Māori culture Māori culture () is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of New Zealand c ...

, () are

tribal chief A tribal chief or chieftain is the leader of a tribe, tribal society or chiefdom. Tribe The concept of tribe is a broadly applied concept, based on tribal concepts of societies of western Afroeurasia. Tribal societies are sometimes categori ...

s, the hereditary

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

leaders of a

hapū In Māori and New Zealand English, a ' ("subtribe", or "clan") functions as "the basic political unit within Māori society". A Māori person can belong to or have links to many hapū. Historically, each hapū had its own chief and normally opera ...

. Ideally, rangatira were people of great practical wisdom who held authority () on behalf of the tribe and maintained boundaries between a tribe's land and that of other tribes. Changes to land ownership laws in the 19th century, particularly the individualisation of

land title In property law, title is an intangible construct representing a bundle of rights in (to) a piece of property in which a party may own either a legal interest or equitable interest. The rights in the bundle may be separated and held by different ...

, undermined the power of rangatira, as did the widespread loss of land under the colonial government. The concept of rangatira and rangatiratanga, however, remain strong, and a return to rangatiratanga and the uplifting of Māori by the system has been widely advocated for since the

Māori renaissance The Māori renaissance is the revival in fortunes of the Māori of New Zealand beginning in the 1970s. Until 1914, and possibly later, the perception of the Māori race, although dying out, was capable and worthy of saving, but only within a Europ ...

Moana Jackson Moana Jackson (10 October 1945 – 31 March 2022) was a New Zealand lawyer specialising in constitutional law, the Treaty of Waitangi and international indigenous issues. Jackson was of Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Porou descent. He was an a ...

Ranginui Walker Ranginui Joseph Isaac Walker (1 March 1932 – 29 February 2016) was an influential New Zealand academic, author, and activist of Māori and Lebanese descent. "I think he was ''the'' Māori commentator for a very long period," his biographer, ...

, Tipene O'Regan are among the most famous of these advocates. The concept of a rangatira is central to —a Māori system of

governance Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the g ...

self-determination The right of a people to self-determination is a cardinal principle in modern international law (commonly regarded as a '' jus cogens'' rule), binding, as such, on the United Nations as authoritative interpretation of the Charter's norms. It sta ...

and

sovereignty Sovereignty is the defining authority within individual consciousness, social construct, or territory. Sovereignty entails hierarchy within the state, as well as external autonomy for states. In any state, sovereignty is assigned to the perso ...

—based on the essential leadership of all peoples through

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are repres ...

Etymology

The word means "chief (male or female), wellborn, noble" and derives from Proto-Central Eastern Polynesian *''langatila'' ("chief of secondary status").

Cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical ef ...

words are found in

Moriori The Moriori are the native Polynesian people of the Chatham Islands (''Rēkohu'' in Moriori; ' in Māori), New Zealand. Moriori originated from Māori settlers from the New Zealand mainland around 1500 CE. This was near the time of th ...

, Tahitian,

Cook Islands Māori Cook Islands Māori is an Eastern Polynesian language that is the official language of the Cook Islands. Cook Islands Māori is closely related to New Zealand Māori, but is a distinct language in its own right. Cook Islands Māori is simply ...

, Tuamotuan,

Marquesan The Marquesas Islands (; french: Îles Marquises or ' or '; Marquesan: ' ( North Marquesan) and ' (South Marquesan), both meaning "the land of men") are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in t ...

and Hawaiian.

Interpretations

Three interpretations of rangatira consider it as a compound of the Māori words "ranga" and "tira". In the first case, "ranga" is devised as a

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

and the "tira" a shark fin. The allegoric sandbar helps reduce erosion of the dune (or people). The fin reflects both the appearance of the sandbar, and, more importantly, "its physical and intentional dominance as guardian". Rangatira reinforce communities, cease to exist without them ("for what is a sandbar without sand?"), and have a protective capacity. Ethnographer John White (1826-1891) gave a different viewpoint in one of his lectures on Māori customs. He said Māori had traditionally formed two kahui who came together to discuss history or

whakapapa Whakapapa (, ), or genealogy, is a fundamental principle in Māori culture. Reciting one's whakapapa proclaims one's Māori identity, places oneself in a wider context, and links oneself to land and tribal groupings and the mana of those. Exp ...

. :"Each chief in the kahui had his place assigned to him, according to the amount of knowledge he possessed; and this place was given to him by the leader of the kahui of which he was a member. This act of the leader was called ''ranga'', or putting in order. The people, as they came to the temple in a body, were called ''tira'', or company; and as the leader had to assign, or ranga, a place to each of his tira, he was called the rangatira, from which we derive our word in Maori for chief, rangatira."White, J. (1826–1891). An epitome of official documents relative to Native affairs and land purchases in the North Island of New Zealand. ''Lectures on Maori Customs, &c., by Mr. John White'', ''Part 11''. NZETC, retrieved 13 November 2001. This interpretation fits well with a second translation where "ranga" is an abbreviation of ''rāranga'' (or weaving) and "tira" signifies a group. A third interpretation fits equally well with this translation, interlinking concepts related to the identity of the ‘tira’. In the first instance, the conditional hospitality presented in the form of weaving created for the ‘tira’ of guests. In the second instance, the collective intentionality "enacted in the weaving" of the ‘tira’ of hosts. Together, these concepts highlight the value attached to the "personal relationship" between the leader and their group. This type of relationship is similar to the ''mahara atawhai'' (endearment or "benevolent concern") offered in the

Treaty of Waitangi The Treaty of Waitangi ( mi, Te Tiriti o Waitangi) is a document of central importance to the History of New Zealand, history, to the political constitution of the state, and to the national mythos of New Zealand. It has played a major role in ...

’s preamble by

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...

, reflecting the pre-nineteenth century "personal bond between the ruler and subject".McHugh, P. G. (1991). The lawyer’s concept of sovereignty, the Treaty of Waitangi, and a legal history for New Zealand. In W. Renwick (Ed.), ''Sovereignty & indigenous rights: The Treaty of Waitangi in international contexts'' (pp. 170–189). Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press.

References

{{Reflist Māori words and phrases * Polynesian titles