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A Snare and a Delusion (Or, Danger, Europeans at Work)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Henige
David Henige*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Extract

This minor revision in Polynesian scholarship, the undermining of the authenticity of the traditions as historical … is one of the most significant developments in New Zealand archaeology.

This [belief in a Great Fleet] arose out of the desire of European scholars to provide a coherent framework by which to interpret the prehistory of New Zealand.

As heavily as historians must rely on orally-derived data for their study of the African past, historians of Oceania are far more in thrall to such materials in attempting to reconstruct the history of the various Pacific island groups. Although archeology and historical linguistics can sometimes help to provide broad sequences and interrelationships as well as evidence concerning origins, neither can, of course, provide circumstantial local detail or close dating. Oral traditions, often supported by genealogies of sometimes extraordinary length and complexity, have been collected in all parts of the Pacific almost since the time of Cook, but the latter part of the nineteenth century was a period of particularly feverish activity. The result is a vast body of material, much of it still in manuscript form. Of this corpus far more relates to the Maori people of New Zealand than to the inhabitants of any other island group.

In the course of the first half of this century a homogenized orthodox view of New Zealand's more remote past developed -- an interpretation based on three pivotal events, each of which came to be dated calendrically by means of Maori genealogies. The first was the arrival of the “discoverer” of New Zealand, one Kupe, who was dated to ca. 950. Then, two centuries later, came Toi and his companions. Finally, so this version goes, the so-called Great Fleet, comprising about seven large canoes (the number varies slightly) arrived in about 1350, and New Zealand began to be well and truly peopled by Maori.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 5 , 1978 , pp. 43 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1978

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Footnotes

*

A review of David R. Simmons, The Great New Zealand Myth: A Study of the Discovery and Origin Traditions of the Maori (Wellington, New Zealand, 1976), pp. xii + 504.

References

1. Groube, L.M., “Research in New Zealand Prehistory since 1956” in Prehistoric Cultures in Polynesia, ed. Yawata, I. and Sinoto, H. (Honolulu, 1968), p. 143Google Scholar, referring to the early work of Simmons and that of Andrew Sharp and others noted below.

2. Simmons, , New Zealand Myth, p. 316Google Scholar, w/emphasis added.

3. For the arguments see, among others, Howard, A., “Polynesian Origins and Migrations” in Polynesian Culture History, ed. Highland, Genevieve (Honolulu, 1967), pp. 45–101Google Scholar; R.C. Green, “The Immediate Origins of the Polynesians” in ibid., pp. 215-40; Nooy-Palm, H., “The Peopling of Polynesia: Origin and Migrations of the Inhabitants of the Many Islands,” Asian Profile, 2(1974), pp. 91–133.Google Scholar More specific studies appear frequently in Oceania, Archaeology and Physical Anthropology of Oceania, Journal of Pacific History, and Journal of the Polynesian Society [henceforth JPS].

4. In speaking of widespread occurrence Simmons is referring to raw traditions and not the kinds of secondary and tertiary incarnations which he is criticizing throughout his work. Although Simmons is probably correct in correlating authenticity with evidence of early collection, it should be noted that even the earliest extant materials were collected after a period of culture contact and its inevitable consequences. For this problem see, for example, Owens, John, “Religious Disputation at Whangaroa, 1823-1827,” JPS 79(1970), pp. 288–304.Google Scholar Earlier Simmons published aspects of his research in “The Sources of Sir George Grey's Nga Mahi a Nga Tupuna,” JPS, 75(1966), pp. 177–88Google Scholar [reprinted in New Zealand Myth, pp. 363-70]; “A New Zealand Myth: Kupe, Toi, and the ‘Fleet’,” New Zealand Journal of History, 3(1969), pp. 14–31Google Scholar; with Biggs, B., “The Sources of The Lore of the Whare-Wananga,” JPS, 79(1970), pp. 22–42Google Scholar [reprinted in New Zealand Myth, pp. 371-87].

5. The first work was originally serialized in JPS, 16(1907), pp. 111-48; 175-219; 17(1908), pp. 1-47, 51-78, 120-208; 18(1909), pp. 1-83, 101-38, 157-204; 19(1910), pp. 1-38, 47-83, 101-36.

6. Smith, , “Hawaiki: The Whence of the Maori,” JPS, 7(1898), p. 201.Google Scholar Also appearing first in JPS, 7(1898), pp. 137-77, 185-223; 8(1899), pp. 1-48, this work was later published separately and went through several revised editions, each more assured and complex in its arguments. Ultimately, Hawaiki was Smith's most extravagant effort at grand synthesis, an account replete with the neatly fashioned shapes into which he delighted in moulding his almost formless material. In its proliferation of personal and geographical names, eponyms, heroic deeds, and large scale population movements it is reminiscent of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain. Yet it was widely regarded as Smith's most important and influential work.

