The Second Great Migration
The Second Great Migration
Urban Māori by Bradford Haami
If the first great Māori migration was the settlement of New Zealand, the second was their move to the cities. Before World War II, 90% of Māori lived in rural communities (papakāinga). By 1966, 62% lived in urban centres. By 1970, it was 80%.
Such a large movement in such a short time dislocated Māori from the traditional homes and vehicles of their culture: marae, hapū, whānau. Many lost their culture. Others adapted it to the new environment, or found its expression in new churches, charity groups, and urban Māori authorities (UMAs).
Urban Māori chronicles the move to the city and those new institutions that became of it. Part history, part ethnography, part journalism, each chapter focuses on a different aspect of the migration: trade training schemes, housing and hostels, marae, tribal identity. Between the chapters are interviews with some of those who made the journey, reflecting on what brought them to the city, what kept them there, and what drew them “back home”.
Before urbanisation, Māori lived in close-knit communities based on kinship. They relied on seasonal work, such as picking fruit, labouring on farms, clearing bush, and digging for kauri gum, and grew most of their own food. This rural economy was based on subsistence, and was largely unlinked to the main industries of urban New Zealand.
While Māori had been alienated from huge amounts of their land, in 1919 there were still 755,280 hectares under direct Māori ownership (33). Āpirana Ngata made a vigorous push to develop this land and make it productive, with mixed success: raising capital was hard, with money typically coming from state funds. Many of the resulting dairy units were too small to be economically viable. As modern healthcare and sanitation made their way into Māori communities, the population grew, and then the Great Depression wiped out most of the seasonal jobs; both of these things put new pressures on papakāinga.
During World War II, many Māori mobilised out of the countryside to fight in the Māori Battalion. They established a foothold in the city, where they stayed in hostels run by religious charities or other Māori. Some stayed in the city after the war. Some of their relatives followed them into the city, seeking opportunities that didn’t exist in the countryside. As the young left, rural homesteads became even less feasible, and the trickle turned into a torrent.
The city was like another world. Life was governed by strange new relationships and social forces. Māori had to navigate new tenant/landlord relations. They had to adjust to the idea of working daily for a disposable income in a cash economy, rather than working to grow food for the community. They had to live in small houses as a nuclear family, which was encouraged by the policy of “pepper-potting” Māori between Pākehā (to prevent the formation of ghettos). As well as cultural differences, Māori had low education and literacy, and struggled with language barriers and racism.
Ngāmaru Raerino, who worked as a welfare officer in the 1970s, gives a stark account of some of those who suddenly found themselves in the city, with absolutely no clue what they were doing:
As a welfare officer we were to help people from depressed areas of rural living in dilapidated housing to live in the towns and to maintain their houses. Papakāinga living people didn’t know how to live in close proximity to other people. A lot of them came from houses that had no electricity or running water - they drew water from streams and wells… People lit fires in stove to cook or were breaking wood from floors and walls for fires. (135).
New hostels, charities, and social services were established to accommodate the influx of Māori. Some were run by government, some by churches, others were Māori-led charities. Others were simply family networks between city and country. The Department of Māori Affairs expanded its social housing programmes and encouraged migration with a new urban relocation scheme in 1960.
The government’s official policy was integration. This was articulated most clearly in the 1961 Hunn report, which envisioned Māori and Pākehā merging into a single, Pākehā-orientated culture, albeit with Māori retaining some distinct characteristics. Benefits favoured those who upheld Pākehā standards of living, which included living as a nuclear family and keeping a well-maintained property.
New trade-training programmes in carpentry, painting, building, and mechanics were established for Māori. They were funded by the government until 1981, when 77 of them were abolished, which effectively ended the golden age of trades training (77). Members went as children to board in the city with local charities. As they slowly adjusted to city-life among people like themselves, they also picked up practical new skills that would serve them well in the urban economy.
There was an economic boom in the 1940s and a growing population which needed housing, which brought lots of job opportunities for Māori. Those who did not learn a trade typically worked in low-skill or semi-skilled occupations, such as in factories and freezing works, or in labouring and construction. These were relatively well-paying jobs, but you didn’t need a high level of education to do them. When the economy was restructured in the 70s and 80s, many of them went overseas.
New temptations, like gangs and alcohol, took hold of Māori, eased by the breakdown of community and living patterns. Gangs flourished in poorer suburbs, especially among those brought up in dysfunctional families, welfare homes, or borstal (youth detention centres). If you had a job, bonding with workmates meant drinking with them at the six o’clock swill; until 1967, bars in New Zealand could not stay open past 6 o’clock, so workers would finish up at 5, then rush over to drink as much as they could in an hour.
