Caroline Ralston

D espite the number of Maori women who are playing leading roles in
the contemporary Maori movement, certain Maori leaders, and Maori
and Pakeha scholars, insist that Maori women did not in precontact
times, and today do not and should not speak on marae (the open-air fore-
court of a meeting house, on which formal welcomes and speeches are
made at many major Maori meetings). Their position is supported in
much of the academic literature. The effect of this prohibition is com-
pounded by the contemporary belief of many Maori that women have an
inimical influence in relation to matters of tapu significance and that for
this reason they should be barred from all activities and places still consid-
ered by the Maori to be tapu today, for example, churches, graveyards,
and marae forecourts.

Early contact evidence concerning women and gender relations suggests
that the claims of many present-day leaders and scholars have little basis
in past history. How does one discuss the contradiction and present the
early evidence without implying that Maori tradition as represented today
is false? A people's representation of tradition evolves over time with some
aspects emphasized and modified in new contexts, while others decline in
importance, even slip into oblivion. (There is a burgeoning debate about
the nature of tradition. See for example: Linnekin 1983, 1990 , 1992; Hobsbawm
and Ranger 1983; Handler and Linnekin 1984; Babadzan 1988;

Keesing 1989; Jolly 1992; Thomas 1992.) To judge a people's tradition as
false or spurious presupposes a pristine body of tradition at some point in
the past and the belief that such tradition can and should, if it is to be
deemed legitimate, have moved unchanged into the present. Such objec-
tivist hypotheses I find untenable. In this article I use a constructivist defi-
nition of tradition as "a conscious model of past lifeways" ( Linnekin 1983 ,
241; Linnekin 1992).

Evidence concerning women and gender relations for the precontact
and early contact period can be gleaned from foreign accounts and Maori
mythology. Questions of representation of course persist. The early for-
eign accounts by explorers, missionaries, beachcombers, traders, and set-
tlers do not reflect Maori reality directly, but are male Pakeha representa-
tions of Maori women's lives and motivations that I have selected and
further interpreted. Acknowledging these problems, I will identify the for-
eign commentators on whom I rely, the interests that brought them to
New Zealand, the districts they visited, and the length of time they spent
there. Both their reliability as informants and my interpretation of their
information are open to question and reevaluation. Similarly the mytho-
logical evidence, collected over the nineteenth century predominantly by
Pakeha men, and which I can assess only through translation, is open to
different interpretations. For all these reasons I present this piece as a per-
sonal interpretation, not an authoritative account. My interpretation is
provisional: other interpretations are possible.

As well as these common problems of representation and authority and
the familiar problems of Eurocentric and androcentric bias ( Ralston
1988), the extant literature presents further difficulties. A large proportion
of the material focuses on the Bay of Islands area, where the first mission-
aries settled in 1815 and early traders and whalers congregated in the
1820s. This regional bias privileges information about the Ngapuhi tribe
who lived in the area, while leaving a paucity of evidence about other
tribal groups. It is also crucial to recognize that the impact of new agricul-
tural pursuits and new military and agricultural hardware on men's and
women's lives in this area was significant from early in the contact period.
When the missionaries ventured into tribal areas farther south in the
1830s, they met with Maori people eager to learn more about Pakeha skills
and beliefs, and the missionary literature faithfully recorded the numbers
of new pupils in their schools and new church attenders. Little or no space
was given to describing the daily lives and practices of the people around

them, in contrast to the period in the Bay of Islands area, where the mis-
sionaries had had long years of waiting for the Maori to appreciate their
skills and knowledge, and during which time some of them commented
quite extensively on the daily activities of the local Maori.

Before turning to the early contact period, I shall explore the nature of
the present-day contradiction a little further. Some exceptions to the pro-
hibition on women from speaking on marae are widely accepted. Among
the East Coast tribes of Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu, and the Whanau-
a-Apanui, female chiefs have enjoyed high status, and some of them have
exercised substantial political power and the right to speak on their
respective tribal marae ( Mahuika 1981). More recently some scholars have
presented evidence to suggest that chiefly women, from a much wider
range of tribes than previously admitted, in earlier times exercised politi-
cal rights and power that were much greater than is allowed for today
( Webster 1975; Salmond 1988; Metge 1990). Similarly, theories of women's
polluting qualities and the need to bar them from certain activities of tapu
significance have been questioned by scholars arguing that rather than
being inimical to tapu and abhorred by the gods, they were closely asso-
ciated with the supernatural world and at particular times were imbued
with supernatural potency ( Hanson 1982; Hanson and Hanson 1983; Binney
and Chaplin 1986 , 24-28). Further, it has been argued that the word
noa has been mistranslated as profane or polluting in opposition to tapu's
sacred quality. Rather, noa should be translated as free (as in a sky free of
clouds) or clear (as in clear of restriction) ( Hanson 1982; Thomas 1987;
Ralston 1987, 1988).

