Abstract
In 1974 L.K. Gluckman, a psychiatrist, published a pioneering article on the history of alcohol use among Maori in the New Zealand Medical Journal [1]. The purpose of that article was to provide historical information to psychiatrists, few of whom were Maori, which could contribute to ‘establishing a good doctor–patient relationship between those of different ethnic origin and social class.’ Gluckman concluded: ‘Knowing the patient in ethno-psychiatry means not only knowing the patient's clinical history but also his (sic) racial history and having the cunning to apply this in the clinical situation in much the same way a physician applies pure physiology in a clinical situation.'
Like Gluckman, the authors wish to reiterate the importance of history to clinical practice, however, their conclusions about the historical response of Maori to the introduction of alcohol in New Zealand differs. This difference is, in large part, due to the examination of a range of evidence from nineteenth-century documents, as well as consideration of the impact of sociohistoric processes involved in colonisation. Contrary to Gluckman's assertion, Maori did not have a single collective response to the introduction of alcohol, nor conform to a single pattern of use. To design culturally responsive interventions, which accurately reflect history and the needs of Maori today, it is important to reconsider the range of evidence available from historical records.
Currently there are significant differences between the health status of Maori and non-Maori in New Zealand [2]. Alcohol morbidity and mortality for Maori is at a higher rate than for non-Maori [3–5]. Maori present for a variety of alcohol-related problems more frequently per capita than non-Maori, but data from a recent nationwide survey of alcohol use [6] indicates that fewer Maori than non-Maori are drinkers. Despite this the survey also found that when individual Maori do drink they consume on average up to 200% more than non-Maori, thus drastically increasing the risk of alcohol-related problems.
In terms of the health risks that alcohol poses, Maori men have been found to be 2.7 times more likely to die of an alcohol-related problem than non-Maori males and Maori females were 1.6 times more at risk than non-Maori females. Higher rates of re-admission to psychiatric hospitals for alcohol-related problems have also been noted, as has Maori over-representation in hospital admissions relating to liver and pancreatic illness [2,3]. Equally significant is motor vehicle accident data, which suggest Maori are over-represented in drink-driving accidents (1.6 times the non-Maori rate) [7].
Alcohol is a significant factor in the negative health status of Maori today, despite proportionally lower rates of use. Some alcohol health promoters and treatment workers incorporate in their interventions a historical perspective of alcohol use by Maori in an effort to provide a more culturally relevant and responsive process. However, much of this work is based on assumptions similar to those of Gluckman in relation to uniformity of historical response and use across the whole Maori population. The precise impact of such assumptions is unclear, but it appears to have contributed to a limited and stereotyped perception of the ability of Maori to manage alcohol.
Increasingly, services for the prevention and treatment of alcohol-related harm for Maori are addressing cultural responsiveness by attending to ‘cultural factors’. Recent research found that a sample of Maori admitted to dedicated Maori treatment services reported a greater level of satisfaction than Maori who attended services that do not explicitly address ethnocultural factors [8]. The long-term implications of greater patient satisfaction with this type of service are not yet known, however, clinical evidence suggests that integrating aspects of Maori culture into alcohol treatment has a positive impact on treatment outcome [9]. Understanding the whakapapa (literally ‘the genealogy’) of people, places and events is an integral part of Maori culture and must be incorporated into any intervention that seeks to be culturally responsive. Given the above, assumptions and stereotypes promoted by inaccurate understanding of the history of Maori response to the introduction of alcohol in New Zealand are of concern. This paper seeks to redress the inaccuracies in reporting of this history by non-Maori commentators, which may have contributed to the development of unhelpful stereotypes and adversely influenced alcohol and drug program development for Maori.