How could Māori hold on to who they were in the cities? Traditional conceptions of Māoritanga were based on notions of place and whakapapa (kinship). Individuals were firmly rooted in a community of shared descent, with the marae (meeting house) as the focal point of village life. But in the city, there were no marae. Transmission of the lore of the tribe, typically kept by elders and passed on to a select few, was disrupted.
Most Māori saw their time in the city as a temporary thing. They wanted to go, make some money, then head back home. Some did migrate back in their old age, but most ended up staying. Some saw the old ways as having little relevance to their new lives, and discouraged their children from learning te reo Māori. Others moved to the city precisely to escape the old world of prohibitions and curses which had formerly constrained their lives.
There were still links “back home”, kept alive by visits and big ceremonies like tangihanga (funerals). But a divide grew between “urban Māori” and “rural Māori”, one which was not always easy to navigate. Bradford Haami gives the example of tangi. Traditionally, people are buried back on tribal ground. Urban Māori, who either didn’t know this, or didn’t want it, would be surprised to find huge numbers of relatives turning up on their doorstep to mourn the dead (which lasts several days) and take them “back home”.
When there were no marae in the city, state houses, community centres, churches, and rugby clubs had to be used for tangihanga or hui. New “urban marae”, such as Te Unga Waka, built by the Māori Catholic Society, and Hoani Waititi Marae, built by several Māori voluntary associations, were built to fulfill this need. They weren’t just venues for funerals and meetings, but also community centres, kohanga reo (language schools), culture clubs, and surrogate families.
Some of the urban marae had religious orientations, but they were generally pan-tribal and open to all Māori, regardless of whakapapa. Māori/Pākehā became a more relevant distinction than what tribe you were. Some Māori saw the urban marae as their extended community, and not their tribe.
We come to the book’s overarching question: are the UMAs iwi? For Haami, who wrote this book on behalf of one such UMA, Te Whānau o Waipareira, the answer is yes.
There are many examples of pan-tribal Māori loyalties throughout history, loyalties not based on kinship. Religious movements include Pai Marire, Ringatū, the Rātana Church, and the Destiny Church. Political movements include the King movement (Kingitanga), the village of Parihaka led by Te Whiti and Tohu, the land leagues of the 1860s, the Kotahitanga (unity) movement of the 1890s. Gangs like the Mongrel Mob, while not exclusively Māori, have an obvious Māori cultural influence. And lastly, there is the 1970s activist movement, Ngā Tama Toa.
Kinship has not always been the sole organising factor of Māori life. The adaptation of old customs to new circumstances has been happening forever. When Māori arrived in New Zealand, they had to adjust the old stories and methods to fit the new landscape:
Previously unknown birds such as the huia, the moa and the tui entered into an evolving tribal cosmology. When Māui killed tunanui (great eel) in the Pacific traditions for seducing his sister Hina, the great eel’s head was buried in the earth and grew to produce the coconut tree. Because this tree and its nut did not survive in Aotearoa, the name and the narrative were adapted into the new Aotearoa environment: his head and other slippery body parts were thrown into the waters and produced a number of eel-like species found only in New Zealand. (252).
We tend to give iwi primacy in our thinking because that’s what the government recognises. This historical shift in recognition began with the 1975 Treaty of Waitangi Act, which established the Waitangi Tribunal to investigate treaty claims and grievances, and the 1985 amendment, which formally recognised the tribal groups that existed in 1840. Haami calls this period Iwitanga Hou (“retribalisation” or “new tribalisation”).
The crystallisation of iwi based on 1840 is, for some, too narrow. The full breadth of Māori institutions is wider, and groups like Te Whānau a Waipareira want a broader definition of iwi. It may seem like a philosophical argument, but it matters a great deal, given government action to redress breaches of the Treaty.
For example, in 1992, the crown helped Māori purchase 50% of Sealord Fisheries - the largest fishery in New Zealand - as well as 20% of the nation’s fishing quotas. This was distributed among iwi based on their rohe (territories) at the time of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. Te Whānau o Waipareira, not being a kinship-based tribe, were not beneficiaries of the claim.
There are really two arguments here:
Theoretically, we should consider UMAs as iwi for the purposes of Treaty claims
Pragmatically, iwi aren’t always the best positioned to provide resources and services to Māori, so we should consider UMAs for that purpose
Economist Brian Easton puts it like this:
While the Treaty settlements to the iwi may be a vital part of settling some long-standing grievances, they do little to enable the bulk of the Māori population to catch up with the national averages. This is especially true given that the corporates are much more rural-based than the majority of the Māori population. (242).
