New Zealand: Māori & Warrior Women

[excerpted from, Latin America & Anglo: Stories across Cultures ?2023]

Aotearoa, as it’s locally known, had long fascinated me.

Strong women, gender (near) equality, sound environmental and social justice policies. We liberal / progressive types all fantasize about living in Aotearoa. (If only it weren’t so far from, well, everywhere.)

Of equal interest: Māori, and their status today. (How could one ever see the haka performed, as we all have, without becoming enormously curious in this indigenous culture?)

And so, in January 2018 on the heels of my visit to neighboring Australia, I found myself in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.

The country has been consistently in the global top 10 for gender equality, and in 1893 became the world’s first to grant women the right to vote. At the time of my visit, women held positions of prime minister (and not for the first time; Jacinda Ardern was in fact the country’s 3rd female PM), chief justice, and governor-general.

Our BPW federation in New Zealand, formed in 1939, was one of the organization’s earliest members, joining just 6 years after the organization’s founding. I had many meetings with its members in all 3 locations, and their impact on the national status of women is indisputable.

North of Auckland, the Te Hana Te Ao Marama Māori cultural centre, set up as an 18th-century village, provided me with much insight into the traditional culture of the island’s indigenous people – not to mention, excellent food cooked in the hāngī traditional way, buried in a hot stone pit. From the traditional village to a modern marae or meetinghouse, many cultural practices, and much information, the setting provided a good grounding in the native culture. Notably, I learned that women were also warriors, that visitors to a village were assessed for entry by the women, and that, while gender roles were specified as in any tradition, there was a good deal of crossover.

When the Europeans came, their women were far less integrated into public society by comparison, I was told, and they were shocked by how involved Māori women were in decision-making and what to the settlers was traditionally male activity. The strong emphasis on gender equality in this island nation was beginning to make more sense.

On to Wellington, the nation’s capital, and where I’d stay with Hellen, our then-president of BPW-NZ, herself half-Scottish, half- Māori. We visited the marae for her own hapū, or clan, within the larger iwi – tribe, nation, people.

There was a very good exhibit of Māori culture at Te Papa, the national museum, including a contemporary marae available for events; notably, the museum’s website itself is entirely in both English and Te Reo, the Māori language, parallel at every point throughout the site.

I learned that the Māori language is now part of the public school curriculum, that in some schools children can be educated entirely in Te Reo, and that even many adults who had no Māori heritage were learning words and phrases in the language.

In the countryside near Wellington, I stayed for a few days with friends to learn about rural New Zealand life, its products for which the country is rather famous, though just 16% of New Zealanders live rurally today. On the small farm of Angela and Mac were sheep, pigs, chickens, and an assortment of others; during my stay, one sow gave birth to 7 piglets, to my great delight.

Back in Wellington, the National Library had an exhibition dedicated to the nation’s 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage. It also displayed the Waitangi Treaty.

This treaty, first signed in 1840 and in effect to this day, was an agreement between European settlers and Māori people, guaranteeing Māori the right to live on their own land and in their own way. Though it begs many ethical questions (not least of which concerns the Europeans' right to anything at all), nevertheless it is one of the first and only such agreements, and hugely significant to how New Zealanders perceive themselves and the story of their nation. I was privileged to witness a young Māori father, speaking in Te Reo, explaining this to his 5-year old son.

There in a suburb of the capital I joined a meeting with a local mayor and 2 council members, one of whom was my host Hellen. I then met with the director of a Māori women's refuge, a powerful white-haired elder woman who proudly sported the moko kauae or chin and lip tattooing indicative of the Māori people, and told me of their programs. The third meeting of this busy day was with an Indian female economics professor and financial capability specialist, followed by a dinner meeting with members of 2 BPW clubs.

Off to Christchurch next, which included side trips to nearby Akaroa, with its picturesque harbor and breathtakingly beautiful landscapes, and to seaside Kaikoura north of the city, for seals, dolphins, and sperm whales. While the main island has beautiful countryside, especially north of Auckland, it’s the south island that’s world-renowned for its nature.

In Christchurch itself, there was still plenty of evidence of the devastating 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. Though several years had passed, it seemed that recovery was slow; the historic cathedral, for example, was still covered in scaffolding and warning signs. (The city’s devastating May 2019 mosque shootings, New Zealand’s worst mass shooting incident with more than 50 dead, were still 3 years in the future.)

My two predominant interests were well on display here, too, from the Kate Sheppard memorial, she who led the fight 125 years earlier for women’s suffrage, to an exhibit at the Christchurch Art Gallery on feminist themes, and the Māori display at the Canterbury Museum, as well as Māori longboats in a traditional boathouse at Akaroa.

Back up to Auckland (before on to Indonesia), I spent a day at the Auckland Museum for a remarkably comprehensive Māori exhibit – and a luncheon meeting at the museum café with more BPW power women, then off to a modern marae (meetinghouse) in the city center.

It was clear by then: beyond the haka that everyone knows the world over, that intense Māori warrior ceremonial dance and chant that New Zealanders perform before sports games and other significant events, many other aspects of Māori culture are embraced by all New Zealanders today.

Make no mistake: just as with many other once-colonized indigenous peoples, the Māori community has suffered greatly as a result. Estimated in June 2023 at 17.3% of the national population, they are a significant minority but don’t have the numbers for true power in the society. Even so, New Zealand has moved considerably closer in recent years toward social justice for the Māori (and markedly more so than neighboring Australia in its treatment of Aboriginal peoples), from the Waitangi Treaty to the teaching of Māori language and culture in schools and more, in celebrating and supporting the island-state’s indigenous population. With room for growth.

And as to the status of women? One of the world’s best and a model to us all. With room for growth.

Latin America & Anglo: Stories across Cultures, by Anne Hilty, ?2023