We have nothing but timber, flax, pork and potatoes.” And their word for “possessions” was “taonga”. 13
I hope all this is helpful.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
For the past 45 years, activists, politicians, the media, and woke white liberal Maorification lovers / Treaty twisters have waved the tino rangatiratanga card like it’s a magic wand. Those who hear it are instantly spellbound.
Once you have tino rangatiratanga dust sprinkled over you, which is what the picture showing the witch on the right is about, you come under the control of the spell. You accept whatever explanation is given by the speaker as being perfectly true and right and unchallengeable. Why? Because you don’t have a clue what they are talking about.
Most often radical Maori have told us it means “self determination”. Which means what? They never have one consistent definition / explanation. But from what we understand, Maori want to separate off from the rest of society, set up their own Parliament, and do their own thing, like a country within a country. i.e. New Zealand would have
12 J.L Nicholas. Narrative of Voyage to New Zealand. Volume 1. Wilson and Horton. p.235
13 (1) Bruce Moon. NZ The Fair Colony. P5
two parallel governments - a Maori government, and a non-Maori government. They get this by saying that tino rangatiratanga means that Maori could carry on being chiefs in New Zealand forever i.e. rulers over New Zealand in the same way the chiefs ruled over their tribes prior to 1840. I know, it’s ridiculous, but this is what they think.
By the way, tax-payers, of course, will pay for a separate Maori parliament. Then Maori want non Maori to give them $20 billion annually to sustain the arrangement.14
To the British in 1840, setting up parallel governments / going into partnership with Maori would have been unthinkable. David Lange (right) agrees. He said:
“Did Queen Victoria for a moment think of forming a partnership with a number of signatures, a number of thumb prints and 500 people? Queen Victoria was not that sort of person. We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t coexist and we can’t have them both.”15
Winston Peters is of the same mind. He said “Does the Treaty mean Partnership? It is truly staggering that a claim of partnership for Māori is being made based on the Treaty of Waitangi, when Queen Victoria was not in partnership with anyone, in the UK, or the British Empire, on the day before the 6th of February 1840, or the day after.”16
Retired District Court Judge and Canterbury University law lecturer Anthony Willy (right) noted that “Maori and the Crown are not partners in any sense of the word. It is constitutionally impossible for the Crown to enter into partnership with any of its subjects.”17 Judge Willy has completed a brilliant study of how Maori activists and many MPs, including Luxon and his cabinet members, have come to believe, very wrongly, that the Treaty is a partnership. You can read his analysis HERE
Why did Lange, Willy, and Peters say what they said? Answer? Separatism is the antithesis of democracy, and democracy was the type of government installed by the British at Waitangi.
But it gets worse.
What radical Maori want is much more than 50/50 power sharing. They want complete control of the entire country by 2040. This, according to He Puapua, they will achieve through the power of veto. An don’t think that all work on He Puapua has been shelved in the coalition agreement. On paper, the shelving happened, but in reality, it’s progressing at speed under Potaka and Luxon. Watch THIS video.
Acclaimed author and researcher Dr John Robinson has written a book on He Puapua (left) . Below are two quotes from his book.
14 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/02/the-maori-partys-vision-of-self-determination-is-not-to-be-ignored
15 https://www.donbrash.com/after-politics/what-partnership/
16 Winston Peters speech, Warkworth Town Hall, August 21s, 2022
17 Winston Peters speech, Warkworth Town Hall, August 21s, 2022
“Many of the activists and iwi leaders intend a totally dual government system with separate Maori and nonMaori houses of parliament, and a Maori veto on all legislation.”
“A Maori veto on all legislation” means private tribal companies have the final say on everything that goes on in New Zealand, on what laws and legislation are passed and accepted in both houses of parliament.”
Dr Robinson goes on to say “The words [in the He Puapua report] insist that power, “full authority”, must go to Maori.”
You can order this book from www.stopcogovernance.kiwi or phone 021 029 85419
Most often radical Maori / retribalists say things like “through the Treaty we have tino rangatiratanga” without explaining what they mean. When you drill down, ask them what it means, they actually don’t know other than to say things like ‘:
• ‘self determination’ or
• ‘when our people can control our destiny’ or
• ‘when Maori are fully acknowledged by the government as equal partners in the government of the country’ and so on.
Click HERE and HERE to watch video of Maori leaders doing exactly what I am describing here.
Tino Rangatiratanga means none of the things that these ‘leaders’ say it means. Their ideas are sheer fantasy. They are sprinkling Tino Rangatiratanga dust on their audiences.
As I have said, the bald reality is that radical Maori want to take complete control of the country.
