New Zealand Listener – August 10, 2019

AUGUST 10 2019 LISTENER 41

Another key moment
was the visit of the Te Maori
exhibition to the US in 1984,
followed by its return home. A
new awareness of the creativ-
ity of Māori culture affected
the country. For the first time,
New Zealand began to think
of itself as bicultural. Te Papa
Tongarewa – Museum of New

Zealand was conceptualised

in the early 90s on the basis

of two cultures, “tangata

whenua”, people of the land,

and “tangata tiriti”, people

who settled by virtue of the

Treaty.

By 2019, there were about

750,000 Māori, more than

15% of the population, and a

high proportion were living

in the city. Attitudes have

been transformed from 80

years before. No one pretends

we have the finest racial

relationships in the world.

Most people are aware of

some past injustices, and the

New Zealand Wars are being

remembered, not swept under

the national carpet.

Te reo Māori is spoken by

Pākehā announcers on the

nation’s radio, and in schools

Māori ritual, such as pōwhiri,

have become part of the

accepted order. It has become

obligatory for many people

to begin a public speech with

a short mihi. Older racist

December 24, 1953. Late on Christmas Eve, a lahar
from volatile Mt Ruapehu’s crater lake surged down
the Whangaehu River and swept away the Tangiwai
railway bridge. A few minutes later, the Wellington-
to-Auckland night express raced along the line and,
despite the efforts of a young clerk, Arthur Ellis, to
signal it with his torch, plunged into the flooded
river. Of the 285 people on board, 151 were killed.
The tragedy would have been worse but for Ellis,
guard William Inglis and passenger John Holman,
who saved all but one occupant from one of the car-
riages. Ellis and Holman were awarded the George
Medal. The disaster stunned a small nation, but in
one way made it more closely knit.

Tangiwai disaster

Royal visit

December 1953. From December 23,

1953, to January 30, 1954, the country was

united as never before, or since, in a public

orgy of royalist rapture. Hardly a soul

was unaffected by what Prime Minister

Sidney Holland called the “multi tudinous

events of those magic weeks”, as the

newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II toured

the country. The sun shone, the crowds

glowed, the young Queen dazzled; even

the Duke of Edinburgh seemed glamor-

ous. It was still a time, as historian James

Belich says, when New Zealanders were

“more likely to give ‘British’ than ‘New Zea-

lander’ when asked their nationality”.

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