We feature each week Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.
“ENTANGLEMENTS
OF EMPIRE – Missionaries, Maori, and the Question of the Body” by Tony
Ballantyne (Auckland University Press, $NZ39:99)
In this
outstanding and very readable book,
Entanglements of Empire, Professor Tony Ballantyne, who currently chairs
the University of Otago’s History Department, is on the side of nuance.
Covering the period from 1814 to the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, he rejects the
terms “encounters” or “meetings” as a way of imaging Maori-Pakeha
relationships, and opts instead for “entanglements”. In the pre-Treaty period,
indigenous people and the newcomers related to one another in many different
ways, and their respective cultures were modified each by the other. Being
dynamic, they were enmeshed and entangled in each other, in compromises and in
selective adoption of each other’s norms. And the most pervasive way in which
this cultural entanglement occurred was in conceptions of the human body
itself.
This leads
naturally to another important concept, which informs this book. Ballantyne
does not subscribe to either a unitary or an idyllic view of pre-Pakeha Maori
existence. As he says: “It has been
commonplace to contrast the complex laws and strong regulation of sexuality
that shaped missionary mentalities with the supposedly more ‘natural’ place of
sex within the Maori world, but it should be clear that Maori understandings of
the body were just as highly enculturated as those of their missionary
counterparts. We must recognize that the Maori body does not belong only to the
realm of culture, but is amenable to historical analysis as well. Maori ways of
organizing the body were not rigidly constrained by an unchanging culture, but
rather were adaptable and dynamic.” (p.13)
Further, he is
determined to treat the entangled cultures even-handedly: “I have attempted to treat both evangelical missionaries and Maori
equitably, imagining both of these collectives as complex agglomerations of individuals
and interest groups whose actions and worldviews were conditioned by both
culture and history.” (p.15)
Thus much for
the theoretical underpinnings of Entanglements
of Empire.
In construction,
Entanglements of Empire divides into
six long chapters, each considering one aspect of the Maori-missionary
interface. The issues are respectively
* Missionary
conceptions of Maori life prior to their settlement here
* How the Maori
sense of space and its ordering was in tension with the missionaries’ sense of
space and its ordering
* The mingling
of Maori and missionary concepts of time and its construction in relation to
labour
* Sexuality and
sexual codes
* Maori and
missionary concepts of death and the rightful disposition of the dead
* The changing
of missionary attitudes towards Maori, which were part of the prelude to formal
British colonisation.
In his opening
chapter, as he outlines pre-settlement Pakeha conceptions of New Zealand,
Ballantyne emphasises that European exploration of the Pacific at first gave
priority to finding new resources, then (especially after the voyages of Cook)
added the desire to “civilise” by means of implanting (in New Zealand and
elsewhere) European crops and introducing European animals. Even before
missionaries were part of the story, then, the urge to “civilise” (establish
European norms) was strong.
As the first
leader of a Protestant mission to New Zealand, sponsored by the Church
Missionary Society (CMS), Samuel Marsden formulated his plans to woo Maori with
skills and technology (“civilisation”) before evangelising them. But, says
Ballantyne, Marsden developed this view through his contact with Te Pahi,
Ruatara and Hongi Hika, who were desirous of such technology. And “it was the mana – the authority and charisma
– of these high-ranking leaders that made the mission possible: the
establishment of the mission was entirely dependent on Maori patronage,
material support, and protection.” (p.57). This dependence, which lasted
for most of the period before 1830, meant that missionaries were in no position
to “impose” their norms upon Maori. Materially, they were very much in the
subordinate position. To make any impact upon Maori at all, they had to
accustom themselves to, or at least put up with, Maori norms. The matter of trade
also meant much mutual conference and compromise. In Ballantyne’s
interpretation, this meant a long period in which missionaries and Maori
exchanged and adapted, piecemeal, their received ideas about the body.
