THE MAORI PEOPLE IN THE NINE- TEEN-SIXTIES: a symposium edited by Erik Schwimmer

Te Ao Hou, July 1969, Page 58

THE MAORI PEOPLE IN THE NINE- TEEN-SIXTIES: a symposium edited by Erik Schwimmer Blackwood and Janet Paul Ltd, $7.00. reviewed by Margaret Orbell The Maori People in the Nineteen-Sixties is a collection of essays by 15 contributors. The main emphasis is on the changes that have taken place in the period from 1940 to the present. The editor, Erik Schwimmer, writes that it was decided ‘not to study the Maori as though they formed a self-contained group, but to concentrate on the relationship between the Maori minority and the Pakeha majority’. He points out that since Maori and Pakeha to a significant extent form two distinct social groups, and since these groups are in frequent intensive contact with one another, what looks like a “Maori problem” is likely to be ‘essentially a strain or stress between the two groups, or resulting tension within groups and within individuals’. This is to say that a study of the Maori must also take into account the Pakeha, and the relationships existing between Maori and Pakeha. This is an important point that has not always been fully understood or explored in the past. It was an excellent idea to take it as the basis for a book of this kind. Scholars and writers were invited to choose an area of intercultural stress, and to analyse it. There is an impressive line-

up of experts, who write on a wide variety of subjects. For example, John Harre writes about Maori-Pakeha intermarriage. His study of mixed marriages taking place in Auckland gives us much interesting information about them. In the year in which he conducted his survey, 42 per cent of the Maoris who married in Auckland, married Pakehas. The evidence available suggests that Maori-Pakeha marriages are no more liable to breakdown than any others, and that those in-laws who at first opposed the marriage, nearly always lost their prejudiced attitudes once a close relationship was established. I. H. Kawharu, also writing about Auckland, discusses the relationship existing between tangata whenua and Maori immigrants coming to live in the city. He describes the complex situation in which each group finds itself, and points out that the relationship between the two groups, which is fundamentally a new one, is of much importance in the development of stable Maori organisation in urban areas. Despite their differences, the two groups have many interests in common. In particular, there are two needs that they both share. These are, firstly, benefits accruing from regional and national organisations; and secondly, a marae serving as the indispensable stage for social occasions. The growth of the Maori population and its movements to the cities are examined by J. R. McCreary, who notes that in assessing population growth, one problem concerns the widely varying legal definitions of a ‘Maori’. Some definitions include half-castes; some include any descendant of a Maori; and in at least one regulation, a European married to a Maori may be administratively regarded as a Maori. There are several theoretical contributions. Ralph Piddington discusses the processes by which pre-literate societies adjust to European culture, and the different senses in which the term ‘integration’ may be understood. A short article by the late Ernest Beaglehole covers somewhat similar ground, but comes to rather different conclusions. A long introductory essay by Erik Schwimmer discusses ‘The Aspirations of the Contemporary Maori’, and John Forster writes on ‘The Social Position of the Maori’.