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In Book Takes, authors share three things that readers will gain from their books as well as give an insight into what they learned during the researching and writing. This week, historian Dr Paul Moon talks about the documents on which Aotearoa New Zealand was founded upon.
Paul Moon has been teaching history for more than three decades and has always been keen on finding ways of communicating the importance of the subject to others.
“History is part of the architecture of our identity, and the more we immerse ourselves in it, the more intricate and enriching that architecture becomes,” says Moon.
In Founding Documents of Aotearoa New Zealand, he decided on a different approach to sharing the country’s history: revealing the documents that went to make that history to let readers see for themselves how the country’s past evolved in the way that it did. Here are three things that readers will discover from the book, plus something Moon learned in writing it.
Pou Whenua
We instinctively think of documents as words impressed on paper, and for the most part, that’s what they are. However, Māori had different means of documenting things like boundaries, and restrictions on land use. Pou, or pou whenua, were upright posts used not only to declare territorial boundaries, but to denote the hapū's identity and mana. And even after the spread of maps and survey pegs from the 19th century, for many communities, pou continued to be used. In some cases, people believed in supernatural retribution for breaching the prohibitions that pou symbolised, and they remained a means of documenting the area of a territory, and of warning those who were prepared to breach the restrictions they imposed.
Normanby’s Instructions
Practically everyone in New Zealand has heard of the Treaty of Waitangi, but most people are probably unaware that six months earlier, the British Colonial Office produced a set of instructions that were designed to serve as a blueprint for the treaty.
These instructions were issued in the name of Lord Normanby, who was then Britain’s Secretary of State for Colonies, but they were drafted by Sir James Stephen, the head of the Colonial Office, who in 1833 drafted the legislation that abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.
Normanby’s instructions for a treaty with Māori were detailed and considered, but when it came to drafting the treaty’s text in the opening days of February 1840, William Hobson and James Busby proved inexpert at carrying out all the requirements that had been specified in this document.
The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852
This act, passed by the British parliament, came into effect in January 1853, and gave New Zealand its own parliament that comprised an elected House of Representatives (which we still have) plus an upper house that was known as the Legislative Council. The act limited voting rights to landowners, that’s effectively excluding Māori, who at this stage still tended to own land communally.
The New Zealand Parliament first met in 1854 and began passing legislation that year. The New Zealand Constitution Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation affecting the way the country is governed, and the system of parliamentary democracy forms the basis of our current system of government.
What I Learned
Working on this book was a great reminder of the power of documents. They may be static and mute, but they are able to sculpt opinions and provoke actions. However, documents are not history themselves. Rather, they are the raw materials that go towards assembling some meaning of the past. And despite initial impressions, their meaning is not always fixed. Instead, they are susceptible to shifts in interpretation and application, and so provide great scope for excavating meaning from the past.
Dr Paul Moon is Professor of History at Auckland University of Technology. His latest book, Founding Documents of Aotearoa New Zealand: 50 Moments that Formed the Country (White Cloud Books from Upstart Press) is out now.
