Background to Maori experiences of earthquakes

The city of Christchurch, New Zealand, (Otautahi being its Maori name) experienced a series of earthquakes beginning on September 4th, 2010, with 7.1 magnitude quake that resulted in no deaths but significant damage to many buildings. It was a smaller (M 6.3) but shallower and therefore more severe quake on February 22nd, 2011, that was the most damaging, killing 181 people and causing widespread destruction in the CBD as well as significant damage to thousands of residential properties in some areas. Another M 6.3 quake on June 13th led to just one related death but wrought further structural damage but provoked considerable fear and distress to many residents. Between these major quakes, and following the June 13th event, were thousands of aftershocks, several over magnitude 5.0, a ‘seismic event’ in the words of geologists whose esoteric work became very familiar to many concerned citizens.

As settlers of a geologically active country, both Maori and Pakeha (the descendents of European, primarily British, settlers) are reasonably aware of earthquake risk, with a 1931 disaster being the most significant occurrence (though no longer in the living memory of most) that resulted in 256 deaths, many from the resulting fires in the primarily wooden city. A major volcanic eruption (Tarawera) near Taupō occurred about 200 AD, incinerating an area of approximately 20,000 square kilometres (McSaveney, Stewart, and Leonard 2011). New Zealand was not settled by Maori at this time; dating of the event is from the observations around the world.

Rangitoto, located adjacent to New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, this is the youngest and largest of that region’s volcanic cones. Māori living there would have witnessed its formation, as dating methods show the eruption occurred around 1400 AD. Stone tools have been found under ash deposits, and footprints found within the ash.


Remains of lava eruption on Rangitoto. Auckland city in the background

Archaeological evidence has revealed artefacts on and around Mt Taranaki between ash deposits from eruptions that took place around 1450, 1500 and 1655. Local Māori oral history speaks of a settlement destroyed in one eruption.



White Island (Whakaari) is New Zealand’s most active volcano, constantly venting steam and gases, and features in local Maori histories. Sulfur deposits were once mined until a collapsing crater wall killed 11 miners in 1914 (ibid.).



There was a significant eruption of Mt Tarawera around 1314 AD, depositing ash over a wide area. However, Tarawera is better known for its 1886 eruption. The official death toll was 150, although the number was more likely between 108 and 120 people (McSaveney, Stewart, and Leonard 2011). Local Maori communities suffered, and the event is also notable for indicators (in the days before Mt Tarawera erupted there was an increase in hot spring activity) and an omen with Māori and Pākehā tourists reporting a phantom Māori war canoe sailing across Lake Tarawera, and surges in the water.




Hinemihi meeting house at Te Wairoa, after the Mt Tarawera eruption of 10 June 1886. Photograph taken circa 1886 by Edmund Wheeler and Son.

These histories form an important back drop to this research, but they are just the starting point for the range of Maori perspectives (plural). The ‘seismic event’ of geology is leading to seismic changes in many areas, not least among affected Maori whanau, kura (schools), organisations, and businesses. Many businesses have either closed or have lost customers, unemployment increased, schools have reported rolls dropping by up to 20%, domestic violence, gambling, and drinking have all increased, and people are reporting levels of stress and insecurity.


The networks of economic, social, and cultural support form the primary focus of our research. You can keep up with progress on this important research through our 'Conversations at Lincoln' page. 

Māori Resilience through the Otautahi 'quakes: the role and future prospects of economic, cultural and environmental networks

Lincoln University's research in the effects of the recent (and perhaps ongoing) earthquakes in Otautahi/ Christchurch is funded and underway!

Outline
The scale of damage from the recent earthquakes in Ōtautahi challenges all networks in the city at a time when many individuals and communities are under severe economic pressure. Māori have historically drawn on traditional institutions such as whānau, marae, hapū, and iwi for resilience. What has worked and what has failed are fundamental questions as other communities (Māori and non-Māori) will likely suffer similarly disastrous events in the future.

Aim
To describe the role of Maori-centric networks in supporting Maori and non-Maori in the aftermath of the recent and ongoing earthquakes.

The researchers
A flood of research will undoubtedly follow the earthquakes, most of which will undoubtedly relate to engineering, geology, and seismology. Lincoln University has a unique confluence of research allied to two of Lincoln's three Kaupapa Māori Units (Te Whanake in Environment, Society, & Design; Te Matapuna in Agriculture & Life Sciences) that enables a trans-disciplinary approach incorporating economic geography, community development, geology and eco-toxicology. Four individual Maori researchers are engaged in some way on the project. They are:

• Dr. Simon Lambert (Tūhoe, Ngāti Ruapani), economic geography, planning and development.
• Melanie Shadbolt (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Raukawa) community development, sociology.
• Dr. Jamie Ataria (Rongomaiwahine), eco-toxicology.
• Dr. Amanda Black (Tūhoe), geology.


