John Porter: Te Ao Maori Is Not How NZ Should Be Governed

Maori oral history narrates how Maori voyaged to Antarctica as early as the 7th century.

Today I’m having a bit of a rant about how Maori researchers believe that their ancestors may have been the first to discover the Earth’s southernmost continent, Antarctica, and how our MSM [mainstream media] fell for the story hook, line, and sinker.

Thus MSM proved themselves to be nothing but propaganda peddlers for the Government. Not a word of criticism did the MSM utter and nor did they attempt to seek out scientist-critics of this unbelievable myth.

Because there were actually credible declaimers and they were Maori!

Back in 2021, a study by New Zealand researchers found that back in the seventh century, Polynesians may have been the first to discover Antarctica.

“We didn’t discover this, it’s a known narrative,” Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research lead researcher Dr Priscilla Wehi stated.

The first confirmed sighting of the continent was actually in January 1820, by a Russian expedition. But the researchers believe Polynesians were the real discoverers of Antarctica and that the Polynesian discovery preceded the “Western” one by over a thousand years!

But how did the researchers know this? With no written language to recount this momentous voyage, they only had an oral legend about a southern voyage.

Voyaging south is not the same as discovering Antarctica.

To discover Antarctica, you have to either see the continent or land on it. But the researchers offer no evidence to support that premise. Maori didn’t arrive in New Zealand until around 1300 AD.

Further stating that it’s “…not news to the Maori. It comes as no shock to some iwi as this had always been known, but methods of recounting indigenous history do not receive the same recognition as western or academic literature.”

Why do the words “Maori oral history” bring to mind a game in which a message is distorted by being passed around in a whisper: Chinese Whispers?

That “oral history” can be so strongly defended as absolute fact sits alongside the wide recognition that is now being attributed to matauranga Maori, or Maori “ways of knowing” and Tikanga Maori.

Matauranga Maori could be construed as a fragmented body of traditional knowledge held by Maori. It’s largely practical knowledge about things like how to fish or harvest plants. It is simply a way of knowing.

Along with many international newspapers, the New York Times had picked up this amazing Antarctica fable and commented, “The authors hope to apply to Antarctica the Maori principle of kaitiakitanga, the concept of guardianship and stewardship of the environment. Their suggestions include getting more Indigenous voices in Antarctic governance and granting Antarctica legal personhood.”

So right there is the very clear signpost of what the goal of this Maori research group really is: getting more Indigenous voices in Antarctic governance and granting Antarctica legal personhood.

It will be to mirror the surge in te ao maori or The Maori Worldview as this is how Ardern’s clan of miscreants and incompetents desire to see NZ governed.

But not only is some spurious fable being used to “get a foot in the door” of Antarctic governance getting up my nose, but more importantly, it’s also how our MSM ignored senior Maori who very strongly refuted the claims of this research group!

But in reality, I shouldn’t get frustrated because we all know how the Public Interest Journalism Fund has completely suborned our MSM which has allowed itself to become government’s “fawning” propaganda arm.

These days it is not often you hear Maori academics criticising other Maori academics.

Dr Michael Stevens, Emeritus Professor Atholl Anderson, and Professor Te Maire Tau on behalf of Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu did denounce, most vehemently, the Antarctic “absurdity”.

The Ngai Tahu scholars then took direct aim at Wehi and her co-authors:

…this article advanced several spurious claims. Chief amongst them was that Polynesian explorers, beginning with a navigator named Hui te Rangiora, journeyed from Rarotonga into Antarctic waters ‘and perhaps even the continent likely in the early seventh century.’

Evidence? Their own inferences drawn from 1890s English translations by Percy Smith of Rarotongan narratives recorded in the 1860s. As we noted, with characteristic restraint, the authors presented this “traditional” material without nuance, qualification or critique, and based extraordinary claims upon it without commensurable evidence.

For example, how the extreme practical difficulties of sailing a Polynesian waka to and through subpolar westerlies might have been overcome.

They also stated:

First, apply scholarly standards to Maori tradition and history which ‘is, at root, the only weapon we have with which to defend the integrity of the Maori memory.’ Second, while it is a ‘difficult task … to prevent rubbish from being published,’ when it occurs ‘it behoves the academic community and the tribes to denounce it very clearly as such, and if possible, to prevent its ongoing dissemination.’

The authors concluded with, “In summary, we think the Hui te Rangiora narrative is more mythic or legendary as an origin story, than historical as a voyaging narrative”.

MSM are all too ready to promote Ardern’s agenda of co-governance and give credence to the wonderfulness of all things Maori.

MSM need to reflect on whether they are New Zealanders or sycophants to an ideologically driven and obsessed government bent on destroying our democracy, our country and our way of life.

Matauranga maori, tikanga maori, kaitiakitanga and te ao maori may be how Ardern sees NZ being governed, but it is definitely not the view of mainstream New Zealand.

Te ao maori may have a place in our society but it is definitely not the basis of how New Zealand is to be governed!

John Porter is a citizen, deeply concerned about the loss of democracy and the insidious promotion of separatism by our current government. This article was first published HERE