New Zealand's oldest war memorial, the "Weeping Woman", which stands in Whanganui's Pakaitore / Moutoa Gardens is being refurbished and is to have a new interpretation panel. The inscription
New Zealand's oldest war memorial, the "Weeping Woman", which stands in Whanganui's Pakaitore / Moutoa Gardens is being refurbished and is to have a new interpretation panel. The inscription
The questioning of the language on a century-old monument in Moutoa Gardens is exciting some Pakeha in Whanganui.
Doubts have been cast on plans to add an "interpretation panel" on the "Weeping Woman", New Zealand's oldest war memorial, which is being refurbished.
Words like "fanaticism" and "barbarism" on the monument have caused discussion, with some Pakeha arguing they should stay as they are because the Maori referred to really were "fanatics" and they really were "barbaric".
Yet it wasn't Maori who put these words on the statue. Maori, of course, did not use such language.
So the words tell us more about Pakeha than they do about Maori -- and their continued support today as "still historically relevant" shows us how much the language of colonisation is still being accepted uncritically by Pakeha.
The monument in question is was erected by Whanganui pakeha on December 26, 1865. The statue commemorates 15 local Maori and one Pakeha who died at the earlier battle of Moutoa Island, fought on May 14, 1864.
How did this battle come about?
In early May 1864, threatening word was received in Whanganui of a war party approaching the township and intent on destruction.
The taua was from Taranaki and the upper Whanganui River and included adherents of Pai Marire, a faith founded in 1862 by a tohunga and former Anglican catechist, Te Ua Haumene.
Danny Keenan
Pai Marire is much misunderstood today. It combined elements of peaceful Maori and Christian spirituality, and Maori saw in Pai Marire a passive means to resist the increasingly violent encroachment of Pakeha.
But when some adherents spurned its peaceful ethos in response to the continuing violence visited on Maori by the British Army, the Hauhau militants emerged.
Led by a prophet named Matene Rangi Tauira, the war party was now approaching Whanganui.
Matene requested free passage to Whanganui, but this was refused by the rangatira of Ranana, especially Haimona Hiroti, Mete Kingi and others of Ngati Hau and Ngati Pamoana. These rangatira wished to preserve the mana of the river, as well as protect the town.
Matene was told that, if he wanted a fight, he should head for Moutoa Island where lower river Maori would be waiting. The next day, Matene's 120 warriors were engaged at Moutoa by Whanganui Maori numbering about 100, led by Tamehana Te Aewa and Haimona Hiroti.
After fighting that lasted about an hour, the Hauhau were forced to retreat, leaving 50 dead behind, including the prophet.
Whanganui Maori lost 17 men, including Kereti, Hemi Nape and Riwai Tawhito Rangi. The monument to the memory of these rangatira and others, plus those who had survived the fighting, was erected 18 months later in 1865. As he unveiled the statue, Wellington superintendent Isaac Featherston referred to the campaign soon to be launched by General Chute, attacking Maori villages around Mt Taranaki. We don't know today how many hundreds of Maori were killed in this three-month campaign, but Featherston said he hoped the Moutoa statue would inspire others in their aggressive pursuit of the "treacherous, plundering, murdering tribes" to the north.
Featherston's language was telling. Treacherous, murdering, fanaticism and barbarism were words used often against Maori in the 19th century, constituting a functional language much employed to describe and explain Maori responses to colonisation. The words appear in letters, diaries and private journals, as well as government documents. Census reports are a prime example. Official enumerators often called on Maori villages, recording population numbers as well as observing, and reporting on, village conditions.
The poor state of papakainga, with widespread evidence of poverty and sickness, gave rise to an official language with words like savage, barbaric, retrogressive, impertinent and indolent. Sicknesses, for example -- like impetigo, respiratory disease and tuberculosis were ascribed equally to degeneracy and deplorable living conditions.
The colonial semantics served as a thinly-disguised coding for an unfortunate degree of racism.
Such terms, words and language contributed little to the understanding and resolving of Maori-Pakeha shared histories of earlier centuries.
Their continued use and justification by Pakeha today serves little purpose in the modern era, except to demean Maori. Surely, we have moved on from such colonial semantics.
Danny Keenan lives in Whanganui and has a PhD in history. His research field is Maori and the state in the 19th century and he is writing a biography of Sir James Carroll.
