The Maori: A Study in Resistive Acculturation

Catastrophically defeated a century ago by lBritish colonists, the New Zealand Maori withdrew into isolated villages and thereby resisted acculturation. Although culture contact has increased markedly since World War II, Maori adolescents are currently handicapped in implementing their academic and vocational aspirations because their elders still cling to traditional nonachievement values. M ODERN Maori culture offers many opportunities for the investigation of various theoretical problems in acculturation. It is an excellent example of resistive acculturation, in which a vigorous Polynesian people * The ethnographic and psychological data on which this paper is based were collected by the writer from September 1957 to August 1958 in two North Island communities of New Zealand, one urban and one rural. In each setting, the educational and vocational aspirations of fifty Maori and fifty matched pakehia (European) secondary school boys, and the kinds of motivations underlying these aspirations, were intensively studied by means of structured interviews and specially selected objective and projective tests. The methods of informal interview and participant observation were used to relate obtained Maori-pakeha differences in aspirational and motivational traits to cultural and interpersonal determinants in the wider social community. The field work was made possible by a Fulbright research grant and by a grant from the University Research Board of the University of Illinois. Preparation of the field data for publication was aided by a grant from the Bureau of Educational Research of the University of Illinois. Thanks are due Pearl Ausubel and Robert M. Tomlinson for statistical assistance in the processing of the data. The complete report, Maori Youth: A Study in Psychological Acculturation, is being published by the Department of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, under whose auspices the study was conducted. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.181 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 06:07:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms RESISTIVE ACCULTURATION 219 were disastrously defeated but not annihilated by European (British) colonists, withdrew in reservation-like areas from effective contact with Europeans, practiced an attenuated version of their traditional culture for seventy years, and finally, about one generation ago, emerged from this withdrawal to enter the mainstream of a modern European culture. The historical parallelism with many American Indian cultures is striking, except for the fact that the Maori have emerged from withdrawal on a more permanent basis and on a much larger scale than any comparable American Indian group, and are participating in New Zealand national life in a much more complete and intimate fashion than is typical of the Indian in modern American culture. Through what mechanisms was it possible to maintain relatively intact during the period of withdrawal many of the basic cultural values and features of the traditional Maori social system? What factors led eventually to the gradual breakdown of Maori village life and its associated patterns of social organization? What effects has the sudden entrance of the Maori into New Zealand national life had on intercultural and interracial relations, on Maori youth, and on relationships between the latter and their elders? What are the foreseeable consequences of this increased intercultural contact within the next few decades? And, most important of all, how and through what mechanisms of cultural transmission has this changing sequence of resistive acculturation altered traditional patterns of striving, status, and achievement in Maori society? INITIAL MAORI-PAKEHA CONTACT AND CONFLICT The initial stage of Maori-pakeha interaction, following the rediscovery of New Zealand in 1769 by Captain Cook, was characterized by the exchange of a limited number of specialized goods and services without any fundamental changes in Maori social or economic organization.' The Maori were intensely eager to acquire all of the benefits of European technology without surrendering their social institutions, core values, or distinctive way of life. As intercultural contact became more highly regularized, the Maori quickly adopted European clothing, implements, agricultural commodities and technical processes, and even constructed timber mills and acquired coastal vessels to transport their produce to distant markets. They produced surpluses for barter and profit, and learned both the use of money as a medium of exchange and the technique of driving a hard bargain. The introduction of musket, ball and powder intensified the frequency and destructiveness of intertribal warfare and led to the large-scale migration and displacement of many tribes from their traditional lands. Newly introduced European diseases had no less deadly an impact on the Maori population. Later, as the influence of the missionaries grew and as British sovereignty was established, the institutions of intertribal warfare, cannibalism, slavery and polygamy were proscribed. Despite these far-reaching effects on Maori culture, however, goods were still produced by ordinary native methods, and the organization of activity was carried out on the usual lines. The family or hapt2 worked under the leadership of their head man, the toiunga or priestly expert had his place to fill, ... . among themselves the former Maori system of exchange and distribution of goods, of ownership and acquisition of property remained practically unaffected.3 The beginning of permanent colonization 'in 1840 inaugurated a new phase of Maori acculturation. Colonization represented a serious threat to the cultural autonomy of the Maori and to the integrity of their social and economic institutions. An element of coercion was added to their previously voluntary acceptance of certain selected aspects of pakeha culture. In acceding to colonization and British sovereignty,'and in placing their trust in treaty guarantees the Maori failed to reckon realistically with the predatory designs of the colonists who were determined by any means, fair or foul, to obtain the most desirable land in New Zealand and to establish the supremacy of their own economic and political system. When the Maori responded to coercive and illegal alienation of their tribal lands by refusing in organized fashion to part with any more of their landed estate, the colonists finally resorted to force of arms and confiscation; and after a dozen years of both largescale and guerrilla warfare (1860-1872), involving on one side or the other most of the major tribes of the North Island, they eventually gained their ends. 1 Raymond Firth, Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori, (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1929), pp. 449-456. 2 A Maori subtribe, i.e., a group of extended families, each tracing descent to a common ancestor. On the same basis several hapu constitute a tribe, the largest unit in Maori political organization. 3 Firth, op. cit., p. 455. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.181 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 06:07:48 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms