Backbencher

The first lecture dealt mainly with the “native” peoples of Australia and New Zealand. The Aborigines believe they originated on Australia while the Maori remember coming to New Zealand. The Aborigines had a low population density and over 200 spoken languages when the Europeans arrived. The Maori, however, had a high population density and on language. These facts made their interactions with the Europeans very different. The Aborigines were very isolated and resistant to change. Because of this, Europeans didn’t understand them and suppressed them. The Maori on the other hand were a synthetic people and adapted easily. They integrated pieces of European life into their own so the Europeans understood them more easily. Also, one language allowed them to put up a fierce resistance which allowed them to keep their way of life.

I thought it was very interesting how a culture’s ability to adapt to outsiders can have such a profound affect on their own culture’s survival. The Aborigines and even many of the Native Americans in North America resisted change. As a result, the Europeans did everything possible to wipe out their way of life, including kidnapping children. The Maori, on the other hand, adapted and integrated parts of European culture into their own culture and used this to “defeat” The European and somewhat preserve their own culture. As Dr. Isern said, their ability to adapt allowed them to never put down their arms and stop fighting to keep their culture.

One thing that intrigued me was the Australian’s thoughts about the Aboriginal fighting. The Europeans didn’t think that the Aborigines resisted at all even though the Aborigines destroyed wagon trains. That took me by surprise.