These scholarly reconsiderations have had little impact on public opin-
ion generally, and Maori women taking leading political or religious roles
are still in some circumstances subject to arguments questioning the legiti-
macy of their involvement on the grounds that it is not traditional. Signifi-
cant numbers of Maori women have been active on a national level since
the early 1950s, with the establishment of the Maori Women's Welfare
League, which sought improved conditions for Maori people in a wide
range of areas. Since the 1970s women have been involved in and have led
Waitangi Day protests and the Land March; they have promoted Maori
language education and usage and diverse cultural programs; and they
have been active in educational, health, housing, employment, and prison
reforms. Some Maori women claim they have been at the forefront of the
Maori movement ( Szaszy, quoted in McTagget 1984), and both openly

and tacitly some Maori men have agreed ( Reedy, quoted in McTagget
1984). Without highlighting the point, one male Maori academic listed
five major Maori political actions between 1970 and 1978, three of which
were led by women. Reviewing the period 1970 to 1985, the same aca-
demic discussed seven leading Maori activists, five of whom were women
( Walker 1987 , 13).

The type of criticism and questioning Maori women performing such
roles can face, is exemplified in the following incident. In June 1990,
Bishop Vercoe, the Maori bishop of Aotearoa, refused to attend the ordi-
nation of the first white female Anglican bishop, which occurred in Dune-
din, claiming that Maoridom was not ready culturally to accept a woman
as bishop. He was reported as saying that women did not in most tribes
speak on marae, and most Maori did not accept women priests and would
not allow women to speak in church ( Canberra Times, 29 June 1990).
Such public reiteration of these ideological positions I believe undermines
those Maori women who are capable and willing and in many cases
already exercising leadership roles.

It is not possible here to analyze current marae practice (see Salmond
1975; Tauroa and Tauroa 1986), but it is important to acknowledge wom-
en's presence there, the crucial role they play in calling guests onto the
marae and farewelling them, and the means they have to criticize -- and in
certain instances regulate -- what male orators say. To me it appears that
older Maori women are content with what they see as the complementary
nature of male and female responsibilities in marae ceremonial, and I have
wondered if the concern about women's rights to speak on marae is just a
Western feminist problem, a misunderstanding and mistranslation of a
non-Western cultural activity? But some younger Maori women do seek
speaking rights, while others avoid marae contexts where they know male
speaking rights are insisted on. I am more concerned with the way the
denial of rights to speak on the marae is extrapolated to a denial or ques-
tioning of women's rights to any leadership role in significant contempo-
rary political, religious, and social affairs.

Obviously it is not possible to establish a complete or unequivocal picture
of Maori women's lives or the pattern of gender relations from the evi

dence available. Nothing comes directly from the women themselves. But
it is clear that the early foreign commentators found Maori women inde-
pendent, strong-minded, and leading politically, socially, and religiously
active lives. Some examples from the literature establish this point. In
1814-1815Samuel Marsden, founder of the first mission in the Bay of
Islands, his traveling companion John L. Nicholas, and the first mission-
aries to settle in the area wrote of Rahu, senior wife of Ruatara, chief of
the place called Rangihoua and a leading supporter of the missionary
enterprise. Rahu was not chronologically Ruatara's first wife ( Ballara
1990 , 375-376). The widow of another chief, she came to him in about
1812, when he already had one wife, but because of her own personal
chiefly status she was recognized as senior. Nicholas claimed she "was
considered no less a personage than a queen by all the people within his
[Ruatara's] territory" (1817, 1:177). Marsden gave Rahu an English dress,
a present to her from his wife. At first she apparently wore it with plea-
sure, but in time she refused to be seen in it. Nicholas personally thought
the dress became her ill, being too tight, and he believed she had been ridi-
culed by her own women about it (1817, 1:178, 319). Ruatara was dis-
pleased and thought that Rahu should at least wear the dress to church
services, but she refused.

