This book recounts the ‘shipping out’ of Maori adventurers across the seas and oceans of the world aboard Euro-American whaleships.
Sailing as abductees or by choice in pursuit of adventure, material gain, diplomatic ties and mana, between the late 1790s and 1800s, some 2000 New Zealanders, as Maori were then known, departed Aotearoa.
Te Kaewa investigates the reputation of Maori as the most courageous and dependable of all the indigenous Pacific seamen engaged in whaling – a notoriously brutal and bloody exploitive industry. It discusses their diverse work roles aboard foreign windjammers, their exploitation by avaricious shipowners and captains, and the maritime customs, lingoes, diet, dress and superstitions they adopted.
The work describes how Maori seamen coped in the face of multiple dangers, privations and separation from their whanau for months or years at a time. It details how they responded to mistreatment by ships’ officers and crewmates, their lives ashore in rollicking port towns like Sydney, and the diverse challenges overcome by those who returned home.
This study reveals hitherto unknown ways and locations where Maori crossed cultures and assimilated Western customs, skills, values and attitudes during the 1800s. Founded on wide-ranging research and rich in detail, it is a lively history, deserving of a wide readership.
