THE MAORI PEOPLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 526, 22 July 1949, Page 19

THE MAORI PEOPLE

THE MAORI PEOPLE AND US. by Norman Smith, the Maori Purposes Fund Board. A. H. and A. W. Reed. Wellington, 15/-. THE MAORI TOHUNGA. By Johannes C. Andersen, Thos. Avery and Sons Ltd., New Plymouth. THE ‘Maori People and Us is an honest and courageous book written with a strong sense of purpose, that purpose being to bring about a_ better understanding of the position and problems of the Maori people through fuller knowledge of Maori-pakeha relations during the past century, Norman Smith is an experienced official with a background of thirty years’ work in Maori (continued on next page)

BOOK REVIEWS (Cont' d)

(continued from previous page) e@dministration. He is mainly concerned with the history of land dealings in New Zealand and his chapters tracing the ways in which the great bulk of the land of this country passed into the hands of the white man are the most valuable part of his book. The author

secounts in detail and with a_ keen sense of justice the events leading up to the Maori wars, and deals particularly with the policy of confiscation adopted after the wars and with. its consequences for Maori-pakeha relations. This is followed by a history of the activities of the Native Land Courts and an account of the series of settlements made in recent years with groups of tribes to

put right in some measure the admitted injustices of the past. The land devel‘opment schemes initiated in 1929 and aiming at providing for the economic life of the Maori people are also described. The historical sections of The’ Ne aes

Maori People and Us have clearly involved much careful research and no one reading them can continue to be complacent-as many New Zealanders tend to be-about the way in which the pakeha has treated the Maori people, Norman Smith’s chapters on ancient Maori society, Maori characteristics,

chieftainship and the Maori future are somewhat impressionistic, and here other approaches seem necessary. He does not really come to grips, for example, with the present problem of finding vocations for the rapidly increasing number of Maori young people who cannot find a life on the land. Mr. Smith thinks it unnecessary and undesirable to attempt to convert Maoris

into Europeans, "I believe, " he writes, "that the future of the Maori lies, not in complete surrender of his culture to that of the pakeha, but in an adaptation of such of the best elements of each as will yield a happy harmony of

both." This statement will bring a responsive echo from the minds of the great majority of the Maori people, but it is doubtful if ‘such a neat formula really meets what is a very secu situation. Johannes Andersen’s new book will be of special interest to students of what is termed the psychic. From eaftlier authors — Percy Smith, Gudgeon, Downes, Maning, Logan Campbell and others-Mr. Andersen has brought together material relating to the Maori tohunga, and particularly to such abnormal states and powers as telepathy, possession, hypnotism, _fire-walking and ventriloquism associated with Maori priestcraft. Mr. Andersen’s point of view may be indicated by one quotation: "To those who have heard the stories of the wondrous powers of the tohungas of old, told with all the circumstantiality/ /of name and place, there comes a questioning doubt as ‘% whether, after all, there is not something in them that lies beyond our ken-whether this old race had not preserved a knowledge of forces that we have yet to acquire." On this point it may be suggested that the wealth of compatfative material contained in present-day manuals of abnormal psychology and social anthropology and some fairly satisfactory ,hypotheses regarding at any rate some of these facts now make possible a less mystical point

of view. Mr. Andersen’s book contains many asides on other aspects of Maori life and history, and it is the only book in which the reviewer has seen the name of this country spelt as one word,

Newzealand.

I.L.

G.S.