When the missionaries went ashore to negotiate the transfer of the mis-
sion party to Rangihoua with all its goods, Ruatara was absent supervis-
ing his many distant cultivations. Rahu received the missionaries and their
wives cordially, discussed business, and offered them hospitality. Like
many chiefly women met by itinerant missionaries in later years, Rahu
had the right and responsibility to exercise mana marae 'the hospitality of
the group' ( Firth 1959 , 124) on behalf of her husband and his people
(Nicholas 1817, 1:192). Nicholas admired her weaving skills, at which she
was very adept, but he was disconcerted that a woman of her status was
involved in such an activity. On many occasions throughout Polynesia,
Europeans voiced surprise, even shock, that Polynesian chiefs, both men
and women, worked with their people in almost all major activities. Euro-
pean notions of rank and appropriate aristocratic behavior fitted ill with
Polynesians' positive valuation of productive labor and their expectation
that chiefs would be expert proponents of all significant skills, particularly
carving, weaving, and house and canoe building.

Even more disconcerting to the Europeans was Rahu's participation in
mock battles and haka 'vigorous posture dancing'.

A number of women were in the heat of the action, amongst whom was Tippa-
hee's old wife, not much less than seventy years of age and Duaterra's
[Ruatara's] wife [ Rahu ] bearing in her hand a patoo about seven feet long,
made out of the jawbone of a whale. This weapon she brandished about in the
very centre of the battle, and went through all the various movements of the
men, whether in retreating or advancing. ( Elder 1932 , 92)

Rahu's involvement on this and other occasions was by no means unusual.
Right up to the 1840s foreigners were amazed to see women dancing haka
and active in mock and sometimes real battles ( Roux in Ollivier 1985 , 197;
Nicholas 1817, 1:199-200, 362, 364; 2:20-21; Clarke 1825 , 443; Polack
1838, 1:1-82, 143; Polack 1840, 1:87; 2:4, 18; Saint John 1873 , 26; Dieffen-
bach 1843, 2:125-126). On a long-distance canoe trip Rahu carefully
placed her baby on the floor of the vessel and took up a paddle, which
she used as dexterously and energetically as the men during the three-
hour journey (Nicholas 1817, 1:321). Ruatara, who had been seriously
ill when Marsden and Nicholas sailed for Sydney, died in March 1815,
and Rahu subsequently hanged herself ( Kendall, in Elder 1934 , 76), as
was customary for chiefly wives and some chiefly husbands on the
death of their spouses ( King, in Elder 1934 , 254; D'Urville, in Sharp
1971 , 34).

Within the whole range of data available, there seems to be no reason
to assume that Rahu was in any way an exceptional chiefly woman. Her
independence, the range of activities in which she was involved, her physi-
cal prowess, and her acknowledged status were not unique. Although it
has not been recorded that Rahu supervised slaves working in gardens or
worked there herself, there is evidence that for many chiefly women this
was an accepted duty. A number of male chiefs explained to Marsden and
Nicholas that they each required several wives to supervise slave labor in
their respective gardens and to work there themselves to produce the
required crops for daily subsistence and for sale to foreigners ( Elder 1932 ,
113, 209; Nicholas 1817, 1:293).

Further fragmentary items from a range of times and places support the
hypothesis that Maori women in the early contact period led active, par-
ticipatory lives in the affairs of their kin. As in any society, Maori women
were and are not a homogeneous group, and it is therefore important to
recognize that chiefly women came to the notice of foreign observers and
figure in myths more frequently than commoner women. However, the
extant evidence does not suggest that commoner women were seen in their
physical being as categorically different from their chiefly counterparts, or

more submissive or exploited. Although chiefly men and women engaged
in all but the most menial of tasks, the commoners, men and women, and
the slaves, carried the brunt of the arduous physical labor.

Savage, who was in the Bay of Islands area briefly in 1805, emphasized
what he saw as the equal division of labor between Maori men and
women:

When speaking of the dexterity of the fishermen, I should have mentioned that
of the fisherwomen also; for the women here are as expert at all the useful arts
as the men, sharing equally the fatigue and the danger with them upon all
occasions excepting war; in which though they undergo considerable fatigue,
they do not participate in the danger. ( Savage 1807 , 59)

Presumably Savage was writing of the useful arts of subsistence, because
many accounts from the early contact period clearly indicate a strict,
although not absolute, sexual division of labor in such areas as wood
carving, canoe and house building, weaving, and crafts.

