It’s pretty ironic that Ngapuhi won’t fly the tino rangatiratanga flag at Waitangi this year.
They don’t want to be told by anyone what flag they are to fly on their own patch.
That in itself is a great demonstration of tino rangatiratanga.
It’s pretty ironic that Ngapuhi won’t fly the tino rangatiratanga flag at Waitangi this year.
They don’t want to be told by anyone what flag they are to fly on their own patch.
That in itself is a great demonstration of tino rangatiratanga.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 30th, 2010 at 7:19 pm and is filed under M?ori. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
My husband is of Ngapuhi descent and I’ve got to say I cheered when I originally read their press release. I assume they’re being bullied over this? Of course, I suspect being bullied will only make them more staunch…
They should just fly the New Zealand flag.
Kiwireader. It is a tradition on Waitangi Day at Waitangi to fly the New Zealand flag and the Confederated Tribes flag (the one with the Cross of St George on it). By my accounts, the Confederate Tribes flag is supported by northern iwi.
Maybe we could begin a discussion about what “tino rangatiratanga” actually means. At this point in time the accepted wisdom, that “tino rangatiratanga” means “sovereignty”, seems to have become overwhelming. Back in the 80s when I asked a leading academic at Auckland Uni how he would translate “ariki-tanga”, given that an “ariki” (note Te Arikinui Te Atairangikaahu) was a level above “rangatira” I was ridiculed in a rather unacademic way and suspected from that time that the good doctor’s loose translation was the preferred position. “Rangatiratanga” is a concept connected with those who are rangatira. They held “local authority” and this was exercised in the same way as the “Lord of the Manor” ruled his villagers in old England. “Rangatiratanga” would have have been scuttled by “arikitanga” although not all areas had “ariki”. “Tino rangatiratanga” adds an absolute to the concept of rangatiratanga but there is no way that our tupuna understood it to be absolute ultimate authority or sovereignty. There are those who suggests that the rangatira didn’t get “kawanatanga” – yet after twenty years of exposure to the fact that the kawana of Israel despatched Jesus to the cross they would surely have appreciated that this was some kind of ultimate position. Just a rave guys ..