For
all that, even in the earliest period of missionary activity, when the
missionaries’ watchword was still “Civilise, then evangelise”, there was
already the assumption that Maori would eventually be absorbed into an imperial
system. Says Ballantyne: “While Marsden
was a vocal opponent of some of the consequences of imperial activity –
especially the mistreatment of indigenous crewmen on European ships and British
sailors’ sexual exploitation of indigenous women in the Pacific – he considered
the empire to be a potent vehicle for the dissemination of Christianity and
Christian missionaries to be agents for the extension of commerce around the
globe.” (p.64)
In this early
period, the dominant issue of “cross-cultural engagement” was (Chapter Two) how
space was used. Ballantyne
begins his consideration of this by quoting from Charles Darwin’s approving
comments, in his 1835 visit, on how missionaries had, as if by an “enchanter’s wand”, transformed the
physical conditions of Maori life. On the contrary, says Ballantyne, such
changes as had been made were achieved only after a long period in which
missionaries had to accept Maori direction on where and how they lived. “Mission stations were never simply planted by
the missionaries at locations they deemed desirable; the fundamental contours
of the CMS mission to New Zealand was dictated by the mission’s deep
implication in kin-group politics and rivalries.” (p.77) Mission stations
were set up only at places approved by rangatira, so that the very first
station, at Hohi, was hemmed in by infertile land. This was the deliberate
strategy of Hongi Hika and others, to ensure that the missionaries remained
dependent on Maori goodwill and trade to ensure their supply of food. It was
only later – and then at the pleasure of rangatira – that missionaries were able
to set up stations at Waitangi and Kerikeri where there was more arable
land.
More important,
in this matter of the disposition of space, was the way dwellings were
designed, missionaries at first having to accustom themselves to more communal
(rather than private) living space. Tapu ruled Maori handling of food and contrasted
with how missionaries’ kitchens and dining rooms functioned. This could
contribute to tensions with those Maori girls who were given domestic duties in
missionary houses. Whether or not the sexes should be segregated when
missionaries instructed them was another issue. So was the degree to which land
could be fenced in. And how one behaved in space – with reference to what was
tapu and what was noa – was often at odds with missionaries’ conceptions of
decorous behaviour. In this connection, Ballantyne notes how many phrases in Thomas
Kendall’s 1820 Grammar and Vocabulary of
the Language of New Zealand are concerned with the right disposition of the
body – avoidance of farting in company, spitting and so forth.
Turning to the
matter of how the first missionaries, in their attempts to “civilise” Maori,
wished to inculcate industriousness and an efficient use of time (Chapter 3), Ballantyne
remarks “this chapter can be read as a
contribution to a long-running debate over the connection between Protestant
missionary activity and the globalisation of capitalism” (p.100). Pace Judith Binney and others, he
refutes the view that missionaries imposed their ordering of time upon Maori,
again noting that they were perforce living in an “indigenous socioeconomic context”. Those “mechanicals” who were the
first missionary settlers (non-ordained laymen) usually found that they had to
do their own labour rather than relying on Maori labourers to whom they could,
as they had planned, teach trades. Furthermore, in the Maori disposition of
labour, slavery flourished in the early missionary period, in part because some
tribes took increased numbers of slaves to trade for European goods with those
tribes in proximity to missionaries. By the 1830s, some missionaries, such as
Richard Davis, were frustrated at the failure of Maori to adopt European
economic patterns. There was a widespread Pakeha misconception of Maori “laziness”.
But as Ballantyne notes, the reality was that Maori labour tended to be
task-specific rather than ruled by the clock, and attuned to the rhythm of the
seasons. There was, however, one area in which Maori had, by the mid-1820s,
conceded to a missionary ordering of time. This was in the widespread acceptance
of the Sabbath – Sunday – as a day of rest and worship. In a masterly analysis
of attitudes to the Sabbath (pp.132 ff.), Ballantyne discusses how missionaries
combined their notions of Sunday observance with Maori respect for tapu. There
was also the circumstance that by the mid-1820s, missionaries had achieved a
slightly more independent status in their more fertile stations (such as
Paihia) and were themselves more in a position to preach the importance of the
tapu day.
