10 Chiefly women
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Miranda Johnson
Abstract
This chapter examines the productive tensions between loyalty and autonomy, equality and status, that emerged from debates within the Māori Kotahitanga or unity parliament in New Zealand in the 1890s. In the context of a national shift to liberalism, and a movement to give women the vote, Kotahitanga leaders sought autonomy from the settler government at the same time as they expressed abiding loyalty to Queen Victoria. Within the parliament, leading Māori women sought to re-establish their status, which had been undermined by actions of the colonial government. They did so by appealing to the Queen as a female figurehead with whom they shared high status as chiefly women. Thus, these female leaders reinvested ideas of ancestral hierarchy in the context of apparently “modern” political demands.
Abstract
This chapter examines the productive tensions between loyalty and autonomy, equality and status, that emerged from debates within the Māori Kotahitanga or unity parliament in New Zealand in the 1890s. In the context of a national shift to liberalism, and a movement to give women the vote, Kotahitanga leaders sought autonomy from the settler government at the same time as they expressed abiding loyalty to Queen Victoria. Within the parliament, leading Māori women sought to re-establish their status, which had been undermined by actions of the colonial government. They did so by appealing to the Queen as a female figurehead with whom they shared high status as chiefly women. Thus, these female leaders reinvested ideas of ancestral hierarchy in the context of apparently “modern” political demands.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of maps and figures vii
- List of contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xii
- Maps xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I Monarch, metaphor, memory
- 1 ‘We have seen the son of Heaven/We have seen the Son of Our Queen’ 25
- 2 ‘We rejoice to honour the Queen, for she is a good woman, who cares for the Māori race’ 54
- 3 ‘The faithful children of the Great Mother are starving’ 78
- 4 The politics of memory and the memory of politics 100
- 5 ‘My vast Empire & all its many peoples’ 125
- 6 Māori encounters with ‘Wikitoria’ in 1863 and Albert Victor Pomare, her Māori godchild 144
- 7 Southern African royalty and delegates visit Queen Victoria, 1882–95 166
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Part III Sovereign subjects?
- 8 Sovereignty performances, sovereignty testings 187
- 9 Bracelets, blankets and badges of distinction 210
- 10 Chiefly women 228
- Select bibliography 246
- Index 249
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of maps and figures vii
- List of contributors ix
- Acknowledgements xii
- Maps xiii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I Monarch, metaphor, memory
- 1 ‘We have seen the son of Heaven/We have seen the Son of Our Queen’ 25
- 2 ‘We rejoice to honour the Queen, for she is a good woman, who cares for the Māori race’ 54
- 3 ‘The faithful children of the Great Mother are starving’ 78
- 4 The politics of memory and the memory of politics 100
- 5 ‘My vast Empire & all its many peoples’ 125
- 6 Māori encounters with ‘Wikitoria’ in 1863 and Albert Victor Pomare, her Māori godchild 144
- 7 Southern African royalty and delegates visit Queen Victoria, 1882–95 166
-
Part III Sovereign subjects?
- 8 Sovereignty performances, sovereignty testings 187
- 9 Bracelets, blankets and badges of distinction 210
- 10 Chiefly women 228
- Select bibliography 246
- Index 249
