4.2 The Maori Whare Wananga Traditions
69
Between the time of the foreign traders’ arrival in about AD 76 and AD 196,
when the Emperor Han of China opened the Silk Road, there seems to have been
a concerted effort by foreign traders to break the indigenous spice trade monopoly.
The opening of the Silk Road was a matter of providing guards to deter brigands
along what was already an ancient trade route. Once opened, the Silk Road was
used to supply China by land with Indian spices and with Moluccan and Indonesian
spices traded through India. The opening of the Silk Road may have represented
a challenge not only to an indigenous maritime spice monopoly but also to maritime control of the spice trade. It may have been seen by Chinese and Indian
traders as a way of generating wealth by trading spices onwards to Europe by a
now safer land route which bypassed the maritime control and involvement of Spice
Island, Wallacean and East Indonesian mariners and also of the competing Arab
Indian and Malay traders who had moved into the region over a hundred years
earlier.
The setting up of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Arab trading stations in Island
Southeast Asia in the 1st century AD not only corresponded to a major increase
in the demand for spices from the Roman Empire, but also reflected the determination of foreign traders to gain a major share of the wealth that could be gained
from meeting that demand. According to traditional histories it would appear that
a concerted attack on indigenous spice traders followed. It is possible that by promoting inter-tribal conflict foreign traders sought to gain effective control over spice
sources. Polynesian traditional histories paint a picture of attacks by lanky, blackskinned tribes. Defeated tribes, these traditions make clear, had no option but to
migrate or face extinction. Traditional histories show that defeated tribes, who we
are told used navigational directions handed down from early ancestors (first-wave
explorers), successfully migrated to both Hawaii and New Zealand.
4.2 The Maori Whare Wananga Traditions
In New Zealand, oral history was passed down through whare wananga or schools
of learning. Traditions passed down through one of these schools and recorded in
the early 20th century by S. Percy Smith reveal factors triggering early migrations
within and from the Polynesian homeland in this period. These oral accounts can be
matched to the historical context of conflict and destabilization in the Spice Islands
that we have outlined.
In Chapter 16 we study oral traditions that tell of Maui the Navigator’s visit to
New Zealand and of the earlier humiliating defeat suffered by his father. Our analysis of these traditions suggests the possibility that the defeat of Maui’s father may
well have followed from a direct or fostered challenge to Spice Island or Wallacean
spice traders by foreign interests. The chronology we ascribe to Maui’s visit to
New Zealand in about AD 100 (see Chapters 16 and 19) and to the defeat of his
father, possibly a generation earlier, matches Fornander’s estimate of AD 76 for the
invasion of the Spice Island region by foreign traders. Maui’s exploratory visit to
69
Between the time of the foreign traders’ arrival in about AD 76 and AD 196,
when the Emperor Han of China opened the Silk Road, there seems to have been
a concerted effort by foreign traders to break the indigenous spice trade monopoly.
The opening of the Silk Road was a matter of providing guards to deter brigands
along what was already an ancient trade route. Once opened, the Silk Road was
used to supply China by land with Indian spices and with Moluccan and Indonesian
spices traded through India. The opening of the Silk Road may have represented
a challenge not only to an indigenous maritime spice monopoly but also to maritime control of the spice trade. It may have been seen by Chinese and Indian
traders as a way of generating wealth by trading spices onwards to Europe by a
now safer land route which bypassed the maritime control and involvement of Spice
Island, Wallacean and East Indonesian mariners and also of the competing Arab
Indian and Malay traders who had moved into the region over a hundred years
earlier.
The setting up of Malay, Chinese, Indian and Arab trading stations in Island
Southeast Asia in the 1st century AD not only corresponded to a major increase
in the demand for spices from the Roman Empire, but also reflected the determination of foreign traders to gain a major share of the wealth that could be gained
from meeting that demand. According to traditional histories it would appear that
a concerted attack on indigenous spice traders followed. It is possible that by promoting inter-tribal conflict foreign traders sought to gain effective control over spice
sources. Polynesian traditional histories paint a picture of attacks by lanky, blackskinned tribes. Defeated tribes, these traditions make clear, had no option but to
migrate or face extinction. Traditional histories show that defeated tribes, who we
are told used navigational directions handed down from early ancestors (first-wave
explorers), successfully migrated to both Hawaii and New Zealand.
4.2 The Maori Whare Wananga Traditions
In New Zealand, oral history was passed down through whare wananga or schools
of learning. Traditions passed down through one of these schools and recorded in
the early 20th century by S. Percy Smith reveal factors triggering early migrations
within and from the Polynesian homeland in this period. These oral accounts can be
matched to the historical context of conflict and destabilization in the Spice Islands
that we have outlined.
In Chapter 16 we study oral traditions that tell of Maui the Navigator’s visit to
New Zealand and of the earlier humiliating defeat suffered by his father. Our analysis of these traditions suggests the possibility that the defeat of Maui’s father may
well have followed from a direct or fostered challenge to Spice Island or Wallacean
spice traders by foreign interests. The chronology we ascribe to Maui’s visit to
New Zealand in about AD 100 (see Chapters 16 and 19) and to the defeat of his
father, possibly a generation earlier, matches Fornander’s estimate of AD 76 for the
invasion of the Spice Island region by foreign traders. Maui’s exploratory visit to