In 1819 while on a second visit to the Bay of Islands, Samuel Marsden
collected some information from two male Maori chiefs, Hongi and Te
Morenga, about customs of warfare. They claimed that in the early
phases of a battle if a chief's body fell into enemy hands, the enemy called
out for his wife. If she were given up or gave herself up to the enemy, she
was also killed. Both bodies were then placed before the enemy chiefs.
The priest then commanded the chiefs to dress the body of the man for
him, for his god. "The priestess, who is also an areekee [ ariki ] then gives
the command to the wives of the chief to dress the woman for her god."
The cooked bodies were eaten only by these chiefs or priests, who pro-
claimed whether the battle should proceed ( Elder 1932 , 173-174). The
fragment is tantalizing. It suggests that male and female tohunga 'priests',
who were also chiefs, played parallel roles in the worship of their respec-
tive male and female gods and participated jointly in major rites of public
military and religious significance. Later in the nineteenth century there is
evidence of women healers and revivalist leaders, and women prophets
leading their kin groups into war ( Porter 1974 , 582; Colenso 1850 , 663-
665; Binney, Bassett, and Olssen 1990 , 152; Best 1924, 1:240-242). The
persistent appearance of women mediums, healers, and religious leaders
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, despite the widespread
acceptance of Christianity, suggests that these were roles in precontact
times that women were accustomed and expected to play.

During the same 1819 visit, Marsden walked across the peninsula from

the Bay of Islands to the Hokianga Harbour. On his return he was accom-
panied by more than fifty Maori who carried heavy loads of potatoes of
one hundred pounds or more to exchange for axes and hoes available at
the mission settlement in Rangihoua. Marsden had run out of these highly
desired trade items during his journey, but undaunted the Maori under-
took the round-trip of 100 to 140 miles to acquire them. A chief's wife was
among the party, and she carried a load similar to all the rest ( Elder
1932 , 200).

Lesson, a Frenchman in the Bay of Islands area briefly in 1824, captured
what I interpret as the tensions and contestations that had developed by
that time between chiefly men and women in political and military affairs:

Although in the eyes of these warlike islanders, women are only creatures of an
inferior order, provided for the conservation of the species, they are neverthe-
less consulted in any serious situation, and the wife of an ariki, like a druidess
of ancient times, shares her husband's priestly power. ( Lesson, in Sharp
1971 , 100)

By 1824 warfare had escalated dramatically with the introduction of Euro-
pean weaponry throughout the northern parts of the North Island of New
Zealand. Given this greater emphasis on war, I would argue that an earlier
complementarity between male and female chiefs well established in peri-
ods of longer term peace was being undermined by a predominantly mas-
culine battle ethos and ethic. In nonmilitary matters women chiefs were
still consulted and still could wield some influence, but perhaps to warrior
chiefs their usefulness and roles were or should ideally be only biological.

On a more personal, commoner level, William Yate, a missionary with
experience in the Bay of Islands and the Waikato during the 1820 s and
early 1830s, was perturbed by what he regarded as the unacceptable ways
of Maori women as wives. Writing of a recent convert, he said that even
before her conversion "she was still far from exhibiting those independent
and lawless feelings which wives generally manifest towards their hus-
bands in this savage land" ( Yate 1835 , 297). The mission agenda of domes-
ticating Maori women into model, middle-class, Victorian wives and
mothers underlies Yate's critique. It is clear from such statements that to
male European eyes commoner women, like chiefly women, were not
docile or submissive helpmates supporting husbands or male chiefly
power without negotiating and questioning what was expected of them.
Many foreign males reported, with varying degrees of surprise, the key

role both commoner and chiefly fathers played in the care of their young
offspring, whom they carried on their backs wrapped in their cloaks in
special harnesses for long periods each day ( Cruise 1824 , 276; Earle 1966 ,
1186; Polack 1838 , 1:374; Porter 1974 , 65; Angas 1847 , 1:33).

At Turanga near the East Cape in 1840, Jane Williams, a missionary
wife and competent Maori speaker, overheard a group of chiefly women
protesting the payment being offered in exchange for a piece of land that
her husband, William Williams, was buying. "[O]ne of the ladies argue[d]
very stoutly that a part of the payment ought to consist of gowns as they
[the women] could not of course wear the trowsers & shirts." These
chiefly women apparently were convinced they, as well as their menfolk,
had rights in the land that had to be compensated. The final payment
included 40 shirts, 40 pairs of trousers, and 4 gowns ( Porter 1974 , 82, 90).
Probably it was all the gowns William Williams had available.

A final example illustrates both the position Maori women enjoyed in
society and some of the changes that had occurred in their lives since con-
tact with the West. Dieffenbach, an employee of the New Zealand Com-
pany, who had traveled extensively throughout the North Island of New
Zealand and in the Cook Strait area of both North and South Islands
between 1839 and 1841, considered that Maori women were treated with
great consideration and kindness and enjoyed the full exercise of their free
will, possessing what he saw as a remarkable influence in all the affairs of
a tribe. However, he claimed they were burdened with all the heavy work
in cultivating the crops, carrying wood and provisions from distant plan-
tations, and bearing heavy loads during traveling excursions ( Dieffenbach
1843 , 2:11-12).