7. E.g., “Hawaiki,” pp. 47, 206.

8. Hawaiki (2d ed., Christchurch, 1904), p. 29.Google Scholar This practice was a fundamental precept of Smith's methodology since he used such references as cinctures to bind loose and unrelated genealogies together into tidy parcels of apparently mutually corroborative sources.

9. Ibid., pp. 31-32. For Kumuhonua see Barrère, Dorothy B., The Kumuhonua Legends: A Study of Late Nineteenth-Century Hawaiian Stories of Creation and Origins (Honolulu, 1969)Google Scholar; Kirtley, B.F., “Some Extra-Oceanic Affinities of Polynesian Narratives” in Directions in Pacific Literature, ed. Kaeppker, Adrienne L. and Nimmo, H. Arlo (Honolulu, 1976), pp. 217–18.Google Scholar The closer the similarities of motifs in Polynesian traditions to Biblical episodes, the more justified Smith thought his diffusionist arguments to be. The Kumuhonua example is only the most obvious of scores which infest Polynesian traditions.

10. Smith, , “Hawaiki,” p. 200Google Scholaret passim; Cf. Smith, , Lore, 2:pp. 12n, 35–36Google Scholar, and idem, “Taranaki Coast,” passim.

11. E.g., Smith, , Lore, 2:pp. 37, 52Google Scholar; idem, “Taranaki Coast,” pp. 169-70.

12. Golson, J., “Archaeology, Tradition, and Myth in New Zealand Prehistory,” JPS, 69(1960), p. 397.Google Scholar

13. At least, according to Smith, , Lore, 1:i–ii.Google Scholar Simmons, however, shows that much of the material in Lore derives from Te Whatahoro, the son of J.M. Jury.

14. See also Smith, and Biggs, , “Sources,” pp. 22–25.Google Scholar For Jury see Smith, , Lore, 2:27n.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., 2:p. 63.

16. Smith, , “Taranaki Coast,” p. 159.Google Scholar

17. The tendency to accept the very longest available genealogies persists today and numerous examples can be found in Goldman, Irving, Ancient Polynesian Society (Chicago, 1971).Google Scholar

18. Smith, , Lore, 2:pp. 53–5Google Scholar5; idem, “Taranaki Coast,” pp. 161-62.

19. Doubtful in the sense that the assertion (and it was insistently phrased) may have been no more than yet another example of the widespread occurrence on the unoccupied land motif in orally derived materials.

20. Smith, , Lore, 2:p. 54.Google Scholar Cf. “Hawaiki,” pp. 20-21.

21. Smith, , Lore, 2:pp. 71–77, 97–120.Google Scholar

22. Ibid., p. 100n; idem, “Hawaiki,” pp. 9-10; idem, “Taranaki Coast,” pp. 175-76.

23. On the dating of the Fleet itself see below.

24. For an early notice of discrepancies (from 16 to 21 generations) in dating Toi see Cognet, Célestin, “Récits Maoris,” Missions Catholiques, 26(1894), p. 113.Google Scholar Cognet, who had for nine years been a missionary among the Maori, thought that efforts to learn about Maori origins was complicated by “a multitude of conflicting legends and bizarre events.” Ibid., p. 112.

25. Smith, Lore, 2:passim. Throughout his career Smith exhibited an unfortunate penchant for such glossing, both of Maori traditional materials and, sad to say, of opinions expressed by other students of these materials which disagreed with his own and which appeared in JPS during his thirty-year tenure as its editor.

26. Smith, , “Notes on the Geographical Knowledge of the Polynesians,” Annual Report of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 3(1891), p. 291.Google Scholar Smith did not elaborate in just which ways the coming of a large fleet was “well known” but Simmons (pp. 103-07) discusses several earlier and rather vague references to one or more canoes in European accounts of Maori origins.

27. Smith, , “Notes,” p. 291.Google Scholar For his reservations (perhaps too strong a term) about the traditional support for his thesis see ibid., p. 295n.

