Allan Hanson l'niveríity ofKansas The Making of the Maori: Culture Invention and Its Logic "Traditional culture" is increasingly recognised to be more an invention constructedJor contemporary purposes than a stable heritage banded on from the past. Anthropologists often participate in the creative process. Two distinct inventions of New Zealand Maori culture are analyzed, together with the role of anthropologists in each of them. The conclusion explores the logic of culture invention and some of its implications for the practice oj anthropology. ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND HISTORIANS HaVK KLCOMK ACUTKLY AWaRK in recent years that "culture" und "tradition" arc anything but stable realities handed down intact from generation to generation. Tradition is now understood quite literally to be an invention designed to serve contemporary purposes, "an attempt," as Lindstrom put it (1982:31 7), "to read the present in terms of the past by writing the past in terms of ihr přesetu." Those contemporary purposes vary according to who does the inventing. When people invent their own traditions it is usually to legitimate or sanctify some current reality or aspiration, be it as momentous as the Greek national identity, Quebec nationalism, or the Hawaiian renaissance (Handler 1984; Handler and Linuekin 1984; Hcr/.fcld 1982, Unnekin 1983). or as uncontrovcrsial as the relatively new form of dual social organi /.ation that Borofsky (198?) encountered on the Polynesian island of Pukapuka, People also invent cultures and traditions for others, and then treat them as if their inventions were the actual state of affairs. When the inventors arc politically dominant, as has been the case between Western nations and their colonies, the invention of tradition for subordinate peoples is part of a cultural imperialism that tends to maintain the asymmetrical relationship of power (Fabian 1983; Ranger 1983; Said 1978). It is becoming clear that anthropologists loo arc inventors of culture. The evolutionär)' ideas of Sir Henry Maine and Lewis Henry Morgan were major sources for the invention of the ľijian svstem of laud tenure (ľrance 1969; Legge I95H). Although it contains misinterpretations. A. B. Deacon's 1934 book, Malekula: A Vanishing People in the Sew Hebrides, has been adopted by the people of the region as the final arbiter of disputes about traditional culture (Larcom 1982:334). The present intellectual climate has even spawned the notion that the quintessential anthropological activities of ethnographic research and writing inevitably produce cultural inventions (Cliíľord and Marcus 1986; Oecrtz 1988, Wagner 1981). This raises fundamental questions about the nature of cultural reality and whether the information that anthropologists produce can possibly qualify as knowledge about that reality. New Zealand Maori culture forms an excellent context in which to frame these issues ' The invention of Maori culture has been going on for more than a century, taking at least • two distinct forms in that time, and anthropological interpretations and misinterpretations have joined the contributions of other scholars, government officials, and Maoris ' themselves (including some Maori anthropologists) in the inventive process. The two Al.l.i\ Ha.\su\u /'rj/fiiuř. Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas. IJiwrtttct t K S 66045. H90 Hanson|- M.u>xtCu.Tr»fl, The Whence of (he Maori Anthropology's contribution in the early decades ofthis century to the construction of New Zealand Maori culture stems from that great stream of now-discrcditcd anthropological theory: diffusionism and long-distance migrations. This mode of thinking was largely responsible for the birth and mirturance of two major understandings about traditional Maori culture that, in some quarters, still lead a robust existence. One of these is a set of traditions about the settlement of New Zealand that mav conveniently be grouped under the rubric of the "Great Fleet." The other is the idea that pre-Europcan Maori culture featured an esoteric cult dedicated to a supreme being named Jo. The rudiments of the discovery and settlement theory arc these. New Zealand was discovered in A.D. 925 by Kupe, a man from Ra'iatea in the Society Islands. The first settlers, Toi and his grandson Whatonga, arrived from Tahiti in about the middle of the 12 th century. Finally, a flee t of seven canoes—Tainui, T e A raw a, Mataatua, Kurahaupo, Tokomaru, Aotca, and Takitumu—set out in about 1350 from a homeland named Ha-waiki, which was probably Ra'iatea or Tahiti. After a stop in Rarotonga, the fleet arrived > in New Zealand and the migrants dispersed to populate the various parts of the country. ' Most Maori tribes trace their origin to one or another of the canoes that formed the Great Fleet (Hiroa 1950:5-64; Simmons 1976.3-106; Sorrcnson 1979:44-57). As for the lo cult, it has been claimed that although the Maori pantheon contained many gods, over them all presided lo: an eternal being, itself uncreated, and the creator of the other gods, the universe, and all things (Smith 1913:1 10— f 12). The cult of lo was philosophically sophisticated and esoteric, knowledge and worship of the high god being restricted to a few ranking chiefs and high priests. "'It is quite probable, indeed, that this superior creed may have been too exalted for ordinary minds" (Best 1973:24). Before examining how anthropology contributed to their development and protnul-' gallon, it is important to know that scholarship in recent decades has thrown both the \ cult of lo and the Great Fleet story into serious question. The primary source for the lo 1 cult is part I