Week 21

ARGUMENT 1

PASSAGE FROM http://www.1421.tv/extract.htm

"For the past fifty years debate has raged over where the Maori came from. Some say China (Taiwan), others Indonesia. Events have recently taken a startling turn. Adele White, for the ABC television programme Catalyst (broadcast on 27 March 2003), used mitochondrial (female line) DNA to trace Maori origins back as far as mainland Asia. But where in mainland Asia? The answer came from a surprising quarter - by looking at the gene for alcohol. Adele`s supervisor, Dr. Geoff Chambers, found a match between one of the variant genes for alcohol with people from Taiwan, so it seemed the original homeland of the Maori people was Taiwan. Or was it? When Dr. Chambers` team studied the Y (male) chromosome, they found a different story. While the females came from China, most of the men came from Melanesia.

What might have happened is that a small number of Melanesians settled in New Zealand about two thousand years ago; it was they who brought the rats whose bones have been carbon dated. Zhou Man`s fleet arrived from the Antarctic (Campbell Island) in 1422/23. They landed in substantial numbers in South Island and some ships were wrecked on North Island (Ruapuke Beach). The fleets carried Chinese Tanka concubines. The Melanesians murdered the Chinese men and took the concubines as their wives. If this was the case, evidence of the Chinese visit to South Island should be there. Thanks to Cedric Bell, to whom I am indebted, that evidence has been found. We have carbon dating of wood, mortar, stone and slag as evidence that the Chinese lived on South Island and mined her minerals for five centuries before Captain Cook `discovered` New Zealand."

ARGUMENT 2

PASSAGE FROM http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/Maori.html

"According to Maori myth, not only did the Maori people come from Hawaiki, but human life was created on Hawaiki. These two myths were created by the Maoris to explain the origin of man. The first myth tells the story of how the first "human being" was made by Tiki, a man himself, from the soil of Hawaiki. Tiki made the first man look like himself and breathed into it in order to give it life. This event is re-enacted every time a child grows in a woman's womb, so according to myth, each Maori comes from Hawaiki. The second myth is the myth of Tura, who has a special role in the initiation of childbirth. Tura teaches the people of Hawaiki how to use fire and sets in motion the birth cycle, thus establishing the human biological cycle and the customs relating to birth. In these two myths, Hawaiki is the source of human life. The illustration in these myths of how human life has been spawned on Hawaiki shows how valuable the myths of Hawaiki are to Maori cultural traditions."

PASSAGE FROM http://www.maori.info/maori_history.htm

Many believe that it was this revered cultural centre that was 'Hawaiki', a place much venerated in tradition as the 'homeland' of the Maori people, for it is plain that Maori culture derives from East Polynesia.
The concept of 'Hawaiki', of a 'homeland' from which the forbears of each migratory group had come, is found throughout Polynesia and is applied to differing areas both within and without the region. It may simply have been a general way of describing the area from which the last movement had been made in the course of the settlement of the island groups throughout Polynesia.
To some Maori tribes 'Hawaiki' is a reference to the Cook Islands, possibly because their ancestors came to New Zealand from the Society Islands by way of the Cook group. Maori in the Chatham Islands have even referred to the South Island of New Zealand in this way.
It was on the base of Polynesian culture that the intricacies of Maori culture were structured. Indeed, throughout Polynesia there are common elements in language, legend and place names.

MY OPINION

In my opinion, the first argument is the strongest. This is largely due to the facts, opinions and theories have been backed up by strong scientific evidence, particuarly the information about DNA and chromosomes that scientists have actually researched, and then have been able to write about their findings, tracing this DNA back to Melanesia. This to me is a much stronger argument than a Maori myth or legend. There is no scientific or researched evidence that backs up the second argument, and I think this is where it falls down. The first argument is also much more realistic and believable, as apposed to making man out of soil as proposed in argument 2. For me to be able to believe something, I have to be able to read sensible, researched information to the point of being almost proven, and certainly the stories and tales that the maoris talk about in their argument does not fit into this category.