Dame Anne Salmond on the huge challenge that lies ahead in changing the basis of how we teach Aotearoa New Zealand histories in schools
In the draft curriculum for Aotearoa New Zealand’s histories in schools, recently released for public discussion, it's said the curriculum will be grounded on whakapapa and whanaungatanga – “our familial links and bonds, our networks and connections”.
This is not a new idea. Almost a century ago, in 1927, Sir Apirana Ngata, a great statesman and scholar, delivered a lecture to the Historical Association in Wellington in which he argued passionately that historians should use the ‘genealogical method’ to explore the ancestral past in New Zealand, and to take whakapapa seriously as a way of thinking as well as evidence of past relationships and events.
In whakapapa, the world is seen as a vast kin network, in which all forms of life are related. From a first surge of energy, the winds of growth and life blow through the cosmos, until eventually earth and sky emerge, followed by the ancestors of plants, animals and people.
Ancestors remain active in the world, and in touch with their descendants. The ways in which they are talked about affect the mana of their uri (offspring), in successive generations.
Accounts of New Zealand history that ignore Māori agency and sources, present ancestors as ‘ignoble’ caricatures of themselves and elevate European legacies while glossing over past injustices, attack mana Māori, and are rightly resented.
Such ‘black and white’ histories, with their villains and heroes, owe more to ‘either/or’ binary logic than they do to whakapapa; and their relationship with evidence is often loose, even non-existent. In recent times, it is sobering to see how the dynamics of social media fuel this kind of divisive story-telling, driving people into increasingly polarised ‘echo chambers’ – about the past, as well as other topics.
Lines are drawn in the sand, as people with entangled whakapapa are forced into either-or choices. The notion of ‘taha’ – different ‘sides’ in ancestral legacies that one can align with or activate on different occasions - is obscured. Different groups are pushed further apart in the ‘culture wars,’ as people hurl insults at each other from virtual bunkers, and eventually, in reality, with fatal consequences.
In recent times we’ve seen how this kind of extreme polarisation plays out - in the United States, with the attack on the Capitol; in New Zealand, with the Christchurch mosque killings; and in many other parts of the world.
As Ngata suggested, rebalancing our understanding of New Zealand’s history through whakapapa can be useful. In whakapapa, earth and sky are ancestors, and plants and animals are kin, to be treated with respect. Human beings arrive late in the story, and appear in the order they land on our shores.
Thus the human histories of Aotearoa New Zealand begin with the arrival of the first Polynesian voyagers, followed by different kin groups who explored and settled these islands – as in the new draft curriculum. After that, explorers, sealers, whalers and settlers from Europe and elsewhere enter the networks through trade, battles and alliances, and by marriage, as the descent lines tangle together.
This is not a binary story of Māori vs Pākehā, but of complex relationships that often transcend those lines, even in the New Zealand Wars and elsewhere. Whakapapa allows for entangled histories and multiple perspectives, in accounts that are rigorously tested against the mātauranga of others.
A key challenge in introducing Aotearoa New Zealand histories in schools, then, is to echo its expansive, kin-based approach to the past; and to find ways of addressing past injustices that arouse empathy, rather than hostility or denial; and a determination to do better.
It is also a challenge for those who talk about the past in the media and social media, especially those who delight in hurling insults at the ancestors of others. It's salutary to see how talk of ‘cannibal ancestors’ can incite talk of ‘cooking the Captain’ or ‘licking the back of the Queen’s head’ on a postage stamp. It's a dangerous game.
In framing accounts of the past, as literary scholar Geoffrey Harpham argues:
We confront not just our ancestors but also our own capacity for determining who our ancestors were, and thus for determining who we are and might become. This capacity should be treated like fire, with great respect for its power to create and to destroy.
From this vantage point, the ways in which we treat ancestors in the past prefigures the ways we will treat their descendants in the present. For positive, creative relationships among different groups in Aotearoa New Zealand, it's important that our children gain mutual respect and understanding from accounts of the past, and a capacity for critical judgment – even wisdom.
This is a huge responsibility for everyone involved in this exercise, from the politicians who initiated it to Ministry of Education staff and its advisors, and those who will teach Aotearoa New Zealand histories in schools.