of The /.ore of the Whate-wanonoa. This is a compendium of religious and mythological lore of the Kahungunu tribe, arranged and translated by S. Percy Smith (1913). After a careful examination of the manuscript material on which the volume is based, Davtd Simmons and Bruce Biggs concluded that chapter 2, which contains the material On the lo cult, is derived from manuscripts whose status as pre-Europcan Maori tradition *• is questionable (Simmons 1976:382). Tc Rangi Ffiroa, a half-Maori anthropologist also fcrtown as Peter H. Buck, observed that lo's creative activities—bringing forth light fron) primordial darkness, dividing the waters, suspending the sky, and forming the earth— (, ťhad rather loo much in common with Genesis for their purely Maori provenance to sound I /»convincing (Hiroa 1950:526-536; see alsojohanscn 1958:36-61). '* As far as the Great Fleet is concerned, in 1840 Horatio Hale, a linguist with the United States Exploring Expedition, collected a legend at the Bay of Islands about a fleet of four Canoes that were blown off course during a voyage between, he presumed, Samoa and Tonga, and which eventually arrived at New Zealand (Sorrcnson 1979:35-36). The army historian A. S. Thomson, writing at mid-century, was also told that migrants to New Zealand set out in a fleet of canoes (Thomson 1859:1:57-68). As with the lo cult, however, Percy Smith was perhaps the key early proponent of migration stories of Kupc, Toi, and the Great Fleet. These are set out particularly in part 2 of The Ijireofthe Whare-wananga (Smith 1915) and History and Traditions of the Maoris of the West Coast (Smith 1910). I ľ>l. ľ.WJ Simmons and Biggs found the textual material in part 2 of The Lore to be a hie compilation from a variety of sources (Simmons 1976:38b). Simmons conducted an cxhaus live study of European writings and Maori traditions from many trib;:l areas with the aim ofasccrtaining what Maori traditions actually say about the discovery of and migrations to New Zealand. He concluded that the stories about Kupc, Toi, and W'hatonga as summarized above arc not authentic Maori tradition (1976:59, 100). In this regard Sim rnons echoes William Colenso, who, a century before, had written that traditions such as Kupe's discovery of New Zealand and subsequent return to Hawaiki are "mvihical rhapsody" that, while entirely believed by some Kuropeans, were not (at that time) taken as historical fact by the Maoris themselves (Sorrenson I979:TI—13). While it is undeniable that Maori tribes tell of the arrival of their ancestors in migration canoes, the notion of an organized expedition by a Great Fleet in about 1350 seems to have been constructed by European scholars such as Smith in an effort to amalgamate disparate Maori traditions into a single historical account (Simmons 1976:316). Dating the fleet at IT50 was a particularly blatant work of fiction, since Smith simply took the mean of a large number of tribal genealogies that varied from I 4 to 27 generations before 1900. "The dale of 1350," Simmons concludes, "has validity only as an exercise in arit h melie" {1976:108; sec also Smithyman 1979 for further evaluation of Smith's work). If the lo cult and the Great Fleet arc fabrications about indigenous Maori society, (he question arises as lo why European scholars so enthusiastically embraced them as fact The answer pertains to the 19th-century fascination with tracing the various peoples of the world back to a few cradles of civilization. Well before the Great Fleet and lo entered European discourse this penchant of thought produced, as one of the earliest foreign in ventions of Maori culture, the idea of the Maoris as Semites Samuel Marsden, who in í H19 was the first missionary to visit New Zealand, opined that the Maoris had "sprung from some dispersed Jews." He advanced as evidence for this proposition their "great natural turn for traffic; they will buy and sell anything they have got" (Klder 19112:219) Bv the late 19th and early 20th centuries scholars were using the Great Fleet and lo theories to suggest kinship between the Maoris and New Zealand's European settlers The skin color, physical lea lures, and often amorous hospitality of Polynesians had appealed to Europeans since the days of the 18th-century explorers. Now, diflusionist and migration-minded European scholars in New Zealand were pleased to discover in the Maori race the capacity for sophisticated philosophy, as demonstrated by the loeult, and a history of heroic discoveries and migrations that included the Great Fleet, Kupe, and, in even more remote epochs, intrepid voyages through Indonesia, India, and beyond This ennobled Maoris in European eyes to the point where it became possible to entertain the possibility ofa link with themselves. Doubtless that possibility became more palatable to British migrants when, as the 19th century drew to a close, the idea emerged thai the Maoris were of Aryan stock. Edward Trcgcar, a high-level civil servant and amateur ethnologist and linguist w ho participated in the founding of the Polynesian Society, elaborated this thesis in his 1885 book The Aryan Maori. Rejoicing that "Comparative Philology and Comparative Mythology are the two youngest and fairest daughters of Knowledge" (1885:1), Trcgcar seduced from them a dazzling array of associations between Maori language and lore and that of, among other places, India, ancient Greece, Rome, and Britain. He even demonstrated that although Maori people had Icing since forgotten the cattle that their ancestors herded in the steppes of Asia and as they migrated through India, the memory remained embalmed in their !language. So he found the Sanskrit