Adventures in Culture Part I
Being here has definitely been informative. We came thinking that there would be a great many more Maori and a lot fewer "others". Boy were we wrong. After taking a day with a good friend, Joe Reihana, a Maori, we came to a lot of conclusions. One of them unfortunately was that colonization here has been as hard on the Maori as it was on the Native American. In fact, there are a great many similarities. Both of them had their land overtaken by foreigners and both are fighting to get some of their rights returned.
The Maori are very fascinating people. They have many wonderful traditions that we could learn from. They are very loyal to family ties going back hundreds of years. They allow access to their Marais (kind of a holy area) only by invitation and they are not reluctant to tell you if your interest is not wanted. Their traditional greeting is nose to nose, forehead to forehead. Our first traditional greeting was with a drunk woman but their have been many more since. They are very open and friendly until you give them reason to stop trusting you.
Joe took us to his Marai which is about 8 miles from where we live. The Maori are much fewer in the South Island but all of them know to which family they belong. The "tribes" were determined by the canoe on which they arrived in New Zealand. Ken wanted a Maori Toko Toko or walking stick and asked about it. He was told it would be better for him to go to a tourist shop and buy one because you have to "earn" one otherwise. He told Joe he would rather earn his. That is part of what warranted our trip to the Marai.
They remind me a great deal of Native Americans. Their stories are very parallel. They come to a beautiful land and make a home for a very long time. Then, other people begin moving in and taking away all that they have cared for and learned to love. They were basically assigned certain "assets", most of which was swamp land. Now they are fighting to get what is theirs returned in some measure. They have been looked down on in this young land even though they are basically a very sweet and handsome people.
The family we are helping teach are Maori. The father has been in some trouble in life and he was explaining to us how he tried to "scrub off his color" because people called him the "n" word and other bad names because of it. He said he hated being Maori so he scrubbed and scrubbed but it would not come off. It made me very sad. He is a very nice young man and is trying hard to be responsible and take care of his family. No one should ever feel like they have to scrub away who they are with soap or any other way. I'm so glad he is becoming comfortable with his inheritance now. Too bad we choose to inflict so much pain on people just because they are different from us!
Next time I'll address another element of society here.
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