In precontact times fern root had been the staple food in most areas
throughout the North Island. Men had been responsible for the heavy
work of digging up the root, while women carried it back to the villages to
prepare it ( Polack 1838 , 2:397; Firth 1959 , 207). With the introduction of
the easily cultivated and prolific European potato, women became the
major cultivators of the new staple food, and fern root disappeared from
Maori diets. At the same time the weeding of gardens, which was usually
women's work and had been a relatively light task in precontact times,
became very much more arduous and time-consuming with the advent of
a number of noxious foreign weeds ( Best 1976 , 211). By the 1840s Maori
women's agricultural work loads had clearly increased dramatically com-
pared to precontact times.

The mythological evidence is more diffuse and intractable for a scholar
unskilled in Maori language, and in the space available here it is not possi-
ble to do it full justice. In brief, images of strong women (wahine toa)
abound as goddesses of fire, Mahuika, and supernatural powers, Muri-
ranga-whenua ( Kahukiwa and Grace 1984). Women could harness vol-
canic energy ( Te Awekotuku 1991 , 75), and in the great voyaging myths
women brought the kumara with them or returned to Hawaiiki to collect
it ( Buck 1982 , 61-62; Dieffenbach 1843 , 2:47). After arrival in New
Zealand, one of the great fleet canoes went adrift, but was paddled to
safety by a woman ( Karetu 1978 , 71). Huritini and Hinemoa were and are
renowned as fearless lovers who risked their lives to be with their men ( Te Awekotuku
1991 , 76-77), while the great women chiefs Tukutuku and
Puhihuia are still remembered for their outstanding generosity and cour-
tesy ( Grey 1869 , 333-364; White 1889 , 4:154ff). There are both negative
and positive portrayals of Hine-nui-te-po, who was the goddess of the
underworld and also of conception and birth, but all portrayals acknowl-
edge her power. Women in the myths and legends are not stereotyped neg-
atively but rather appear as potent, independent actors.

Nowhere in the material available to me from mythological sources or
early contact times did women appear constrained in their participation in
many of the major activities of their kin groups. The missionary traveler
Nicholas ( 1817 , 2:109-111) and the trader Polack ( 1838 , 1:231), who jour-
neyed extensively in the northern North Island in the 1830s, revealed that
chiefly women in Northland spoke on marae, and while in other areas
there is no evidence to confirm or deny whether chiefly women had such
rights, it is clear that women were widely consulted on matters of public
significance and were present at major community activities, even wars.
Unlike the Marquesas or Hawai'i, where early foreign observers were crit-
ical of the degrading (as they understood it) restrictions on women, who
could not eat with men, travel in canoes, or attend most religious observ-
ances, in New Zealand no comment was made about prohibitions or
restraints on Maori women, nor reference to beliefs of their profane or
polluting nature. One observer, Crozet, in the Bay of Islands area very
briefly in the 1770s, said that women did not eat with men ( Roth 1891 , 65),
but many other accounts specifically mentioned that men and women ate
together. Perhaps Crozet witnessed a temporary prohibition due to a par-
ticular circumstance or misunderstood information given to him?

Contrary to my initial expectation, I found that Maori women at the

time of early contact appeared to enjoy acknowledged status and power as
chiefs, autonomy in much of their economic lives, and standing in their
communities, a position in keeping with that of women in the rest of
Polynesia. As this became clear to me I began systematically to re-read the
anthropological accounts of the Maori to establish when and how the
more negative images of Maori women, which have been appealed to at
times over the past two decades as traditional lore, had evolved. The pro-
cess was complex and did not reach its culmination until the 1970s. Start-
ing with Best ( 1924 ) and running through to Heuer ( 1972 ), an increasingly
negative view of Maori women was built up, as later authors cited earlier
ones and the cogency of the argument appeared to be more and more thor-
oughly substantiated ( Ralston 1991). Anthropologists were not alone
responsible for the negative views of Maori women that have had wide
currency throughout New Zealand in the second half of the twentieth cen-
tury. Many factors were involved, not least the deprived material circum-
stances of the majority of Maori women during this period. Objective and
subjective realities meshed with anthropological fashions, and the out-
come for Maori women has been a persistent questioning of their right to
leadership roles and an underlying fear that their participation in ritually
significant ceremonies may endanger the general well-being of the group.