gait, for cow, in several Maori terms containing kau t For example, a Maori weapon consisting of "sharp teeth of Hint lashed firmly lo a pietc of wood" was called mata-kautete because its shape is reminiscent ofa "cow-titty '(1885:30-31). Drunk wiih the power of comparative philology. Trcgcar uncovered sim ilar memories in the Maori language of pigs, wolves, tigers, bows and arrows, and Irogs (1885:30-37). M \í>hi Crrn u, /m, w/f(V H9J Such research was beginning to reveal the dim outlines of perhaps the most splendid chapter in human history the great Aryan migration. Enthused Trcgcar of the Maori forerunners, No frcc-booiing Huns or Vandals, mad for plunder jud the sack of towns werr thev but colonists seeking neu homes beneath strange stars. We o( Kurope have sot out on the same quest. Encircling Africa, the two vast horns of the Great Migration have touched again, and men whose fathers were brothers on the other side of those gulls of distance and of time meet each other, when the .Aryan of the West greets the Aryan of t he Eastern Seas f I8H.V 105) Building on Kenan's {1889:8-1) remark that I o is one of the mans variants of t lie name Jehovah, Ľlsdou Best advanced the same theor> (Best 1924:1:90). The notion of Maoris as Aryans was pertinent to race relations and nation building in fledgling New Zealand. R. Studholme Thompson—who held that the Maoris belonged to the Alpine section of .he Caucasian race and came originally from the Atlas mountains of North Africa—explained that fiis work on Maori origins "had a large object in \iew. viz., the demonstration that the liighly-civilued Britain and the Maori, just emerging from barbarism, are one in origin; that m fraternising with the Maori the European undergoes no degradation; in intermarrying with the race he does no violence to the claims of consanguinity, it is thought that when this is thoronghK known there will arise a more cordial feeling between the peoples inhabiting the colon v, both equally the subjects of one King." [quoted in Sorrenson 1979:29] "What better myth could there be for a young country struggling for nationhood and for the amalgamation ofiis races," asks Sorrenson (1979:30), "than this reunification of the Aryans'" No one talks seriously anymore about ultimate Maori origins as Aryan or Semitic, but the two most prominent features of the tradition — the cult of lo and the discovery and migration stories concerning Kupe, Toi, and the Great Fleei — remain very much alive Although they are largely of Kuropcan const ruction they have been embraced by Maoris as their authentic heritage. Te Rang! Hiroa accepted the traditions concerning Kupe, Toi, and the Great Fleet (1950:4-64); in his mind the last of these was so significant that jt "ranks in historical and social importance with the Norman Conquest" (1950:36). Sir Apirana Ngata, longtime Member of Parliament and probably the most influential and respected Maori of the 20th century, promoted the idea ofa sextennial celebration in 1950 to commemorate the arrival of the Great Fleet (and, not coincidentally, todwarf the mere centennial of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, which the New Zealanders of European descent had celebraied in 1940) (Sorrenson 1979:52). From their discourse, it is clear lhat Maori authors of today such as Maharaia Winiata (1967:25). Douglas Sinclair (1975:118-119). and Ercura Stirling (Stirling and Salmond 1980:83-84) also accept the tradition of the Great Fleet as historical fact. Io loo lives in Maori minds, as is evident from a recent essay on Maori religion and cosmology by Maori Marsden, chaplain in the Royal New Zealand Navy and Tc Aupouri tribal member. Relying solely on sources he has encountered in Maori contexts, such as the transmission of tribal lore and orations at Maori gatherings, Marsden depicts Io as an authentically Maori concept ofa creator-god who verbally called the universe into being from a primal void and differentiated light from darkness, the earth and waters from the sky (Marsden 1975:210-211). Maori reasons for affirming lo and [lit: Great Fleet have not, however, been the same as those of I'akcha (Maori for European or White) New Zealanders If Maoris have always been willing to accept any qualities of racial greatness that Pakeha scholars might attribute to them, it was not so much to believe themselves won h v of assimilation into the White population and culture as it was to bolster a sense of their own ethnic distinctiveness and value. This sense lias grown dramatically in strength and stridency of expression in recent years. That development, indeed, lies at the heart of the second chapter in the invention of Maori culture and tradition that we have to consider. Maoritanga The movement known .is Maontanga f M.ioi iih'v.) oi Mana Maori (M.kmi I'nun.i is (inc of i he uunt important developments in New Zealand society today. As unii .in v Lirtí«-social movement, Maontanga includes diversity, and not all of ihr tenets discussed below would be endorsed bv all of its supporters. What unites them and, interesting!), what (luv share with turn-of-the-ccntur) scholars such as K. Studholnie Thompson, is the goal to secure for Mauris a favorable place in the nation being built in Neu Zealand Yet the current and earlier images ofthat place and of tin- national culture to emerge, are quite different. The earlier vision was (o create one culture, Luropcan in form, into which Maoris would he successfully assimilated To promote this goal it was neccssarv to identic) similantir-i between Maori and European As we have seen, the invention of Maori culture promulgated b\ Percy Snuth and his contemporaries did just that