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615 Different Kinds of Grasses Which Are Springing up in His Area and in Asking Us If These Indicated That the World Is Ending

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615 Different Kinds of Grasses Which Are Springing up in His Area and in Asking Us If These Indicated That the World Is Ending “Company” in Kopiago 615 different kinds of grasses which are springing up in his area and in asking us if these indicated that the world is ending. Apparently long-standing ideas are also subject to continuous re-working, so that revised versions of rumours turn up over time. What is of further interest is the way in which these existing symbols co-exist, and even blend, with the new theme of development through the arrival of the company. Such an arrival would indeed mean the end of one world, geographically and economically, and the start of a new one. In seeing the company as the only desired form of development the people are essentially reflecting the paucity of other development opportunities open to them. From the 1960s onwards government patrol officers regularly put in recommendations that agricultural development on a small-holder basis be made the cornerstone for local economic progress. Yet few results have emerged over time. Coffee is grown in Aluni but not tended or often picked, largely because there is no practical way to sell it. There is a severe lack of introduced vegetables which could be used for sale. There is a chronic rate of anthrax and pneumonia in the pig population which is not counteracted by DPI injections. Further, the Christian churches do not seem to have taken the place of indigenous crisis cults to provide a means of combating ill health and environmental decline by ritual intercession with the deity. The people are thus left without much recourse against adversity and little that is tangible and material to point to by way of their own development, although almost all men below the age of 35 years have been out to other places in Papua New Guinea and are able to judge how marginal their own area is by comparison. Given all the above, I suggest, it is not surprising that “company” has become synonymous with “development” in Kopiago and has in fact become a kind of complex symbol drawing people away from material efforts with their own ground. The (largely male) ideology that the “ground is finishing” in fact tends to produce the same result, implying that agriculture cannot be the key to the future. Instead the apocalyptic alternative is opted for. The theme of development is thus turned into a mental expectation in which the people, while still maintaining their indigenous economic activities, do not consider that these can provide a viable way to obtain money, but that this can be secured only through a kinddeus of ex machina: the company, which in ending their world, will, they hope, create for them a new and more wealthy version. NOTE This belated piece is offered as a small contribution to the “work of memory” in this volume for Ralph Bulmer. I owe to Ralph a debt of gratitude for many things: for first showing me what a sweet potato plant looks like; for feeding me with hot soup after I had lived on taro for three days on a journey over from Hagen to Kaironk in order to visit him; and for encouraging me to succeed to him in his post at the UPNG. 1991 fieldwork in Lake Kopiago is being carried out under the auspices of the National Science Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim and the Wenner-Gren Foundations, and the University of Pittsburgh, USA. REFERENCES FRANKEL, S.J., 1986. The Huli Response to Illness. Cambridge University Press. SCHIEFFELIN, E.L., and R. CRITTENDEN, eds. 1991. Like People You See in a Dream:. First Contact in Six Papuan Societies. Stanford University Press. THE GENESIS AND TRANSFORMATION OF THE WAITANGI TRIBUNAL Ranginui J. Walker University of Auckland The Treaty of Waitangi is a document of three simple clauses which purports to convey the sovereignty of the Maori people of New Zealand to the British Crown. The conveyance of sovereignty is made explicit in the English version of article 1 of the treaty which says that the chiefs of New Zealand “cede to her Majesty the Queen of England, absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of sovereignty”. The Maori translation of that article of cession does not accurately accomplish the transference of sovereignty, because the indigenous word for sovereignty was replaced by a transliteration of the word governorkawana, to and the 616 Ranginui J. Walker addition of the suffix-tanga to create the neologism ofkawanatanga, for governance. When the Maori version of article 1 is translated back into English it states the chiefs “cede absolutely to the Queen of England forever the governance of their lands” (see appendix for full Maori and English texts of the treaty). Ceding power to govern is not the same as surrendering sovereignty. Reverend Henry Williams who was responsible for translating the treaty knew the