An update of a (more than 13 years old) post giving a really brief overview of my understanding of He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti, plus new bonus content!! (A wee mention of Luxon’s ignorance and Seymour’s raweke)

He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti, are very closely related—Ani Mikaere describes He Whakaputanga as the key to understanding Te Tiriti. The figure below shows this whakapapa: tikanga Māori reflects a Māori understanding of reality.* The arrival and behaviour of Europeans created a new set of risks for tangata whenua, and hapū from the north looked for a solution from tikanga Māori—the only place they would look. That solution was He Whakaputanga (which you can read at nzhistory). He Whakaputanga affirms a Māori way of organising: hapū retain their rangatiratanga, but will gather as te Whakaminenga to discuss issues affecting all of them.

Te Tiriti was written 5 years later, and retains two key terms of He Whakaputanga—rangatiratanga (meaning ultimate authority and independence) and kāwanatanga (meaning delegated authority). It is a very simple document. Te Tiriti reaffirms He Whakaputanga— rangatiratanga remains with hapū, but some authority is delegated to the Crown in order that they can manage their own people. As Moana Jackson points out, this is consistent with Māori traditions of treaty making (for example, in his chapter of Imagining Decolonisation, reprinted here). The majority of hapū did not sign Te Tiriti—500+ rangatira signed on behalf of their hapū, 30+ signed ‘The Treaty of Waitangi’ because a copy of Te Tiriti was not available.

Very few New Zealanders know much about Te Tiriti beyond its existence (even fewer know anything about He Whakaputanga); most know more about The Treaty. I went to school in Northland, the birthplace of both He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti, and I didn’t learn about either. I only learned about The Treaty of Waitangi.

The document written in English, called the Treaty of Waitangi (which Margaret Mutu calls ‘a draft’ and ‘irrelevant’), comes from a completely different understanding of the world, a colonising understanding. Again it is a simple document. According to The Treaty, hapū ceded sovereignty to the Crown, but retain limited property rights. This is in the tradition of European colonising laws.

It should be clear that Te Tiriti and the English-language ‘Treaty of Waitangi’ are pretty much diametrically opposing on the point of political or decision making authority. According to one, hapū have ultimate political power under which the Crown has limited authority; according to the other the Crown has ultimate political power under which Māori have property rights. We are taught that they are two versions of the same document, but clearly they are not. They are based on entirely different understandings of the world and entirely different legal systems. Only one of them was discussed and agreed to at Waitangi in 1840—and it’s not the one where Māori cede sovereignty to the Crown (sorry about that Luxon).

The principles of the Treaty are a much later invention, which are supposed to provide a bridge between the two documents. These principles have not been developed with Māori representation—they have been developed entirely by the Crown (Māori in Crown roles in government, the courts or the Waitangi Tribunal have had input, but they are clearly not Māori representative roles). The principles affirm the Crown’s understanding of the Treaty and do nothing to challenge their assumption of Crown sovereignty. As my figure above shows, the principles of the Treaty are therefore born from the Treaty of Waitangi, which in turn was born from colonising law.

No hapū or Iwi signed the principles of The Treaty, but all school children learn about them. The new New Zealand history curriculum at least means now children might also learn about He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti.

Recommended Reading

To learn more about He Whakaputanga, Te Tiriti, the principles of the treaty, or (gods forbid) the Treaty Principles Bill, here’s where I recommend you start.

Very Long

Waitangi Tribunal’s He Whakaputanga me te Tiriti | The Declaration and the Treaty The Report on Stage 1 of the Te Paparahi o te Raki Inquiry (link will take you to full pdf)

It’s very long, 500 odd pages. If you don’t want to read it all, the key chapters are 8 Past perspectives on Te Tiriti and The Treaty (pp 407-446) and 10 Our Conclusions (pp 497-532).

Much Shorter

Chapter 6 “Te Tiriti and the Treaty: seeking to reconcile the irreconcilable in the name of truth” in Ani Mikaere’s book Colonising Myths – Māori Realities: He Rukuruku Whakaaro (if you haven’t read the book, it’s great. And sadly everything in it continues to be very relevant).

Very Short

Margaret Mutu on Te Tiriti and the Treaty Principles Bill

Primer from Carwyn Jones (link will take you to pdf)

* Note: people like Seymour try to muddy the waters on these sorts of phrases—‘based on Māori thinking’,  ‘Māori understandings’, etc. They say things like ‘Māori don’t all think the same, there is no single Māori understanding of reality’. That’s true, and it’s also not what those phrases mean. They mean thinking or understandings (or whatever) developed from mātauranga Māori. People like Seymour don’t like to admit that Māori have developed our own philosophies and knowledge systems, so they pretend to misunderstand.

FWIW, the ‘misunderstanding’ is based on grammar. I am confident Seymour understands the difference between ‘Māori think such and such’ (where Māori is a noun meaning Māori people) and ‘Māori thinking’ (where Māori is an adjective meaning related to Māori). A couple of analogous examples that show the difference are ‘Westerners think’ versus ‘western thinking’ or ‘Christians think’ versus ‘Christian thinking.