If one accepts that the largely Pakeha-derived evidence of women's early
contact roles and responsibilities presents an approximately accurate pic-
ture, how can the prohibitions and questioning of contemporary women's
involvement in a range of public activities, on the grounds of their being
nontraditional, be viewed? As I have argued, to accuse the critics of Maori
women's present-day commitments of being wrong or ignorant of tradi-
tion reifies the notion of tradition and suggests that one subscribes to the
hypothesis that legitimate tradition is that body of beliefs and practices
which has moved from precontact times to the present unchanged and
uncontaminated. Several historians and social scientists (see for example
Shils 1981), Western courts of law, and probably the majority of any West-
ern population cling to such commonsense notions of tradition. More
recently, however, the concept of tradition has been closely scrutinized by
scholars and redefined as "a selective representation of the past, fashioned
in the present, responsive to contemporary priorities and agendas, and

politically instrumental" ( Linnekin 1992 , 251). Such an immediate, contin-
gent definition is more flexible and elusive than concrete notions of
unchanged objectified tradition, which have long been acknowledged as
appropriate and legitimate bases for claims of prior possession and owner-
ship rights.

For Fourth World peoples such as the Maori, it is vital that they present
a unique historical and cultural identity on which to base demands against
an intrusive, hegemonic, foreign culture and government. But to construct
a claim on the notion that that unique identity derives from a precontact
past and has remained unchanged over the intervening two hundred years
flies in the face of the evidence. In comparing data from early contact
times with present-day formulations of tradition, questions of authenticity
are unproductive. Rather than judge certain contemporary practices or
beliefs false or spurious vis-à-vis a reconstruction of Maori life in early
contact times, it is more appropriate to investigate the evolution of Maori
culture and the gradual articulation of Maori tradition over the two-hun-
dred-year contact period.

I have space to offer only a limited example of the sort of investigation
that could be mounted. In circumstances involving negotiations with the
Pakeha world, Maori people, and most particularly male Maori leaders
have, since the 1920s, called on the concept of Maoritanga to generalize
about Maori culture and explain it to outsiders. The history of the usage
of the word maoritanga is illuminating. Its original definition, and one of
the definitions still given today is "explanation or meaning" ( Williams
1985). With a capital M, Maoritanga was coined by the Maori MP Sir
James Carroll in 1920 when he urged Maori "to hold onto their Maori-
tanga." He did not elaborate further what he meant by Maoritanga, but
Sir Apirana Ngata, another Maori MP and later to be the first Maori
Native Minister, took up the term and defined it as

an emphasis on...such Maori characteristics and such features of Maori
culture as present day circumstances will permit, the inculcation of pride in
Maori history and traditions, the retention so far as possible of old-time cere-
monial, the continuous attempt to interpret the Maori point of view to the
pakeha in power. ( Ngata 1940 , 176-177)

From a 1990s perspective this appears to be a very conservative formu-
lation of Maoritanga, but for its time it was radical from some points of
view. Certainly today Maoritanga is used in much more assertive ways,

when the term is used. But many Maori recognize that Maoritanga is of
recent fabrication. It does not have the same depth of meaning or common
usage as Fa'a Samoa 'the Samoan way' or Faka Tonga 'the Tongan way',
terms that were current in their respective island groups before Western
penetration. John Rangihau suggested only half jokingly that there was no
such thing as Maoritanga, only Arawatanga,Tainuitanga, and so on
based on the cultural practices of individual iwi 'tribes' (1981, 174). More
recently Rose Pere has reiterated his argument ( 1987 , 57-58). In precontact
times, the concept Maori, as the indigenous people of Aotearoa, had no
currency, and still today affiliation with hapu 'subtribal group' and iwi
takes precedence.

Whether a call is made to Maoritanga or to a more specific and immedi-
ately experienced "iwitanga" (I have coined this word), it is important to
recognize that these terms have been created and defined predominantly
by men, based on their own experience and historical consciousness, and
presumably to benefit their own agendas. I have found no evidence to date
that women were a party to their formulation or were even consulted.
Given the gendered nature of lived experience and history, whatever
comes to be regarded as traditional will resonate with and affect men and
women very differently. Many modern-day formulations of Maoritanga
or "iwitanga" appear to me to discriminate against women and to seri-
ously limit the roles and responsibilities they can legitimately take up.