But they are doing it little by little, like the frog being boiled in the pot, so slowly and incrementally, that the frogs (that’s us) are being cooked (cooked means having our country taken over) without knowing it.
99.999% of people who hear “tino rangatiratanga” bandied around just accept what those who use it are saying about it as absolutely true. Even most Maori don’t know what it means. They just accept what radical Maori say it means.
Non Maori, including most politicians, and many Maori, when they hear a radical Maori pontificating about tino rangatiratanga think “Oh well, it’s a Maori word and they are a Maori leader, so they must know what they are talking about. What they are saying must be true. I’d better just go along with it.” We must stop doing this. Stop believing this nonsense. Don’t succumb to the spell put on you. What radical Maori are saying this phrase means is not what it really means. They are simply making up the meaning.
This is the main reason the activists have got so far in the last 45 years. The public, and MP’s, have deliberately been kept in ignorance so that they, the activists, can progress with their plans to take over New Zealand, unopposed. If you think takeover is a conspiracy theory, think again. Click HERE and HERE and HERE
So where to from here?
All you have to remember is the following and keep it fixed in your mind. It’s the truth of the meaning of these Maori words.
Tino Rangatiratanga is about two things.
“First, an acknowledgment by the British that at the start of colonisation, Maori chiefs ‘owned’ New Zealand, apart from what they had sold to settlers prior to 6th of February, 1840 - about 1/3 of all New Zealand.
In the years after 1840, research shows that they ended up willingly and knowingly selling 92% of their land to settlers. This land was not ‘stolen’.
Many Maori who did not have ‘evidence of breeding and greatness’ purchased land during this time.
Prior to the 6th of February 1840, this would not have been possible. Only a chief could own anything. Only someone with breeding and greatness.
Second, tino rangatiratanga was about equality.
The Treaty ensured that all Maori (not just chiefs) could own land, dwellings, and property. And when and if they did come to own / possess these things, protection of the same was guaranteed by the British. On their own land, they could be self determining, like any other British citizen.
Self-determination refers to a person’s ability to make choices and manage their own life. Being self-determined means that you feel in greater control, as opposed to being non-selfdetermined, which can leave you feeling that your life is controlled by others. The meaning of “Self determination” has been distorted by activists to mean Maori setting up a parallel government in New Zealand.
There is no justification for this in the Treaty.
It would be fair to say that the first paragraph of Article two of the Treaty was simply about recognising Maori ownership of the land.
The second paragraph was about the British being able to buy land from the chiefs, after which they would be able to sell it to settlers or use it for the development of the nation, or sell it to Maori who were not chiefs, those not possessing ‘breeding and greatness’.
Thus tino rangatiratanga gave private property rights to all the people in New Zealand, including all Maori who did not possess ‘evidence of breeding and greatness’. Tino rangatiratanga has absolutely nothing to do with Maori ‘self determination’ or ‘self government.’
The meaning of tino rangatiratanga put forward today by Maori activists and their fellow woke travellers is pure fantasy, a gross distortion of original word meanings, a gross distortion of what was in the minds of the British when they crafted the Treaty wording, and a gross distortion of what Maori chiefs understood when they signed the Treaty.
If someone asks you “What does tino Rangatiratanga mean?” say the following. The 1840 Maori dictionary says ‘rangatiratanga’ means “evidence of breeding and greatness” According to Maori custom, only a person of breeding and greatness could own property i.e. a chief.
By usinig the words ‘tino rangatiratanga’ in the Treaty, the British were conveying the idea to chiefs that from now on, all Maori, not just chiefs, would be viewed by British law as people who possessed ‘evidence of breeding and greatness’. As such, as a result of the Treaty, all Maori could own land, dwellings, and property.
i.e Via the Treaty, everyone in Maoridom would have equal property rights. The British were also conveying the idea to the chiefs that they could maintain their chiefly roles with their tribal structures, but only within the bounds of the new British law. It does not mean “unqualified exercise of chieftainship”, that Maori did not cede sovereignty, and that Maori have a mandate to be the perpetual government of New Zealand, to rule New Zealand, or set up a parallel government. To the British in 1840, these ideas would have been preposterous (utterly absurd or ridiculous). As such,they are pure fantasy, completely detached from truth and reality.
Please forward this document on to everyone on your address book. You can read it on line for free HERE Thanks
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I recommend everyone buy this book (left). It details how Maori have over and over broken the Treaty. This book balances the activist narrative today that it was only the British who broke the Treaty. I have no financial interest in Tross Publishing. This book can be found/purchased by visiting www.trosspublishing.com
