Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across WorldsSix centuries ago Polynesian explorers, who inhabited a cosmos in which islands sailed across the sea and stars across the sky, arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand where they rapidly adapted to new plants, animals, landscapes and climatic conditions. Four centuries later, European explorers arrived with maps and clocks, grids and fences, and they too adapted to a new island home. In this remote, beautiful archipelago, settlers from Polynesia and Europe (and elsewhere) have clashed and forged alliances, they have fiercely debated what is real and what is common sense, what is good and what is right. In this, her most ambitious book to date, Dame Anne Salmond looks at New Zealand as a site of cosmo-diversity, a place where multiple worlds engage and collide. Beginning with a fine-grained inquiry into the early period of encounters between Maori and Europeans in New Zealand (1769–1840), Salmond then investigates such clashes and exchanges in key areas of contemporary life – waterways, land, the sea and people. We live in a world of gridded maps, Outlook calendars and balance sheets – making it seem that this is the nature of reality itself. But in New Zealand, concepts of whakapapa and hau, complex networks and reciprocal exchange, may point to new ways of understanding interactions between peoples, and between people and the natural world. Like our ancestors, Anne Salmond suggests, we too may have a chance to experiment across worlds. |
Contents
Hongi Hika and Thomas Kendall | |
How Dye Do Mr King Shunghee? | |
Decline and Fall | |
The Spring of the World | |
Our Words Will Sink like a Stone | |
Like a Bird on a Sandbank Whenua Land | |
Fountain of Fish Moana | |
Once were Warriors Tangata People | |
Voyaging Stars | |
Notes | |
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Alexander Turnbull Library ancestral Anne Salmond ariki arrived atua Auckland Bay of Islands British Busby Butler canoe Captain carved chiefs Church Missionary Society Cook Cook’s Crown Elder Endeavour England English Eruera European exchanges fighting fishing Fitzgerald gifts Governor Hawaiki Heke Henry Williams HLMS Hobson Hokianga Hongi Hika Ibid ideas instance Journal Kendall to Pratt Kendall’s Kerikeri killed kin groups King land living London Maori Māori language marae mission Muriwhenua muskets natives Ngata Ngati northern ocean pākehā Patuone Polynesian Port Jackson Queen rangatira rangatiratanga Rangi Rangihoua relations relationships Rewa Ruatara Samuel Marsden saying settlement settlers ship signed South Sydney tangata taniwha taonga tapu taua Thomas Kendall tikanga Tiriti Tohitapu tohunga told Treaty of Waitangi tribes Tupaia Uawa University voyage Waikato Waitangi Tribunal warriors Wellington whakapapa Whanganui River whenua wife Zealand