Although the usage of terms such as Maoritanga,Arawatanga, or
Tainuitanga can be historically and culturally contextualized, other key
Maori practices can be similarly examined. Hui 'meeting' and marae
culture have been elaborated and have gained increasing significance
throughout the twentieth century. In the 1920s and 1930s Ngata initiated a
conscious and deliberate reform and rejuvenation of rural marae com-
plexes. Elaborate meetinghouses with their attendant dining halls and
cookhouses were built ( Butterworth 1972 , 170, 176), and since the 1950s
urban marae have also been developed ( Salmond 1975 , 82-90). Inevitably
new tools, new materials, and different structures have been used in these
twentieth-century counterparts of buildings that were also found in pre-
contact times. Iron roofs have replaced thatch, and the critical shortage of
fresh water in many rural areas led Maori groups to collect rainwater
from these new roofs in tanks to supply the marae complex, despite the
concern that such water may have passed above chiefly heads, which were
considered highly tapu ( Salmond 1975 , 55). On urban marae, tapu con

cerns over cooking and sanitation, which led to several separate buildings
on earlier marae, have been overcome, and multifunctional halls have
been built ( Salmond 1975 , 35, 83).

More recent has been a growing recognition that greater numbers of
young people need to be tempted to participate in hui. Where before there
was little for the young to do except serve, watch, and learn, today sport-
ing competitions and dances are frequently held in conjunction with major
hui ( Salmond 1975 , 55, 92, 192, 198, 206-207). In some Tuhoe meeting-
houses smoking is permitted, although formerly such houses were so tapu
"even garments had to be removed if they had been in the presence of
food" ( Karetu 1978 , 77). On many levels, adaptation and innovation of
cultural norms for hui gatherings and marae ceremonial have occurred,
but when women ask to speak, denial on the grounds of tradition is nearly
always automatic. One surprising exception occurred in 1981 when the
renowned Maori activist Eva Rickard stood as a candidate for the Mana
Motuhake party for the seat of Western Maori in the national elections.
While campaigning Rickard had avoided marae settings wherever possible
because of their male-dominated protocols, but on Tauranganui marae an
old man asked her to speak for herself, rather than have a man present her
position. As Rickard said "That's the first time I knew of any woman who
has talked on a Kingitangi marae" ( Broadsheet, July-August 1982 , 26).
Clearly Maori men are not united in their stance on whether Maori
women should or should not speak on marae. Some are prepared to con-
template change.

A more frequent male response, however, is exemplified by the Tuhoe
traditionalist Sam Karetu ( 1978 , 71) who explained the prohibition on
women speaking as a necessary protection of the bearers of the next gener-
ation from insults, curses, or ridicule, the spoken word being accorded
great potency in Maori culture. He went further to explain that "Women
should never occupy the 'tara iti' and 'tara nui' positions, the corners of
the [meeting] house immediately to the left and right of the door inside, as
these are the places reserved for the main speakers of both sides." Men sit
in relative comfort with their backs to the wall in Tuhoe meetinghouses. If
there is room, women may do the same, but if not, they sit at the men's
feet. "Similarly in a Tuhoe house, women may not hang any of their gar-
ments from the walls, but males may. Chauvinism? Not really, rather pro-
tection for any male who might inadvertently demean himself by lying

beneath the female aura -- the head being the most tapu part of the anat-
omy" ( Karetu 1978 , 74-75, my emphasis).

Ngahuia Te Awekotuku of Te Arawa descent has questioned what she
sees as the profound and oppressive misogyny of Karetu's position but she
has recognized that among Te Arawa, a tribe that has most consistently
and vehemently insisted that only men should speak on marae, women
must also struggle to assert their rights to participation and respect (1991,
74). During the summer of 1977 a leading Te Arawa woman chief died,
and her body lay inside a major meetinghouse. Guests arriving for her
tangi experienced long waits in blazing heat. The women of the local
Ngati Whakaue (a hapu within the Te Arawa iwi) suggested that the body
should be moved onto the meetinghouse verandah adjacent to the marae,
which would have opened up a larger ritual space. The men refused to
consider such a move. Despite her high rank and the discomfort of the
waiting guests, the body could not be allowed to lie on the verandah
because, they argued, she was a woman. The incredulous women mut-
tered greatly and voiced their discontent, but the men's decision held ( Te Awekotuku
1991 , 101-102).

On a second occasion the women succeeded in establishing their right
to be present. Motutawa, a small historic island in Lake Rotokakahi, near
Rotorua, had been used by Te Arawa people as a burial ground for several
generations. For some time women had been forbidden to set foot on the
island, because of their feared polluting qualities. The female relatives of a
recently deceased person refused to accept the ruling and waited on the
shore. "They argued that no calamity would occur, because women had
frequented the island, even lived there at one time, and the current restric-
tion was so recent it was suspect" ( Te Awekotuku 1991 , 102). Among the
Te Arawa, the men's determination to monopolize certain spaces and
activities does not go unchallenged by the women of the group. I wonder
whether the Te Arawa men's insistence on their women's political and rit-
ual subordination arises in part from insecurity because of the women's
highly successful domination of the tour guide industry at Rotorua during
much of the twentieth century?

