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1. Native Peoples: Aborigine
& Maori
Outline of Lecture
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Introduction
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After easing into the topic with some selections of
aboriginal music, we lay groundwork by defining terms, including some
charged ones such as “native,” “immigrant,” and “pakeha.”
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Origins &
the Land
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The subject of aboriginal relationships with nature and
the land is complicated by recent scholarship treating the impact of
indigenous peoples on what previously was considered a “natural” landscape.
It turns out that Aborigines were active managers of the land, as well as
adapters to it. They also possessed complex, diverse, and durable cultures.
Maori were not nearly as ancient in New
Zealand as Aborigines in Australia, but they likewise
had a terrific impact on the land. Although we may be tempted to think of
Aborigine and Maori as essentially similar under the rubric of indigenous
peoples, this would be a mistake. Comparison and contrast show profound
differences between the two groups of cultures.
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Contact &
Conflict
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Likewise, aboriginal cultures exhibited deep differences
from European explorers and colonizers. Nevertheless, on the pastoral
frontier there was a synthesis of cultures with the induction of Aborigine
labor into the cattle business. Maori synthesis of European culture
commenced almost immediately on contact, with sometimes disastrous results.
In recent years historians have reinterpreted the history of
native-European contact and conflict, with strong implications for how we
view these subjects in Australia
and New Zealand.
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Race
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Common images depict Australia
as a land with horrible race relations, New Zealand as a country with
enlightened ones. The images can be misleading; both nations exhibit common
themes of native-white relations, such as assimilation as a form of
cultural genocide. In both nations, too, recent years have seen assertive
moves toward native self-determination.
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