bv using the Io cult as evidence of the Maori eapacitv lor sophisticated thought and (he Great Fleet tu demons t rate the mettle of Maori ancestors' and even to identify them as fellow A r vans. Mauritania's vision is different lis image ol the future Neu Zealand is a biruliur.il societ v, m which Maoris are on a pat with I'akehas politically and economical!) and Maori culture is respected as equal)} valid but distinct hunt Pakeha culture (see. Ii>r i \ ample, Sciascia J98-1: 162). To promote that image, it is necessarv io stress the unupn enmrihution that Mauri culture has made to national life—different from bul no less v il uablc than the Pakeha contribution. Thus, the Maori tradition that Maontanga iim nts is one that conlra* t \ u it h Pakeha culture, and particularly with those element i of Pa kí ha culture that are least attractive. In New Zealand as in the United States, human relations among Pakehas are often thought to lack passion and spontaneity; the Pakeha approach (u things is detached and coldly rational; Pakehas have lost the appreciation lor magic and the capnc.it) lor wonder or awe inspired by the unknown; Pakeha culture is out of step with nature—it pollutes the environment and lacks a close tie with the land. Maori culture is represented as the ideal counterbalance- to these Pakeha failings Maoris cherish the dead, speaking to them and weeping free!v t)ver open caskets, u hilt Pakehas mute the mourning process and hide the body from sight (Oansey 1975:17/} The Maori has ;i "close, spiritual relationship with the land"; he "loved his land nul identified with it perhaps more closely than any other race" (Sinclair 1975" I If») Maori thought appreciates the mystical dimension and transcends reason: Abstract ialniii.il thought and empirical met In «Is i .uuiol gr.i.sp the concrete a< t nf existing whuli is fr.igmrruar}. pai.iiioxn .il and incomplete The only wa> lies through .1 passionate, inw ml subjective approach Onlv a hu foreigners alien loa culture, men like James K Baxter with the soul of a poet, can enter into the cxisienltal dimcmtmi of Maori life. This grasp ol a culture proceeds uoi from superficial intcllectu.tlism but bun) an approach best articulated in po» in. Poetic imagery reveals to the Maori a depth of understanding in men which is absent Irom tin empirical approach «Ídie social atithrnpulogisl. [Maisdm I.218-2I9| í he times have changed a great deal since 1922. when no less respected and proud a Maori than Sir Apirana Ngata could say of a Pakeha scholar, "There is not a tnembt r ol the Maori race who is fit to wipe the hoots of Mr. Klsdon liest in the matter of the knowledge of the lore of the race 10 which we belong" (quoted in Journal ofthe Polynesian Sourly 1932:31). Today Maoris are no longer willing to tolerate being told by Pakehas what is good for them, and even how to be Maori (Rangihau 1975). The notion that the rational j Pakeha mind is uns u i ted to grasp Maori life, together with Maori tanga's major objective of drawing power into Maori hands, have encouraged many Maoris to insist that thev. not Pakehas, be the proper custodians and managers of knowledge about the Maori heritage. This sentiment is strong enough that some advocates of Maoritanga have invited Pakt ha scholars out of Maori studies. Michael King, a Pakeha who has written cxtcnsivelv on Maori topics, observed that in 1971 Maori radicals insisted that Pakcfia historians write more about Maori subjects, but b> 1983 the demand was that they should not write about Hanson I il'l". them at all (1985:161). King's own 1983 bonk, Moon—A ľhologntphu ntuISoiuil HtUon.Kxs been negalivclv leceived In Maori levicweix, u Im stated the prelereucc that such topics be addressed by Maori writers (King 1985: 163). in the university, a Maori student complained that it is ethicillv wrong to be taught his own heritage bv a Pakeha (Mead |983;3-f3-34-f). Pakehas have not been routed from Maori studies. Indeed, because virtual!} all scholars who deal in Maori topics actively support the goal of Maoris to secure a better position in society and share the objective of treating a bicultural New Zealand, they have been active participants in the invention of (he tradition that Maontanga presents to the world. Michael King himself, for example, served as editor of the important collection of works by Maori authors that articulated manv of the cardinal principles of Maontanga (King 1975). A number of writers have fostered the present invention of Maori culture bv lending the weight of Pakeha scholarship to (he movement. This often takes the form of according special auiboritv to Maoris in matters pertaining to Maori culture. The Pakeha historian Judith Binncy acknowledged the premise that Maoris are best equipped to understand and write about Maori topics when, in the preface to her excclfctit study of the Maori prophet Rua Kenana. she expressed misgivings about her grasp of the material and recorded the hope that one dav a Maori scholar would produce a more authoritative account (Binncy, Chaplin, and Wallace 1979:11). Anthropologist .Anne Salmond has made K one of her professional objectives 10 promulgate and interpret Maori concepts of knowledge witfi the aim of incorporating them more fully into a bicultural New Zealand society (Salmond 1982; Stirling and Salmond 1980). > Steps have been taken 10 avoid olfending Maori sensibilities. Preserved and tattooed Maori heads from the early 19th ecu tun.', only 15 years ago a staple of museum exhibits, arc no longer to be found on display in New Zealand institutions. Pakeha scholars have softened critiques of the Io cult and the Great Fleet, primarily, it seems, because