The Cowboy Connection

Tu Tangata, Issue 27, 1 December 1985, Page 3

The Cowboy Connection

Professor Titonui Series

Nthe early 1840 s, the British noted with alarm that Hone Heke was going around the Bay of Islands with the United States flag flying from the prow of his canoe. They needn’t have worried (about the United States at any rate, though Hone Heke certainly gave them some anxious moments). The American connection in the north was short-lived.

But what of Tai Rawhiti? As we all know, the men from Ngati Porou who made up C Company of 28 (Maori) Battalion were known as “the Cowboys” during World War 11. Does this suggest some strong and significant link with America? I believe it does. After all, the further east one travels, the nearer one is to America, whose shores are also lapped by our ocean. And Ngati Porou lived further east than anyone.

Indeed, it is my belief that Ngati Porou held the key to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour in December 1941 and their subsequent expansion into the Pacific. Never mind theories of militarism run mad, of greedy imperialism or global strategy: the simple fact is that the Japanese wanted to annex Tai Rawhiti, and for one reason only they felt that by rights Hikurangi belonged to the Land of the Rising Sun.

American efforts to defeat the Japanese have always been gratefully acknowledged by Ngati Porou. Even today, a nuclear U.S. warship is unlikely to be refused permission to sail up the Waiapu River. President Reagan has only to ask, though with everything else on his mind he probably hasn't got around to it yet.

Which brings me back to cowboys, because the links of friendship between Ngati Porou and the people of America

are not merely political, and were forged long before the war in the Pacific or even the war in Tai Tokerau.

Imagine a territory of gently undulating grassland studded with graceful toetoe nodding in the breeze. Large flightless birds once roamed here, but today the landscape is dominated by cattle tended by hardworking horsemen renowned for their skill on the guitar.

The East Coast? Wrong. I’m talking about the pampas of South America. It is here, even more than on the prairies of North America, that one finds the spiritual mirror image of the East Coast Cowboy. Why this should be is something of mystery. The gauchos of the pampas are largely of Spanish, Portugese, Indian and African descent. The cowboy of Ngati Porou, so far as I know, are Maoris. Cows are not native to either region. So where did the connection spring from?

The answer lies in Gondwanaland. This great southern contintent, which broke up into smaller landmasses millions of years ago, was host to many flora and fauna now found in parts of the world separated by vast expanses of ocean. The New Zealand toetoe is a close relation of the South American pampas grass. New Zealand boasted the moa. South America has the rhea, otherwise known as the South American ostrich. Perhaps too Gondwanaland had humans, simple ranchers who rode the ranges of the southern landmass tending their herds of giant flightless birds. The tradition survived on the pampas of Argentina and Paraguay, though with the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores the local tangata whenua abandoned bird ranches and took up cattle instead.

Meanwhile in New Zealand the days are gone for ever when the early Maori yodelled softly to their moa herds, fattening them up before the big annual drive to Ruatoria.

But the instinct has survived. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” said Gary Copper in High Noon, and what a Ngati Porou’s gotta do is be a cowboy. It’s in his blood.

It continues to distress me that my approach to Maori history, taking as it does an untraditionally broad perspective, is so often criticised by the more narrow-minded readers of this magazine. I have been accused of making things up, or even of simply being silly. So in anticipation the usual hoots of derision or snarls of outrage which greet every edition of Tu Tangata to hit the news-stands these days, I want to emphasise that I am not alone in my theory of the Gondwanaland moaboys. The Secretary of Maori Affairs would appear to agree with me.

What other possible reason could he have had for visiting Paraguay, not a country normally noted for its close ethnic ties with us? The likeliest explanation for his recent trip is surely that he wanted, as a good Ngati Porou, to meet his gaucho relations. Perhaps he is planning a reunion rodeo or a hoedown hui, or maybe even a lavish new musical western movie called Gunfight at the Maori Chorale?

Doubtless we will soon find out. In the meantime, it is gratifying to know that the pressent Secretary is continuing a long and proud tradition, for it has been said in some quarters for many years that the Department of Maori Affairs is the biggest cowboy outfit since the Ponderosa. Adios amigos!