28. I judge this to be one reason for Smith's change from his otherwise inexplicable comment in “Hawaiki,” p. 202n. that “the results in this paper confirm [his chronology of events] if twenty-five years is substituted for twenty years to the generation.” By 1893 Smith was already writing that twenty years was “probably too small a number.” Smith, , “The Genealogy of the Pomare Family of Tahiti from the Papers of the Rev. J.M. Orsmond,” JPS, 2(1893), p. 41.Google Scholar At the same time another Maori scholar thought that “a less number of years than 25 cannot be safely assigned to a generation, and … 30 years might probably be nearer the truth.” Gudgeon, W.E., “A Maori Generation,” JPS, 2(1893), pp. 113–15.Google Scholar Finally, in 1894 Smith decreed in his capacity as editor of JPS that “25 years to a generation seems to be about the right number in the opinion of several correspondents who have written to me on the subject,” JPS, 3(1894), p. 208. Thenceforth (e.g., JPS, 4[1895], p. 17n) Smith glossed all genealogies published in JPS to “allow four generations to the century.” As far as I know he nowhere explained his change of mind on this issue, except for the nod to unspecified correspondents. In addition to the reason suggested above, it may simply be another example of his urge to compromise, in this case the differing estimates of himself on the one hand and Gudgeon and Abraham Fornander (who used 30 years in his An Account of the Polynesian Race; its Origins and Migrations and the Ancient History of the Hawaiin People to the Time of Kamehameha I [3 vols.: London, 1878–1883])Google Scholar on the other. A figure of 25 years is no doubt a reasonable one but it should be emphasized that it was not empirically based. Smith's original estimate of 20 years eventuated from living several decades among the Maori and his abrupt change is unaccountable except in terms of his new-found fascination with Polynesian origins.

29. Smith, , “Hawaiki,” p. 201.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 200, 201.

31. Ibid., p. 214.

32. Sharp, , Ancient Voyagers in the Pacific (Wellington, 1956).Google Scholar See also idem, “Maori Genealogies and Canoe Traditions,” JPS, 67(1958), pp. 37-39; idem, “Maori Traditions and the ‘Fleet’,” JPS, 68(1959), pp. 12-13; idem, “Polynesian Navigation to Distant Islands,” JPS, 70(1961), pp. 219-26.

33. Sharp's arguments have engendered an extensive and continuing debate. Among the important critiques of his work are Golson, Jack, ed., Polynesian Navigation: a Symposium on Andrew Sharp 's Theory of Accidental Voyages (Wellington, 1963)Google Scholar, and Lewis, David, We, the Navigators (Canberra, 1972).Google Scholar For the most recent bibliography of the debate see ibid., pp. 323-34.

34. Park, G.S., “Towards an Overview of New Zealand Prehistory,” New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter, 15 (1972), pp. 108–09Google Scholar; Groube, , “Research in New Zealand Prehistory,” pp. 145–47.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., pp. 141-42, 145; Golson, J. and Gathercole, P.W., “The Last Decade in New Zealand Archaeology, I,” Antiquity, 36(1962), pp. 172–73Google Scholar; Yen, D.E., “The Adaptation of Kumara by the New Zealand Maori,” JPS, 70(1961), pp. 33–48Google Scholar; Law, R.G., “The Introduction of Kumara into New Zealand,” Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania, 5(1970), pp. 123–25Google Scholar; Fox, A., “Some Evidence for Early Agriculture in Hawke's Bay,” New Zealand Archaeological Association Newsletter, 18(1975), pp. 200–05.Google Scholar Smith was not unaware of this problem and attempted to answer it by arguing that the Fleet voyagers had brought certain crops with them without realizing that these same crops were also native to New Zealand. Smith, , “Geographical Knowledge,” pp. 291–92.Google Scholar

36. E.g., Jackson, M., “Some Structural Considerations of Maori Myth,” JPS, 77(1968), pp. 147–61Google Scholar; Orbell, M., “The Religious Significance of Maori Migration Traditions,” JPS, 84(1975), pp. 341–47Google Scholar; Vivez, J., “Notes sur la mythologie Maori,” Cahiers du Centre d'études et recherches ethnologiques [Université de Bordeaux II], 3(1975), pp. 74–114Google Scholar; Johnston, M.A., “Te mana a Maui: A Structural Analysis of a Maori Myth Cycle,” Anthropological Forum, 4(1975/1976), pp. 19–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37. That is not to say that there was not some criticism of certain of Smith's contentions in the interim. In addition to Sharp's writings, two instances may be mentioned. Hare Hongi, a prominent Maori scholar, thought that “the minutely detailed accounts of canoe-voyagers of some 20 generations ago [were] for the most part mere fabrications, built up from slender and inconsequent materials.” Hongi, Hare, “On Ariki, and Incidentally, Tohunga,” JPS, 18 (1909), p. 87.Google Scholar Later Williams, H.W., “The Maruiwi Myth,” JPS, 46(1937), pp. 105–22Google Scholar, expressed well-founded doubts about Smith's sources and his use of them, but his arguments were generalized and limited to a single tenet of the existing orthodoxy.