This seems to conflate the practical and the theoretical arguments, though. One can acknowledge the pragmatic case for helping Māori by running services through non-iwi groups, but the fisheries claim was based on the Treaty of Waitangi. Can UMAs be partners to that? The English version of Article Two of the Treaty of Waitangi says:
Her Majesty the Queen of England confirms and guarantees to the Chiefs and Tribes of New Zealand and to the respective families and individuals thereof the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess
The guarantee clearly applies to the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, and the families and individuals thereof i.e. within those tribes. The treaty is not between the crown and all Māori individuals, but between the tribes, which are based on kinship, and still exist. UMAs are not kinship based, and didn’t exist in 1840. They are not tribes, and so cannot be a Treaty partner.
The Māori version of the treaty is a bit broader:
Ko te Kuini o Ingarani ka wakarite ka wakaae ki nga Rangitira ki nga hapu – ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani te tino rangatiratanga o o ratou wenua o ratou kainga me o ratou taonga katoa.
My translation of this highlighted bit: “The Queen of England will agree to the chiefs of the tribes - to all the people of New Zealand…” There is a difference: “ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani” is “all the people of New Zealand”, not “the respective families and individuals thereof”.
Yet I still don’t think it’s reasonable to say this applies to anything other than chiefs and tribes. First of all, UMAs did not exist in 1840, and they did not supplant or succeed the tribes back then, which still exist now. For some Māori, a UMA may be more relevant than their iwi, but this doesn’t entitle an UMA to be a Treaty partner and receive compensation for land and fisheries any more than it entitles Māori TV or Destiny Church - or any other Māori-dominated group or institution - to receive compensation.
The hyphen in the Māori version is also very important. “All the people of New Zealand” (ki nga tangata katoa o Nu Tirani) is not on the same level as the chiefs and the tribes (ki nga Rangatira ki nga hapu), but follows after it. In other words, the guarantee is being made to the people of New Zealand through the chiefs and tribes, who are the leaders and corporate bodies of them, collectively. Rights of use and occupation were not vested in individuals or in the people, collectively, but in the kinship group, the tribe. It seems to be they who are guaranteed “tino rangatiratanga”.
If the treaty is to be a legal document, with equal standing in law, then its application must be grounded in careful legal understanding and reasoning. If we want to use the state to empower other Māori institutions than iwi, then we must make the case anew, not simply remould the Treaty by broadening the legal understanding of “iwi” so it includes anyone.
I suppose my view is the old school, bicultural vision of partnership. It does not say that only iwi are relevant to Māori. It only says that the partnership established in 1840 is between tribes and crown, and redress for breaches of that Treaty must therefore be settled with tribes.
Not everything needs to be traced back to the treaty, though. If an urban Māori authority is best positioned to provide certain social services, why shouldn’t the government work with them? This has nothing to do with the Treaty. It doesn’t even apply to only Māori. The wisdom of this claim lies simply in the acceptance that the government can’t always provide the best solution for a problem.
While the tribes still exist, most Māori live in cities, and some belong to other, non-tribal institutions. One fifth of Māori either don’t know their tribe or don’t affiliate with one. Of the other four-fifths, it’s probably fair to say that their tribe has little impact on day-to-day life. Of those who don’t affiliate with a kinship based tribe, how many affiliate or participate with an UMA? I’d be interested to see numbers, but I suspect not many.
There’s a gap between the individual and the government, between the tribes of 1840 and the institutions of today. Haami’s book does a good job of bridging that gap. I didn’t like every part of it, though. It has the rather painful habit - one that seems to come from journalism and sociology - where citations are splattered across the page without elaboration. To take a particularly bad example:
Today the modern version of [the trade’s training programme] is expressed at Rehua marae through the scheme He Toki ki te Rika: Inspiring Māori Leadership in Training, maintaining the legacy and success of the old days. According to Norm Dewes, modern-day trade-training schemes are modular - compartmentalised - whereas the original trade-training courses taught the boys how to build a complete house. (77)
The source for this is a personal interview. Who is Norm Dewes? What is his relation to He Toki ki te Rika? What does this difference in focus have to do with He Toki ki te Rika? Does that trade-training programme still stick to the idea of building a complete house? This particular passage really annoyed me; that training schemes have become more specialised due to different construction methods is a fascinating point, but I’m left with more questions than answers.
The index is not much help here. And good luck if you don’t already know the many Māori words in this book, for there is no glossary. A lot of the sources are also a bit lightweight, a lot of news articles and websites. When academic work is cited, it’s pretty well known and accepted stuff, like Jarrod Gilbert on gangs, and Ranginui Walker on urban marae.
The real value in this book is all of the personal stories and interviews that Haami has gathered’s easy to think of the past as unfolding according to rigid historical laws which we can understand without specific reference to actual living human beings. Haami recovers the sometimes very personal motives behind why Māori moved to the city. If you want the clearest picture of Māori urbanisation as a whole, this is the book for you.