The approach
A broad approach is needed to account for how people have been affected by the earthquakes, and how and why they respond as they do. The project will draw on the team's respective skills to gather and interpret both qualitative data (narrating the personal, professional, and institutional experiences of key actors in responding to the earthquakes) and quantitative data (describing the geo/eco contexts of affected Māori communities). Three disciplines provide the intellectual foundations of this project: economic geography (Dr. Lambert) and community development (Melanie Shadbolt); and two dimensions of environmental hazards: geological (Dr. Black) and eco-toxicological (Dr. Ataria).

More explicitly, we will:
1. Investigate the economic and cultural resilience of Maori communities;
2. Review disaster response and recovery information disseminated to Māori, including those from local authorities, government, emergency services, the police and army;
3. Review scientific reports on the geological and eco-toxicological dimensions of how the earthquakes affected Māori communities.

Christchurch Maori and the Earthquakes: Mahi Rangahau i te Ru Whenua, kei Otautahi

Kia ora koutou,
Just a post to express how excited I am to be beginning research into Maori economic resilience following the recent earthquakes in Otautahi. I'm lucky to be one of a team of emerging researchers, like butterflies, stretching out from the chrysalis of love...

Anyways, this is just the first of what I intend to be a long line of posts on this research. We will get a more formal webpage through Lincoln University in a week or two on which we can post our results and panui communities about upcoming presentations and publications. Our kaupapa is to build ever greater Maori resilience. Our particular focus will revolve around two separate but connected dimensions: the cultural and the economic.

We will also be announcing Summer Scholarships for Lincoln students, and are willing to collaborate with other like-minded researchers.

One caveat we must announce. This is an academic research project. We absolutely must stand in the global marae for peer review by those whose disciplines we choose to dwell, at least for our professional development. The resilience we therefore bring to our own whanau provides the foundation on which we can contribute to the resilience of other whanau: Maori, Pakeha and tauiwi.

Falling masonry doesn't pick its victims based on whakapapa.

It will be interesting to see which groups or communities are/were more vulnerable. Certainly international students were disproportionately represented...

And while Lincoln hasn't emerged unscathed, check out my earlier post, we are certainly better off than our poor city cousins, Canterbury.

I loved that library, was a student at UC when they ('they') purchased their one millionth book for the James Hight library. We have about 900 books, too many but I also gave away too many, sold too many, and lost too many. Can't recall what it was, a poncy Old English manuscript if I remember rightly.

Typical.

Toasting marshmellows, Taumutu

While the world continues to oscillate between valid fear, invalid fear, common joy and crazed euphoria, I can still take the boys and three of their friends to a beach, light a fire, burn some snags and melt some marshmellows.

Ko Aotearoa Tenei: WAI 262 preamble...

Love the intro which begins with ...'Aue e te mate, kei hea tau wero, aue e te reinga kei hea tou wikitoria?' which is translated as ...'Oh death where is thy sting; grave, where is your victory', nice allusion to both Corinthians 15:55 and a sonnet by Shakespeare.

Then follows a parade of faces, many having shuffled off this mortal coil.

The report then gives a potted history of Kupe's People, then Cook's People - sailors one and all (useful 101, even 201, histories). Then a number of quite revisionist statements:
" Maori culture locates us in the Pacific and gives us our deep roots here. Pakeha culture locates us at the same time in the West and gives us our right to the West's heritage."

Then quickly comes the following: "Bicultural fusion gives our vibrant multicultural reality a solid core with enough gravity to pull immigrant cultures into orbit around its vision, values, and expectations. A nation cannot sustain itself without that solid core" (p.16).

Of course WAI 262 was never a standard claim, if indeed its possible to speak of such a thing. It is acknowledged that the claim always asked 'novel questions' about who owns or controls
1. matauranga Maori;
2. the tangible outputs of matauranga Maori;
3. 'things that are important contributors to matauranga Maori, namely
i) taonga species
ii) and the natural environment of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

I see these as posing ontological, epistemological, and empirical challenges, respectively, to Maori and Pakeha; What can be known; how do we know and use this knowledge; and what does this knowledge result in, how is it manifested in our lifeworlds?