many Maoris accept these traditions as authentic. The first edition of anthropologist Joan Mctge's The Maoris of New 'Zealand, published in 1967, contains the following passages about Io. "The existence of a supreme god, io, was allegedly revealed to tfiose who reached the upper grades of the school of learning" (1967:30), and, from the glossary, "(o Supreme Being whose existence and cult are claimed to have been revealed to initiates of t he pre-Turopean 'school of learning' " (1967:223). The corresponding passages in the second edition of (he work, published iu 1976, are: "The existence of a supreme god, io-matua-kore. was revealed to (hose who reached the upper grades of the school of learning" (1976:23). and "io: Supreme being whose existence and worship were revealed to initiates of the pre-Kuropean 'school of learning*; identified by main Maoris wiih the Supreme Being of Christianity and used instead of or in alternation with the name Jehovah" (1976:337). A reference to Io as "the Supreme Being ol Classic Maori cosmology" also appears on page 55, in a new chapter written for the second edition. Beyond the generally more positive attitude toward the f o cult, an increased concern about highlighting the views of contemporary Maoris is visible in a change of citation in the glossary entry on Io from Hiroa's skeptical account of the cub in The Coming qflhe Maori (1950) to the 1975 essay by Maori Marsden. discussed above, which accepts Io as authentic tradition. Something similar is happening with the Great fleet myth. New Zealand archeology has made great strides in recent years, and most discussions of the time and material conditions of earl) settlement (now established to have occurred by at least the 11 th century) rely on archeological evidence However, in a scholarly presentation ofthat evidence, Agnes Sullivan carefully states that, while the notion of an organized fleet seems discredited, archeology has produced nothing thai disallows the possibility of migrant canoes arriving in New Zealand from Kast Polynesia up to about the l-fih century. This has the eifert of muting any archeological challenge to the magic date of 1350 for the arrival ofancestral canoes although, it will be recalled, Smith's settling upon that date is 7 1 ;\.untn:t\ A\rnKtmu iH.iM ('->!. lili ■ '(nJ«nt Ti one of the most contrived components of the Great Fleet story. "In traditional terms" * Sullivan concludes, "there appear to be no good grounds at present lor suggesting th the central themes of most Hawaiki canoe traditions arc to be interpreted othertha-straightforwardly" < 1984:6*2). One of the most effective projects to publicize Maoritanga's invention of Maori cuti« p " was the exhibition "Te Maori: Maori Art from New Zealand Collections" (sec Meid 1984b). Anthropology's role in the project is mainly to be found in the person of Stdnct " Mead, a Maori anthropologist who was one of the central organizers of the exhibition "Te Maori" was shown in New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Chicago in 1984—Of* r and subsequently toured New Zealand in a triumphant homecoming. Through a strofcf * of genius in the presentation of the exhibition, Mead and the other Maoris involved in n managed to clothe the objects with more than simply artistic value. In each city the exhibition opened with a dramatic dawn ceremony in which Maori elders (brought from ' New Zealand specifically for the purpose) ritually lifted the tapu ("taboo") from the oh- * jects and entrusted them to the care of the host museum. The ceremony received cjttcif * sivc media coverage in each city, and it conveyed the Maori idea that the objects wtn- * infused with a spiritual power that derived from the ancestors and linked them in a mystical union with the Maoris of today. As a result the objects were viewed as more than "" examples of fine and exotic workmanship, and the notion was inserted into the mind* or *X thil Maori concerns and Maori cpistemology may be included in the national dis- oll an equal footing with Pakcha concerns and cpistemolog\. She has registered tufjttion that signs of this are emerging in the university, in the form of a series of ^ >, Maoris insisted that art objects produced by their ancestors are tribal treasure* - ■<■ 7 (taonga), with the result that tribal proprietary rights became an important issue in ÚSf "**$ ( ,f . mounting of-Tc Maori." In the planning stages of the exhibition a distinction was nuaV\ * ^ - inr image of Maori culture th^t developed around the turn of the 20th century was between the legal ownership of the objects, vested in the museums that hold them, »BÍf N \* - ^ 'Síf!™?"1'" íhc ma'n by sc,mlars Powere predisposed to analyze institutions in terms the cultural ownership, which remained with the tribes. It was decided that no objťťl \ frv*K '^ J* ^-«'«ancc migrations, and who cherished the political desire to assimilate Maoris could leave New Zealand unless the cultural owners agreed. Intense debate raged amowf . jVr*' Y £' c ľ* cuIturc- Thc present image has been invented for the purpose of enhancing the elders of the various tribes over this issue, and ultimately the art of the Whangamii rc$i<«' fc t\^\ ^ raw of Maoris in New Zealand society, and is largely composed of those Maori qualities was not included in the exhibition because of tribal disapproval. The concept ofculwfil1*/** f-JjínU*?" ** attractively contrasted with the least desirable aspects of Pakcha culture. ownership of art objects, which had not been enunciated prior to "Te Maori," has «á-"//. » ;* ;_,.. nrt"8ctt.h.cr' ih«c case studies might incline one to the pessimistic view that the riched the significance of tribal