Pressure on women not to speak on marae has occurred even among the
Ngati Porou, one of the tribes renowned for its powerful and active female
chiefs who have enjoyed speaking rights within their own tribal area.
Anne Salmond reported that at an important Waikato funeral held several

years before the publication of her book in 1975 a young Ngati Porou
chiefly woman had risen to speak during the visitors' speeches. The
Waikato elders were outraged, as were most of the Ngati Porou male
elders. They were preparing to leave when one male Ngati Porou elder
rose and justified the woman's right to speak, tracing her descent, which
at every point was superior to her male Waikato counterparts. She was
allowed to speak, but the Ngati Porou elders were still loudly critical of
her after the welcome was completed ( Salmond 1975 , 151). Only one Ngati
Porou male was prepared to support his kinswoman; the rest seemed more
concerned to honor other male kawa 'protocols'. The right of Ngati Porou
women to speak on marae, either in their own tribal area or elsewhere,
appears to be under threat. If one sees tradition as an objective entity that
remains unchanged over extended periods, it would appear that a Ngati
Porou tradition allowing women to speak on marae is perilously close to
extinction. In the rubric of a cultural construction of tradition, it would
appear that among the Ngati Porou, women's right to speak is being con-
tested and renegotiated by Ngati Porou men to accord with their own
present-day political ambitions.

I have offered a view of the independent, politically active, and participa-
tory nature of women's lives in the early contact period, not in the vain
belief that it constitutes a complete or tribally specific representation, nor
that Maori women could today claim such as their legitimate right.
Rather, I believe the data might provide an affirmation of what certain
women in the past have done, as well as possible role models and counter
instances to the negative portrayal of Maori women in much current
anthropological literature. The data clearly reveal the impact of European
intrusion on Maori women's lives in the early contact period, particularly
their increased work loads, the developing masculine emphasis and ethos
in the exercise of chiefly power with increased warfare, and the general
devaluing of women's inputs into community life. During the colonial
period since 1840 women's lives and expectations have been massively
constrained and eroded, until in the second half of the twentieth century
the negative portrayal of Maori women by anthropologists and others had
a solid basis in contemporary reality.

In keeping with the changes in people's lives, key Maori concepts have

also changed. I have examined the evolution of the word Maoritanga, and
hui and marae practice not to judge claims about tradition as spurious so
much as to emphasize the changes that have occurred in key Maori beliefs
and activities throughout the twentieth century. A recognition of these
changes might allow the admission of changes that support women.

In the more immediate precontact period and throughout the two cen-
turies of contact, the extent to which male dominance was expressed in
ideology and practice varied regionally. Further, the tensions between a
strongly established male-female complementarity, which allowed women
much freedom and authority, and a militaristic masculine ideology of
more far-reaching domination, worked out differently in different genera-
tions, depending on historical circumstances and the personal strengths of
the individuals involved (I acknowledge my debt for the framework of this
argument to Salmond 1988 , 11). Put more simply, relations of power
between the sexes have been contested arenas in the past and continue to
be so today. To call on a concept of unchanging Maori or iwi tradition to
keep women from speaking on marae and from more general leadership
roles throughout society, or to prohibit their presence from places of tapu
significance because of their believed inimical qualities vis-à-vis tapu, is to
reify a notion of unchanging tradition that has not been imposed on other
parts of Maori culture.

I WOULD LIKE to acknowledge very helpful discussions and comments on this
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The central problem investigated here is the conflict between the predominant
role that Maori women are playing in the contemporary Maori movement and
the statements made by certain Maori and Pakeha scholars and Maori leaders
that Maori women did not play leading roles in precontact times and should not
today. The effect of these statements is compounded by the widespread Maori
belief that women have an inimical influence in relation to matters of sacred sig-
nificance. The meanings and usage of the term tradition are explored, and a brief
view of typical attitudes confronted by Maori women activists today is presented.
The significant, participatory activities of Maori women in community life in the
early contact period are established using Pakeha evidence and, more briefly,
mythological evidence is given to reveal similar roles for women in earlier peri-
ods. The impact on women's lives of precontact ideas about women's potent spir-
itual powers is also explored. Focus then turns to the changes that have occurred
over the past one hundred fifty years in certain aspects of Maori life, in particular
Maori definitions of Maoriness, the structures of Maori meetinghouses, and the
protocols of various Maori gatherings. These changes have enhanced, not under-
mined, the legitimacy of the matters reviewed. In conclusion it is suggested that
the flexibility and legitimacy accorded certain key features of Maori life in the
years since contact could be extended to the roles that many contemporary Maori
women have assumed.