Maori word for sovereignty wasmana, since he used it in the 1835 Declaration of Independence of New Zealand signed by 35 chiefs of the Northland region of the country. The use of the wordkawanatanga, therefore, obscured the meaning of the treaty. This obfuscation is evident in the understanding of the chief Nopera Panakareao of Kaitaia who after signing the treaty remarked “the shadow of the land goes to the Queen but the substance remains with us” (Adams 1977:235). There are two probable reasons for this misleading translation. Firstly, Williams knew the chiefs would not willingly sign away their mana. Secondly, Williams along with other missionaries had a vested interest in getting the treaty signed because of their land holdings which ranged from 20 acres up to 50,000 acres in extent (Grace 1959:424). They held these vast estates at the pleasure of the chiefs. Annexation by Great Britain would secure them ownership under English laws. Article 2 of the treaty guaranteed the chiefs “full, exclusive, and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates, Forests Fisheries, and other properties”. The Maori version on the other hand guaranteed chiefs the tino rangatiratanga, “absolute chieftainship of their lands, their homes, and all their treasured possessions”. The guarantee of chieftainship is in effect equivalent to a guarantee of sovereignty, because a chief was not a chief withoutmana whenua, sovereignty over land. Accordingly, the chiefs who signed the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840, would have understood the treaty as a guarantee of sovereignty, and not a treaty of cession. Since a governor may be defined as a satrap, one who governs on behalf of an imperial power, or one who derives his power to govern from elsewhere, then the source of that authority to govern must be defined. In New Zealand, the first Governor, Captain Hobson, had no warships or soldiers to assert his dominion over the numerous well armed tribes of the country. Therefore, he governed only through the acquiescence of the chiefs who were in effect his sovereigns. However, once the treaty was signed it was recognised by other nation states as a treaty of cession and therefore beyond their power to annex the country for themselves. What the Treaty of Waitangi conferred in practice, was notional sovereignty, that is, a beachhead from which absolute sovereignty was progressively extended by colonial spoliation. The well tried techniques for extending the hegemony of the Crown into native districts were applied gradually and with increasing force as the colonists got the upper hand. At first sovereignty was extended by massive land buying which extinguished native title by “fair purchase”. This technique was especially effective in the sparsely populated South Island which was substantially purchased by 1858. As the land was acquired, Maori dominance was neutralised by the transmigration of surplus population from the United Kingdom. By 1858 the European population of 59,000 surpassed the Maori population, of 56,000 (Miller 1966:221), and two years later a war of conquest was undertaken in the North Island where tribes were resisting land sales. Although only three million acres were confiscated in the North Island as a consequence of the war, it effectively established the Crown’s sovereignty over the whole country. But war as a means of acquiring land from tribes which proved formidable in battle was abandoned as too costly. In 1864 when the Waikato campaign ended, Maoris in the North Island still held 16 million acres against the 10 million acres acquired by the Crown. A more subtle technique for acquiring those lands was devised by the power of a colonial government in a Parliament dominated by Europeans to make laws inimical to Maori interests. The Native Land Act 1867 established the Native Land Court which transformed tribal lands into individual ownership thereby facilitating its alienation. The Court was obliged to name only ten persons on a certificate of title to tribal land. The law treated the ten named as having the power to alienate. They were easily suborned by land sharks, storekeepers and shyster lawyers into conveying the freehold with the result that other members of the tribe were dispossessed. By the turn of the century only 5 million acres of land remained in Maori ownership of the 66 million acres they once owned in toto. Contradiction of clause 2 of the Treaty of Waitangi by invasion and confiscation of land, was matched by statutory provisions enacted by the Governor, and later the New Zealand Parliament, when the General Assembly came into being in 1854. As the colonial administration achieved political dominance, so the laws proliferated as expressions of that dominance. Some of those laws are cited here to illustrate their range and the time frame in which they were implemented. The 1841 Land Claims Ordinance for instance declared land not actually occupied by Maoris as “wasteland” and deemed to be property of the Crown.
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