membership for Maori people and represents an imp«** tant step toward Maoritanga's goal of bringing the Maori heritage under Maori conírí»j * i s .s s --, -s ;ť^, ^ (Mead 1986:99). ^„ ^ J Anthropologists and other scholars throughout New Zealand are also attempting1»* * j further the cause of Maoritanga by encouraging the growth of Maori Studies prograiri* •*• in the schools and universities, the involvement of program stall'in assisting the MaoJTl people with land claims and other projects, and greater Maori university enrollment, Th-aim is more ambitious than just increasing knowledge of and respect lor Maori cuitun' among Pakchas and making the benefits of Pakeha-style education more available M O Maoris. As Anne Salmond articulates it, the imperative is to expand social instiiuiW"» and modes of thinking in New Zealand to the point where they become I : tru Iv biculniral ^irthty of traditional culture and history is so irredeemably shrouded behind multiple -.^ s*nrtofdistortton, some woven from imported fabric and others homespun, that no effort ***<(rbjCLtivtty could be sufficient to strip them away. But that would miss the distinctive ,*-.**Wrc of both examples: that the '"distortions" have been accepted by Maoris as au- „'.tentie to their heritage, lo and the Great Fleet have been incorporated into Maori lore , v*«Kl8rr passed from elders tojuniors in storytelling, oratory, and other Maori contexts. **l^«ľ Maoris, and also those Pakchas who desire to incorporate both sides of bicultural * **i-cal'ind into their own experience, make it a conscious point to practice the tenets ■ * UL "' ln^a' *l*ncv 'carn t'1*" Maori language and Maori history. They arc careful to ^«ww rrspect for elders. They open themselves to the emotional and mystical impact of ■•Tsma and the nonrational, and they heighten their appreciation for Maori lore and ■'»"''■■"■■'"»""......■"' i'"1""'1 Maori art. As a result, these and other elements oi the current invention oi Maori culture become objet lively incorporated into tli.it culture by the verv fact o! people talking about them and practicing them. Therefore, the fact that culture is an invention, and anthropology one of (he inventing agents, should not engender suspicion or despair that anthropological accounts do not quality as knowledge about cultural reality. Inventions are precisely the stulí that cultural reality is made of; as Linnekin (1983) and Handler {1984) have convincingly demon strated by means of Hawaiian and Quebeeois examples, "there is no essential, hounded tradition . . . the ongoing reconstruction of tradition is a facet of all social lili" (Handler and Linnekin 198-1:276)'. To entertain the notion of a historically fixed tradition is to affirm what Jacques Her rid a calls the "metaphysics of presence" {1978:281) or "logoeentrism" {1974:12). H( ar gues that since Nietzsche, ľreud, and Heidegger, among others, it has been necessary to replace the metaphysics of presence with a more fluid, deccntercd view. Henceforth, il was necessary In begin dunking that the it was no (enter, lli.it the renter could not he thought in the form til'a preseni-bcing, that the center had no natural site, (hat it wis mil a ft sed locus hut a Tu ne t ton. .i sort ol noulot us in which .in m hni t r number of sign-substihihons came iuio pl.iv This was (lie moment when in the abseilte of a tenter or origin, cverv thiui« became discourse (hat is to say. a svstem in which the central signified, the original or Iran sccntleiua! signified, is nevci absoluieiv present. 1 he absent e ol the (ranst entlenl.M s.^nilud extends die domain and tlie plav ol signilnatmii .nlimietv [Derrida |'»7«.2KO| Applied to our examples, a logoceniric view would hold that traditional Maori culture existed in determinate form, say, at the moment of effective Western contact by Captain Cook in I 769. That cultural essence was then distorted in one way or another by turn-uf (he-century anthropologists as well as by contemporary proponents of Maoriianga—al though all of them claim to be holding fast to it. Derrida would maintain, on the contrar), that Maori culture has always been "a sort of nonlocus in which an infinite number of sign-substitutions come into play." From this perspective, discourse about the philo sophically sophisticated cult ol lo and the arrival in I.Í50 of a Great Fleet ol migrant canoes represents not really a distortion of traditional Maori culture but one set of sign substitutions in the play of signification that is itself the essence (it we may be allowed to ' use that word) of Maori culture. Other sign-substitutions include ihe warmth, passion, and mysticism stressed by Maoriianga. Indeed, they also include whatever lore, conven lions, and institutions were in play among Maoris in New Zealand in I 769 on ihe eve of Cook's visit, for there is no reason to privilege them with some sort of fixed (logoceniric) authenticity absent from the other inventions or sign-substitutions that wc have consid cred. Certainly Maoris ol the 1760s, no less than contemporary Maori activists, wert moved by their own political agendas to appeal selectively and creatively to (he tradition of their ancestors; and the same ran he said for those ancestors, and so on indefiuitelv It follows from this that the analytic task is not to strip away the invented portions of culture as inauthcnlic, but to understand the process by which they acquire authenticity Social reproduction—the process whereby people learn, embody, and transmit the con ventional behaviors of their society—is basically a mailer of interpersonal comniunica lion. Any conventional act, such as greeting someone on the street, is learned