Abstract
INTRODUCTION: With the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa New Zealand came a familial kinship structure and ideas of caring and nurturing children different from that of indigenous Māori society. Europeans brought with them a practice of adoption, a concept that differed from the indigenous kinship practice of whāngai. This led to misunderstandings between the two cultures about care arrangements, particularly when a Māori child was left with a European couple. Even the reasons why Māori engaged in this type of arrangement was often not fully understood by Europeans. For Māori, these arrangements were usually temporary, while Europeans considered them to be permanent. Hence, we have the beginning of the challenges that contributed to the creation of the 1881 Adoption of Infants Act, a first within the British Empire.APPROACH: This article begins with a description of the Māori practice of whāngai and the European practice of adoption preceding the 1881 act, highlighting the key differences between each—the most significant difference being the European idea of permanent and the Māori idea of temporary care arrangements.
Highlights
With the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa New Zealand came a familial kinship structure and ideas of caring and nurturing children different from that of indigenous Maori society
What was seen to be a “a special feature of public interest” was where a “Maori chief” sought permission to adopt a European child at the regular meeting of the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board held on the evening of 9 April 1888, published in the New Zealand Herald on 10 April 1888, page 4
I have not come across any advertisements that state whether the child is European, Māori or half-caste—just advertisements either wanting to adopt a child or a child being available for adoption, even though there still was no adoption of infants legislation before 1881
Summary
The European settlement of New Zealand, since 1840, introduced a different concept of family and societal structure. These new settlers stressed a more individualistic view rather than a collective one; they lived as individuals or within a nuclear family. The use of institutional care such as orphanages, poor houses and workhouses to care for the orphaned, neglected and destitute was well understood within these European households (Tennant, 2007). This was all quite foreign for Māori. From a European perspective, when a child was adopted, for all intents and purposes they belonged entirely to their new family
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