In February of 1840, 512 Maori chiefs and the British Crown, represented by William Hobson, signed a treaty and formally ushered in the era of the Pakeha into New Zealand history. Even today this Treaty of Waitangi, as it is known, remains the foundation of Maori-Pakeha relations. It is also the root of Maori-Pakeha tensions. The story begins with the fact that the document was, of course, drafted in two languages ( two languages, two cultures, two peoples. For some Pakeha, it is merely a matter of semantics, but for the Maori, the wording is illustrative of all the injustices that have been dealt to their people at the hands of these European settlers. Either way, the Treaty of Waitangi is amazingly symbolic of the distance between the Maori and the Pakeha as there was in the beginning, and as there is now. This paper, then, is an attempt to understand the development ,the achievements, and the controversies of Maori ethnic mobilization as they pertain to the Treaty of Waitangi and the disparity, real or imagined, that exists between the Maori and the Pakeha.
The British version of the Treaty granted the Maori the rights of citizenship and obliged the Crown to protect the Maori "in the exercise of their government over their lands, villages, and treasures." These parts are made clear in both languages. In the first Article of the Treaty, however, it was written that the Maori were, in exchange for these services, to:
cede to Her Majesty the Queen of England absolutely and without reservation all the rights and powers of Sovereignty which the said Confederation or Individual Chiefs respectively exercise or possess, or may be supposed to exercise or posses over their respective Territories as the sole Sovereigns thereof.
The Maori chiefs, on the other hand, had signed a document which translated: The Chiefs of the Confederation and all the Chiefs not in that confederation cede without reservation to the Queen of England forever the Governorship of all their lands.
The discrepancy lies in the use of the word kawanatanga instead of mana in the Maori version, when governorship is the translation and sovereignty is intended meaning in the English version. It is clear from an earlier work that the translator was aware that the term for sovereignty in the Maori language is mana. It is here, then, that the nature of British intentions is first cast in doubt. According to Walker,
Ceding governorship is not the same as ceding sovereignty. A governor is merely a satrap who rules on behalf of the sovereign. Furthermore, there were no governors in New Zealand as a referent by which the chiefs would have more readily understood the term. Their understanding of kawanatanga would be understood as a benign term not even remotely connected with the basic question of sovereignty. But if sovereignty had been translated as mana whenua, �sovereignty over land', then the chiefs would have had no doubt as to its meaning. It is highly probable that they would not have signed the Treaty.
The controversy continues in the second article where the English version guaranteed the chiefs and tribes of New Zealand, families and individuals:
the full exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties which they may collectively or individually possess...
The Maori version, on the other hand, fails to specify those properties which, under treaty, would remain in Maori hands. Instead, the translation explains that the chiefs and tribes, families and individuals would maintain:
the full chieftainship of their lands their homes and all their treasures things.
From the first Article, the Maori chiefs were led to believe that they were to hold on to their sovereignty, that "The shadow of the land will pass to Queen Victoria, but the substance remains to us." The use of the word rangatiratanga, which translates into chieftainship, in the second Article only serves to prolong that illusion.
Taken together, these two seemingly minor linguistic discrepancies have become two of the most controversial and complicated points in Maori-Pakeha relations. Nevertheless, it cannot be fairly said that the British were intentionally tilting the scales in their favor when they wrote the treaty, even though that was the result. The Treaty was signed before any large influx of settlers arrived, as it was born out of a desire to shelter the Maori from the inevitable plagues of future European immigration. It offered far more along the lines of rights and protection than any other treaty the British had signed, even going so far as to guarantee citizenship, and it allowed for Maori self-government as well. Therefore, as history will show, it is probably safe to assume that the British were resigned to the reality that the Treaty would go the way of so many other indigenous treaties, and certainly that they never intended it to take on the far-reaching implications that it has today. Indeed, even though the language of the Treaty is the basis from which many Maori protests arise today, it is still only the basis. The Treaty of Waitangi promises a number of rights to the Maori, and most of them the Maori feel have never been satisfied.