by observing how other people do it, modeling one's own behavior on that, and being assured that jit is done properly (or alerted that it is not) by the reactions of other people to the behav *~* ior. Moreover, each person is teacher as well as learner in the process, because his or her __ behavior also serves as a model upon which still other people construct their behavior (sec Bourdieu 1977; Hanson and Hanson 1981}. No one bit of behavior can be said to have ultimate authenticity, to be the absolute and eternal 'right way" of which all the others are representations. All of ihe bits of behavior arc models: models of previous bits /-V-, and models for subsequent ones. Described like this, the process of ordinary social reproduction is a case of sign-substi CTÍ union in a play of signification But, as we have already seen, the invention ofcultuit is H41IS,H»| MlWtti.-tlHHt /MM//O.V >{•)•> a|so that. I his demysuhes the process whereby cultural inventions acquire authenticity in the eyes oi members of societ\ because the invention ol cultute is no extraordinary occurrence Inn an activity ol the same son as the normal. evcr\dav process ol social life. While il is essential to recognize this point, there must nevertheless be something distinctive about culture invention. It is, aller all, much too strong a phrase to use for every -day social reproduction. As a first appio\uuaiion, u might be said thai inventions are sign-substitutions that depatt some considerable distance from those upon which they arc modeled, thai arc selective, and thai systematically manifest the intention to further some political or other agenda This criterion would authorize us to classify as inventions those sign-substitutions that rework Maori migration canoe legends into a chapter ol the great Aryan migration, or that stress Maori respect for the elders and the dead without mentioning that such respect operated within tubes only and was matched bv a tendency to revile and c.innibah/.e the elders and dead ol other tubes Very often, however, the inventive qtialuv of sign-substitutions is rccogut/abte only from outside and when (hey lot in ciusteis. Percy Smith, Kdw.ud I regcar. and Llsdon Best worked mgenuousK within ihe tradition of dillusionist anthropology. When compared with the othet (wo. the theories lor sign-subsiitutiuns) advanced bv any one of [hern are not radical depa Mures, and cet tain I v thev did not consider (hose theories to be inventions I he same may be said ol t ontetiipoi at \ advocates of M.ior itanga. Hut when detached observers consider these two movenienis as wholes, and compare the images of Maori culture (hey advance Truth. Reality and Cultural Relativism Man 14.,515-529 Hanson | MwktCi ntfíf l\ fc'fí? ±ir Hanson, F. Allan, and Louise Hanson 1981 The Cybernelies of Culuiral Communication In Semiotic Themes. Richard DeGeorge, ed. Pp. 251-273. Humanistic Studies. No. VI Lawrence: University of Kansas Publications. Hcr?.fcld, Michael 1982 Ours Once More: Folklore, Idrologv and the Making ol'Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press. Hiroa, Te Rangi (Peter II. Buck) 1950 The Coming ol'the Maori. 2nd edition. Wellington. Whiicomhc and Tombs. Johansen,J. Prvlz 1958 Studies in Maori Rues and Myths. Copenhagen" Munksgaard Journal ol'the Polynesian Societ)' 1932 The Late Llsdon Rest. Journal of the Polynesian .Society 11:1 - I'J King, Michael 1975 |ed.) Te Ao Hunhuri: The World Moves On—Aspects ofMaorii.inga. Wellington: Hicks Smith and Sons. 1985 Being Pakeha: An Encounter with New Zealand and tile Maori Renaissance. Auckland: Hodder and Stoughtoii Kuhn, Thomas 1962 The Structure ol" Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of 'Chicago Press. Larcom.joan 1982 The Invention ol Convention. Mankind 13:330-3:17. UggeJ- D- 1958 Britain in Fijii I85H-I880 London: Macmillan. Lindstrom, Lamont 1982 Lel'tamap Kaslom: The Political History ol" Tradition on T.inn.t, Vanuatu. Mankind 13:316-32!). Linnekin.Jucelyn S. 1983 Defining Tradition: Variations on the Hawaiian Identity, American Ethnologist 10:211-252. Marsden, Maori 1975 God, Man and Universe: A Maori View. In Te Ao Hurihuri. The World Moves On— Aspects of Maoritanga. Michael King. ed. Pp. 191-219. Wellington: Hicks Smith and Sons. Mead. Sidney (llirini) Moko 1983 Te Toi Malauranga Maori mo nga K.t Kei Mua: Maori Studies Tomorrow. Journal of the Polynesian Society 92:333-351- 1981a Nga Timunga me nga Paringa o te M.ina Maori: The Lhh and plow of Mana Maori and the Changing Context of Maori Art. In Te Maori: Maori Art front New Zealand Collections. Pp. 20-36. New York: Harry N. Ahrams. 1981b |ed.| Tc Maori: Maori Art Irom New Zealand Collections New York: Harry N. Abrams. 1986 Magnificent Te Maori: Te Maori Whakahirahila. Auckland. Hrmeniami. Mclgc.Joan 1967 The Maoris ol New Zealand. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. 1976 The Maoris ol New Zealand, Kaulahi. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul O'Biso, Carol 1987 First Light. Auckland. Pan Books. Ranger, Terence 1983 The Invention ol Tradition in Central Alma In The Invention of Tradition. Erie Hobs-bawin and Terence Ranger, eds. Pp. 211-2IÍ2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rangrhau, John 1975 Being Maori. In Te Ao Hurihuri: Ihr World Moves On —Aspens of Maoritanga. Michael King, ed. Pp. 221-233, Wellington: Hicks Smith and Sons Renan, Ernest 1889 HistoiredupeupledTsrael, Vol I. Paris: C.ilmaiui Lov Said, Edward 1978 Orientalism New York: Pantheon Salmond, Anne 1982 Theoretical Landscapes: On Cros.s-Ciiltur.il Conceptions of Knowledge. In Semantic Anthropology David Parkin, ed Pp bi 87. AS A. Monograph 22. London Academic Press ItptHft 101. I I'.IHJ Tili- Sunk of Traditional M.ii.n Soclclv: Th.- State iiľlhr Arl Journal ,.l ,l„. [>(,|ynr ^ Society W 3()'J-33I 1981 Ka Pu if Ruh... la Mao !<■ Kainjalalu As ltu- Old i\rl Pilrs up on Slu.ri-. ,l„- ,\yw Sfi Go« Fishinfi /» IV M->«ri: M non A« fron, Nr» Zealand Collcclious Sidney M M„j ,., Pp. 156-Ihn. New Vork Harry \. Ahranis Simmons, O. R flAMiiNA. Roiiak(.-iii;k UJoiitó íto" í'/ihw,/v mmons, tí. K 197b Ihr Grcal New Zealand Myih: A Siucly of ihr Discovery and Origin Traditions ol die Maori. iVclliiKJion Reed Sinclair. Oouvrlas 197.5 Land: Maori Viru- and European Response. In TV Ao Hurihuri: T he World Moves On . Aspects ill Maoruanrra Michael Kini;. «I. Pp I I J-H9. Wellington Hicks Smith and Smi •Smith. S, Peres 1910 llisiors and Traditions of ihr Maoris nfllir West C:oasl. North Island. Nrw Zealand. \r» Plymouth. S'Z: Polynesian .Sutiny Memoirs, Vol I 1913 The l.ure of the U'h.irc-w.inanil.i. Part I: TV Kauv.ae-1 unira New Plymoulh. S/ Thomas Avcri 1915 The Lore ol Ihr U liarc-uanainia. Pari .' I e kaiiwac-raro. ;\'e» Plvnmulh. NZ: The tut Avery, Smithvinan. Keiulrick 19/9 Making Misiím John While and S Prrcv Smith at Work Journal ol the Polynesian Í&-ciriy «8-375—11 I ' Sorrrnson. M. P. K, 1979 Maori Origins and Migrations TV Genesis ol Some Pakrh.i Myllii and Legends. Aucl., land. Auckland Univclsily Press Stirling, Eruera. Ami Anni- S.llmond 1980 Ľruerj: T he Teachings ol a Maori Elder. Wellington Oxford limcrsily Press. Sullivan. Atones 1981 \'ga P.naka o le Maoritanga Tin- Roots ol Maori Culture In T e Maori: Maori Art It*! Nrw Zealand Collections Sidiirs M Mr.ul.nl Pp 37-li-' New Vor k liany N Ahr.inu < Thomson, Arthur S 1859 Thr Story ol Ne« Zealand. > vols London: John Murray Trrgear, Ldw.ml [ "' 1(185 The Aiv.m Maoii iVrlhliglnn Cincruniciil Plinlel „ ', Wagner, Roy 1981 The Invention ol Culture Chirano- University ol Chirac» Press , Wimata. Mali.ir.ua 1967 TV Chain-nil,' RolcnlThc Leader in Maori Socu-iv: A Siudy in Social Changr and Rait Relalions Auckland Hl.irUood andJanet Paul Primitive Warfare and the Ratomorphic Image of Mankind The most influential current explanations of preinduslrial violence and warfare see il as deter-allied by factors and farce! entirely external to human beings and their motives and purposes. This allele critically examines the most prominent oj these approaches—behavionstic. wciobiological, cud ecological-functional—and some of the assumptions underlying them. Then, drauini; on eth-meraphic data from a society known for its peacejulncss—the Sernai Senat—the article offers an alternative conception of action, one that news human behavior, including warfare and nonvto-1/ate, as purposive, and that sees human beiniri as active decision makers picking their ways ihrvu^hßelds of options and constraints in pursuit oj individually and culturally defined gout i in '^culturally constituted reality which they themselves are actively constructing. IP, The Ghost M Tffr. Maciiixi:. Arthur Kocstlcr's lively attack on stimulus-response psychology, he characterized behaviorism as an approach thai began In culling the h&tU oiT human beings, denying any relevance—indeed any reality—io human con--. KfOU5nt5s. When behaviorism dealt with human beings, (hey wer«* biological machines, "* j J larger than, but not fundamentally diilcient limn, laboratory rats and. like them, were t t í Kín (o be wholly animated by responses to externally derived stimuli, a conception ," \ Kxsilcr labeled "the ratomorphic view of man" (Koestler l%7:1 7) While that panu -S,.r* '■"C*t uJwlullle has been won and beha v imisní mm- Ins moribund, r.t tonu uph ism is alive and **- f£. -r^-wtU, flourishing in a variety of approaches that continue lopping oil' human heads by ' '"Y I1'denying relevance, if not reality, to human consciousness, values, purposes, and inten-liuns, and seeing human actions as determined by Ibices entirely external to human ji' .j tritia and human goals. This view is nowhere more apparent than in current theories of ' * »vS hwndn violence and warfare. This article critically examines some of the most prominent "' - frtiu-sc theories and some of their underlying assumptions, and oilers an alternative con-* * v Ccplwii, one which insists that we take people .seriously, not only as biological beings in ^ťrologual contexts, but also as human beings in sodocultural contexts, deriving their hu-+ a*tut> Írom the systems of meanings, of values and beliefs, ofsymhols and significations, * *l ' ^'tnijiiy anthropologists call "culture." í "J 4 Mueh of the current controversy surrounding attempts to explain and understand the ^ ^ ^Lcnonicna of human violence and war has its roots in these two differuu,' conceptions of f\ - ^ na[urc of human beings and, thereby, of the nature of explanations o/ human behav- * ,. ^.On the one hand is a deterministic conception of human brings as primarily reactive, J < *»«ponding (o forces emanating from the environment, either directly and mechanically " I • '*■?-> lhi frustration-aggression hypothesis), or with the response mediated bv cultural i **wuuofi (e.g., the ecological-functional "(echno-environincntal determinism" of Harris *0(i others), or mediated by biological evolution (e.g.. etiological, snciobioiogical, and • *1QKpsychoanalytic approaches).1 « On ihr other hand is a perspective that takes human activity ior granted, viewing peo-i P»cnoi as passive machines pushed this way and that by ecological, biological, sociolog- GO -v3 <". i ■nan Romsditki AilUltlnl ľ'0/tfsiii, [Irparlinent oj Inltlrofinli^i H utilltí Slalt ť» . llnfiU'i. A\SV;7:'ítf á "X mi . í; i* íl: •áh', tňtíe c Ú ' f* w f g Ufs* '\m \%\ 87