Open Writing

He was laughing his head off when he came back from doing the dishes.

“What’s happened?” I asked.

“Well,” he said, “you wouldn’t believe it, there was this English lady next to me and she said she was going to North Island so that she could see a Maori.”

“So?” I asked.

“Well the girl next to her was a Maori.”

We both started to laugh.

Yes, the girl camping further down was indeed a Maori. She wore designer jeans and a smart polo shirt, had three gorgeous little boys and her husband was a builder. The English lady didn’t think she looked a bit like a Maori. Which got me thinking.

What do we expect the natives of other countries to be like? The tourist brochures picture New Zealand as a land where the sky is always blue and yet the deep green bush, with its mosses and lichens, and the rushing rivers and waterfalls, deny the fact. If the sun always shone the bush wouldn’t be there, we would just be a big desert like the centre of Australia and not the set of “The Lord of the Rings.” Yet the travel agents will assure you that the sun always shines.

People are also given the idea that all Maoris wear grass skirts, are covered in tattoos, and that they will be greeted at Auckland airport by some fierce warrior, brandishing a spear and screaming at them in some strange language, before he lays a sprig of greenery in front of them and steps back to see if they will accept his peace offering. It just isn’t like that. The chap in the blue uniform, smiling at you as you hand over your passport, is probably part Maori, but he will greet you with, “I hope you will enjoy your stay in New Zealand.”

But this isn’t what the tourist wants. The tourist wants culture and he wants Maori culture, so let’s give it to him. Places like Rotorua, with its volcanic mud pools issuing forth jets of sulphurous fumes, thrive on Maori culture. They recreate the old days and the old ways. The whares, the old wooden houses with thatched roofs are there, as are the meeting houses and the places to store food. The women wear grass skirts and have the Moko tattooed or painted on their faces. Food is cooked in pits and the “hangi” served. The haka is performed and by warlike warriors and a branch laid at your feet as a symbol of peace, while the women dance with pois and sing the well known Maori songs. This is “the real New Zealand,” this is “what we wanted to see” and the tourist goes away satisfied, he has seen the volcanic pools, he has seen the real Maoris. Who does he think lives in those nice new houses and who drives the new model cars?

But we won’t shatter illusions, we all expect the same. When we visit the islands we are greeted by smiling girls, wearing leis, who place similar garlands around our necks. The hotels beat drums at night and chieftains race around, with burning torches, to light the braziers along the edge of the beach; fire walkers walk on hot coals and we are serenaded by that lovely, lilting island music. You could believe that everyone lived on fish and coconuts and lay back in the sun all day.

Visit America and you want to see Indians in wigwams and Eskimos in igloos and every Scotsman wears the kilt, plays the bagpipes and says “Och aye the noo.” As I said, “it ain’t like that.” This is the stuff of Disneyland and it is great to enter the world of fantasy from time to time. Who isn’t moved by the lone piper on the battlements of Edinburgh castle at the end of the Tattoo; we need our pageantry and display, it stirs the heart.

But life isn’t like that, is it? True, in small pockets of the world, still untouched by civilisation, groups of truly indigenous people live as they have always lived, but in this jet age of ours, such places will get fewer and fewer until, eventually, we will all be coffee coloured and speak the same language and we would like to think that we would all be equal and there would be no third world countries and no rivalry. If only the latter could be true. What a boring old world we would be though, as an historian, I believe that history, true history, not just the battles and the glamorous bits, but the history of the real folk, should be preserved. We should keep alive our own individual heritages, languages, culture, dress and traditions but we need what this new world offers us. We all need clean water, good food, the right to a good education and health service and a comfortable home. Our Maoris in Rotorua go home to such things when “the show is over” but here and elsewhere in the world, not just in the underdeveloped countries, many people go home to a lot less than this, if they have a home to go to.