Why should anyone outside New Zealand be interested in Maori
history? Because it is rich in documents that recapitulate five
hundred years of European imperial expansion and the responses to
it by indigenous peoples. British humanitarians tried to avoid in
New Zealand the tragic mistakes the Crown made in Australia, where
aboriginal tribes were nearly exterminated in some cases and
severely marginalized in others.
The Maori "history of struggle" is unique only in its relative
success. The British enterprise of colonization and
Christianization stimulated the formation of Maori renewal
movements to hold fast to their threatened land. The study of these
movements elucidates how human beings in general use the sacred to
bridge the abyss between old and new worlds during the trauma of
invasion and why people turn to religion as a paramount means of
salvation from despair.
The Island Broken in Two Halves examines three related prophet
movements within a framework that examines their fundamentally
religious features. The King Movement envisioned a Maori polity
governed by "religion, law, and love." It fueled the drive for
unity that animates the twentieth-century Maori sovereignty
movement. The Pai Marire cult sprang up in the wake of the first
mid-nineteenth-century land war and swept rapidly across the North
Island, igniting fears of a native rebellion. Out of the ashes of
Pai Marire rose the Ringatu church, founded by a charismatic
prophet who was marked by a "sign of discord." After his death, a
Ringatu messiah predicted that a millennial king would return
confiscated land to the impoverished tribes. Together, these
movements formed a "Spirit tradition" with a unique hermeneutics
that challenged the hegemony of European settlers.
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