38. Throughout his writings Smith constantly expressed the need to interpret Maori traditions in a Western mode of thought, perhaps best encapsulated when, referring to a particular tradition, he wrote a friend that “like all Maori documents, it wants editing badly and putting into historical form.” Smith to George Graham, 24 September 1915, quoted in Orbell, , “Religious Significance,” p. 342n.Google Scholar

39. Golson, and Gathercole, , “Last Decade,” p. 173.Google Scholar

40. The sources for the early history of Tahiti have recently received some treatment similar to that meted out by Simmons to Smith. See Gunson, W.N., “A Note on the Difficulties of Ethnohistorical Writing, with Special Reference to Tahiti,” JPS, 72(1963), pp. 415–19Google Scholar; Langdon, R., “A View on Ari'i Taimai's Memoirs,” Journal of Pacifia History, 4(1969), pp. 162–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lagayette, P.V., “Mémoires et ‘mémoires’: Marau Taaroa et l'historiographie de Tahiti,” Journal de la Société des Océanistes, 28(1972), pp. 49–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gunson, W.N., “Tahiti's Traditional History -- Without Adams?” Journal of Pacific History, 10(1975), pp. 112–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41. Colenso, William, “On the Maori Races of New Zealand,” Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute, 1(1868), p. 404.Google Scholar

42. Marks, Shula, “The Traditions of the Natal ‘Nguni’: A Second Look at the Work of A.T. Bryant” in African Societies in Southern Africa, ed. Thompson, Leonard M. (New York, 1969), pp. 126–44.Google Scholar

43. London, 1929. For a brief account of Bryant's career see his obituary notice in African Studies, 12(1953), pp. 131–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Bryant, , Olden Times, p. viii.Google Scholar

45. Ibid, pp. viii-ix.

46. Ibid., p. x.

47. Ibid., p. xii.

48. Information from Ms. J.F. Duggan, Librarian, Killie Campbell Africana Library, 31 October 1977.

49. Information from Fr. Martin Boelens, Secretary-General Genera late of the Missionaries of Mariannhill, Rome 20 November 1977.

50. Crazzolara, J.P., The Lwoo (3 vols.: Bologna, 1950–1954).Google Scholar

51. Ibid., 1:p. 8.

52. Ibid., 2:p. 223.

53. E.g., in his account of rwot Atiko, ibid., 2:p. 228.

54. Ibid., 1:pp. 113n, 146, 268; 2:pp. 378n, 480, 499. Crazzolara, , “Lwoo Migrations,” Uganda Journal, 25(1960), p. 136.Google Scholar

55. Ogot, B.A., History of the Southern Luo (Nairobi, 1967), P. 21.Google Scholar

56. Bibliotheca Missionum, ed. Streit, Robert and Dindinger, Johannes (29 vols, to date: Münster and Rome, 1916–1973), 18:p. 1122.Google Scholar

57. Information from Fr. Leonzio Bano, Archivist, Missioni Comboniani. The address of the archives is: Via Luigi Lilio 80, 00143 Rome, Italy.

58. Particularly his “Notes on the Lango-Omiro and on the Labwoor and Nyakwai,” Anthropos, 55(1960), pp. 174–214.Google Scholar

59. I have been victimized by this delusion myself. To cite but two examples, appropriately from Oceania, in commenting on some Easter Island genealogies I argued that “the traditional evidence must be questioned.” Henige, , The Chronology of Oral Tradition (Oxford, 1974), p. 89.Google Scholar It seems, though, that what we have is such evidence interpreted and refracted. Of the three independently-derived kinglists, two were gathered by missionaries and the other by a member of a U.S. naval expedition, which spent only two weeks on the island. His source was Alexander Salmon, a French-Tahitian trader, while the informant for one of the missionary accounts was apparently an Easter Island native living in Tahiti. Furthermore, this account was edited and published after the death of Fr. Jaussen, the missionary who had collected it. Before venturing to indict the traditional evidence now, I would look at the correspondence and other works of the two missionaries as detailed in Bibliotheca Missionum, 21:pp. 203–04Google Scholar (Roussel) and 21:pp. 221-22 (Jaussen) as well as try to ascertain whether the logs and other records of the naval expedition are still available, perhaps in the Smithsonian Institution, which sponsored it. For more on Salmon see Cooke, George H., “Te Pito te Henua, known as Rapa Nui,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1897/1891, pp. 692, 699–701.Google Scholar The other example is from Tonga, for which see my “Oral Tradition and Chronology,” JAR, 12 (1971), pp. 381–82.Google Scholar Almost all sources offer a list of the paramount rulers of the island in a particular sequence and assign a generation to each. However, several traditions of these rulers, presented verbatim and bi-lingually, show a different pattern. The names are certainly presented in the usual sequence but specific genetic relationships are adduced only for the first several rulers and the odd one or two later ruler. Otherwise there is no relationship at all expressed; each Tu'i Toga is presented as “un autre Tuitonga X” and the order in which the names are presented may well be adventitious or conform to other than chronological standards. See Reiter, François, “Trois récits Tonguiennes,” Anthropos, 28(1933), pp. 363–74.Google Scholar Although these examples scarcely rehabilitate the reconstructions of the history either of Easter Island or Tonga, they do illustrate the value of using truly original materials whenever possible.