The question of sovereignty
Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ9LJfM4PjM
"Words like mana were absolutely and utterly central to understanding, Māori understandings, that they were recognised in 1835 of having independence, chiefly mana, over these islands."
Speakers
Prof Mānuka Hēnare, Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias, Prof Michael Belgrave, Dr Donald Brash, Dr Cybèle Locke and Haami Piripi.
Transcript
Prof Mānuka Hēnare: And most of us were born, raised, that we ceded sovereignty, our leaders ceded sovereignty forever and then I think as the Māori history started coming out, then a lot of us had to change our minds, even though our instincts said, that doesn't make sense, but we had no basis for saying it other than I can't imagine our tupuna doing it.
Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias: The use of the word mana in the Declaration of Independence makes it quite clear that mana was not ceded in the Treaty of Waitangi and that the use of the word kawanatanga was absolutely deliberate.
Prof Michael Belgrave: There is a long-standing interpretation of the Treaty that is around, that says that Henry Williams went into the treaty negotiations and deceived Māori.
Dr Donald Brash: I suspect a deliberate obfuscation actually. We know what the English said from which the Māori translation was taken.
Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias: Some of the suggestions that Māori were duped by the Treaty of Waitangi are not correct, I do think that it was debated up and down the country.
Dr Cybèle Locke: Words like mana were absolutely and utterly central to understanding, Māori understandings, that they were recognised in 1835 of having independence, chiefly mana, over these islands.
Haami Piripi: It is true that we ceded aspects of our life, aspects of our authority but in our, from our, view we can find no documentation, oral or written or otherwise, that we ever ceded our sovereignty.
Dr Donald Brash: It's clear from the speeches they made prior to signing the Treaty, they understood that they were being asked to cede some kind of superior governance to Queen Victoria. The word sovereignty might not have been understood fully but they were clearly aware of the fact that if they signed that Treaty, the Queen would in some sense be above them.
Prof Michael Belgrave: He, in effect, designed a Treaty which conned Māori into believing that their sovereignty was actually protected when in fact it was being transferred to the British government.
Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias: For myself, I have always thought the translation arguments to be, a little bit of a dead end in the sense that it can't be disputed that the Treaty is actually the Māori text of the Treaty.
Haami Piripi: We signed a Māori version, it was the only version that was debated and discussed and the Māori version tells us clearly, linked to the Declaration of Independence, that we did not, could not, would not have, have ceded our sovereignty. Why would you cede your sovereignty to a motley bunch of 2000 Europeans who were living here at the time.
Dr Cybèle Locke: Māori never ceded sovereignty. If the word mana had been used instead to translate the English version which was very definitely about ceding sovereignty to the British crown, then no chief would have signed.
Prof Mānuka Hēnare: So we've been able to now look at it fairly rationally and, and look at the reactions say from 1831, 1834, 1835, 1840 and then after that in 1847, 1850s, you will find all the Māori leaders, the next generations afterwards, all singing the same song. We did not cede sovereignty, you took it.
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