When he comes to
the matters of sex and sexuality
(Chapter 4, called “Containing Transgression”), Ballantyne excels in not
submitting to stereotyped views of missionaries as repressing their sexual
urges. He notes that “despite Marsden’s
stress on the primacy of the Christian conjugal family, sexual restraint, and
social discipline, from the outset the CMS mission was plagued by recurrent
conflict and sexual relationships that contravened the boundaries of marriage.
Mission families and their associated workers struggled hard, but routinely
failed, to achieve the goal of making the mission stations models of Christian
happiness and order.” (p.138)
Inevitably,
then, we have the stories of missionaries who failed to live up to their
Christian – and especially evangelical – sexual ideals. Thomas Kendall
fathering a child out of wedlock and Kendall’s wife bearing a child by the
convict labourer Richard Stockwell. The drunken Wesleyan missionary William
White who may have been guilty of rape. [William Colenso’s fall from grace is
outside the timeframe of this book]. It is perhaps equally inevitable that the
case upon which Ballantyne dwells longest is the most problematic, that of “the
unfortunate” William Yate. Ballantyne spends over twenty pages on his case,
because it involves so many conflicting issues.
He
notes early in his analysis “I do not
attempt to frame Yate as a kind of cultural ancestor in the way in which some
New Zealand writers have been drawn to Yate as a figure who chafed against sexual
repression and racial boundaries. Rather, I place him at the centre of a series
of overlapping debates about the ways in which missionaries should modulate
intimacy, the consequences of certain types of sexual acts, and how such
transgressions could best be managed.” (p.140)
This appears to
be a polite way of saying that it is anachronistic to see Yate – as he has been
seen in some recent works of historical fiction – as a proto-gay martyr.
Ballantyne notes “As teacher, preacher,
spiritual guide, and ‘father’, Yate believed in his own ability to lead Maori
out of heathenism, to transform their beliefs and practices. However, Yate
exploited this position of authority to initiate a series of sexual connections
that seem to have involved duplicity and coercion.” (p.140)
Boldly
contradicting Judith Binney (p.154), Ballantyne says that there is solid and
reliable evidence that Yate coerced and bribed Maori youths to have sex with
him, and the accusations against him were not fabrications. At the same time,
it is clear that what most irked the other missionaries was Yate’s boastful and
egotistical tone in a published memoir he wrote of the mission; and their
accusations would not have been made had he not been so publicly intimate with
a male Pakeha friend as he returned from England to Australia. And yet Yate
never got the public hearing about his transgressions which he so desired.
Clearly the CMS was in damage-control mode, wanting to be rid of Yate but not
wanting the case to garner too much publicity.
If I have any
criticism of this chapter, it is that it seems to stray a little from the theme
of comparing/contrasting/showing the interrelation of Maori and missionary
attitudes. It tells us of the missionaries’ constant anxiety of sexual
misconduct corrupting their mission and hindering their spiritual outreach by
setting a bad example to Maori. But it does not give us a clear and
complementary exposition of Maori sexual norms. Or am I underrating the way
Ballantyne quotes from Maori witnesses against Yate, showing how they too were
perturbed and shocked by his behaviour?
The chapter on
attitudes to death and the
disposition of the body (Chapter 5) has no such flaw. Ballantyne contrasts
clearly the interacting worldviews. While the evangelical attitude to the approach
of death was that it was a time for making peace with God (and accepting Jesus
fully), this does not mean – in spite of the views of some superseded authors –
that evangelicals did not express grief when the people they loved died.
Missionaries did have to learn not to violate tapu sites when it came to
burial. They also suffered for some years the inconvenience of not having
consecrated burial grounds. They tended to bury their dead next to each mission
station – in effect, in the grounds of their homes. Missionaries had great
difficulty in accessing traditional Maori religious beliefs about the
afterlife, as such esoteric knowledge was tapu and tended to be reserved for
tohunga. At first, this meant missionaries assumed Maori had no structured
religious beliefs. Only gradually did CMS personnel come to understand the role
of rank and mana in Maori funerary and interment rites, the reburial of the
bones of rangatira and others of rank, and the mourning rituals (counterpointed
by the routine killing and disposal of slaves). Haehae, the ritual
self-wounding and cutting of mourners in their grief, and suicide in mourning
were common.
Ballantyne does
not edit out the less attractive features of Maori customs.
There was an
implicit conflict between Christian notions of heaven (and hell) and the Maori
image of the departure of spirits from Cape Reinga. For a while, some
Christianised Maori were able to hold the two concepts together in their belief
system. By the time the Reverend William Puckey made a journey to Cape Reinga
in the 1830s, however, younger Christianised Maori were indignantly rejecting
their ancestors’ tradition. Says Ballantyne “These incidents are potent reminders that although the presence of
missionaries precipitated cultural change, Maori were primary agents in the
actual spread of Christianity, and that the growing authority of the Bible was
dependent on the willingness of converts to openly challenge tikanga (rules,
protocols) and ritenga (custom).” (p.206)
In his final
chapter, “Bodies and the Entanglements of Empire”, Ballantyne argues that by
the 1830s, missionaries were increasingly representing Maori as an enfeebled
race, threatened by lawless (or diseased) Pakeha visitors – notably sailors
involved in buying sex - and hence in greater need of formal “protection” by
the British government. This was the tone of innumerable pamphlets produced by
missionaries for British consumption. It was credible in the age of the
notorious Elizabeth affair (in 1830),
in which the unscrupulous Captain Stewart transported Te Rauparaha and Te Hiko
down to Banks Peninsula to carry out their slaughter of Ngai Tahu. The
missionaries’ appeal coincided with the age of humanitarianism and abolitionism
in England and found a ready audience. In presenting Maori as the helpless
victims of European inhumanity, missionaries were in effect stripping Maori of “agency”
and denying twenty years of Maori-Pakeha interdependence, with the missionaries
mainly in the subordinate role. Be that as it may, missionary representations
were instrumental in leading first to the appointment of James Busby as British
“resident”, then to the Treaty of Waitangi. So, says Ballantyne “the formal colonization of New Zealand was
ultimately sanctioned by a treaty that framed the alienation of sovereignty as
an act of protection, designed to defend the interests of an enfeebled people.”
(p.249)
As you will have
noted, my procedure in this review has largely been simply to summarise what
the author has to say. I do this because I believe he breaks new ground in
putting so many cultural interactions together in one coherent argument. At
various points, Tony Ballantyne has the confidence to challenge the
interpretations of Keith Sinclair, Judith Binney, James Belich, Ranginui Walker
and others who have commented on matters near to this book’s central concerns.
This is never done in a blunt or dismissive way. Usually Ballantyne is asking
for more nuance in interpretations that threaten to become dogma. This reminds
us of one central fact about the writing of history. It is always an
interrogation of, and negotiation with, both primary and secondary sources. Its
conclusions are always provisional. Given that, this is a profound and close
reading of an essential period of cultural interaction in our history.
Bibliographical footnote: Some of the
concepts in Entanglements of Empire overlap with those of other books that
have been discussed on this blog and that can be looked up on the index at
right. For a specific case of a settler Pakeha dependent on Maori goodwill to
function in New Zealand, look up Jennifer
Ashton’s At the Margin of Empire.
For the physical conditions in which early missionaries worked, look up Angela Middleton’s Peiwhairangi: Bay of Islands
Missions and Maori 1814 to 1845. More distantly related to the above,
but still concerned to re-evaluate Maori-Pakeha relations in colonial times and
to be even-handed about it, look up Peter
Wells’ idiosyncratic The Hungry Heart and Journey
to a Hanging. I also add that I recently had the pleasure of reviewing,
for Landfall Review on Line, Vincent O’Malley’s stimulating
collection of essays Beyond the Imperial Frontier, which has
much to say about colonial Pakeha and Maori cultural interaction.