Method
A survey was undertaken of the surviving documentation on alcohol in nineteenth-century New Zealand, with materials predominantly drawn from the writings of pakeha (non-Maori) missionaries, officials and travellers, as well as from available statistical records. These records were found in both published sources, including official documents, and in manuscripts maintained in repositories in the cities of Wellington, Auckland and Dunedin. Following accepted historical methodology, the search of documents was limited to materials written in the nineteenth century in order to understand the views of Maori and pakeha who witnessed alcohol use in New Zealand at that time. These documents were examined to see what relation they bore to late twentieth-century analyses of Maori alcohol consumption.
Results
Production of alcohol
Records from the late 1830s and early 1840s [10], as well as specific references in an 1868 Land Court case [11], suggest that Maori might have known about the process of fermentation (of tutu berries) and intoxication before the arrival of Captain James Cook. Given the lethal consequences of consuming the seeds of tutu berries, well known to Maori in the nineteenth century [12], it is unlikely that deliberate fermentation of these berries was common. Despite the suggestive evidence, if some Maori had knowledge about the fermentation of tutu berries the historical record (written and oral) provides no indication of systematic alcohol production or use by Maori before 1800. The first definite record of alcohol production in New Zealand comes from the journals of Cook, who reported how he and his men fermented beer from spruce leaves and Ti-tree in 1773 [13].
Maori response to alcohol
Parts of the historical record suggest that Maori (particularly those in the far North where most writers visited) had a strong aversion to alcohol, evident in their translation of alcohol as waipiro (stinking water). As one French sailor wrote in 1770, the Maori who ventured on board the French vessel Le Mascarin, having tasted white wine, ‘declined drinking it, making signs as that they preferred the water’ [14]. Some British observers in the early nineteenth century concurred [15,16]. One witness responded to the question ‘Are they fond of spirituous liquors?’ by replying: ‘No, they are not. I never met with any New Zealander that liked spirits, even of those who had lived on board the whalers.’ [17]. The traveller Augustus Earle wrote in 1827 that Maori ‘have the utmost aversion to every kind of wine or strong drink, and very often severely take us to task for indulging in such an extraordinary and debasing propensity, or, as they call it, of making ourselves mad’ [18].
While some observers believed that all Maori had an aversion to alcohol or did not abuse it before 1840, others did not agree. Edward Markham, who was the grandson of the Archbishop of York, travelled in the north of New Zealand in the early 1830s [19]. He observed that alcohol abuse in New Zealand was primarily a problem of non-Maori and that despite the occasional individual getting ‘shorangy’ (drunk), alcohol did not cause widespread problems among Maori.
In contrast to the abusive drinking patterns he described among non-Maori, Markham reported peaceful consumption of alcohol at hui (meetings). He reported being provided by Maori present with ‘a glass of rum to warm up on a cold and stormy night’ and on another occasion he described enjoying a meal with a group of Maori, whom he offered, ‘a dram of rum to wash it down.’ He stated that ‘it used to be called Why Pirah [waipiro] or stinking water. Now they call it Why Pie [waipai] or good water.' [19]
The desire of some Maori for alcohol was evident in reports that addressed alleged Maori abuse of liquor. The journals of the French sailor Jules Sébastien César Dumont D'Urville, which first appeared in print in Paris in 1842, suggest a demand for alcohol by Maori at whaling stations at Akaroa and Otago. Despite alleged unbridled passion for alcohol, there were also reports indicating that some Maori had developed a ‘more refined’ appreciation of alcohol [20]. Similarly, missionary reports from the mid-1830s and early 1840s which where intended to demonstrate Maori problems with alcohol abuse, also revealed that there was a demand for alcohol by some, but not all, Maori groups [21–24].
Prevalence of Abuse and Legislation
On the question of prevalence of alcohol abuse, the historical record has the most to offer. Secular witnesses and, more especially, missionaries (as noted above) often believed that Maori tended to abuse alcohol. The Native Resident, James Busby, one of the earliest British officials in New Zealand, noted in 1837 that alcohol, in combination with tobacco, had contributed to the decline in Maori population [25]. The naturalist and physician Earnest Dieffenbach agreed. In his report published in 1843, he noted that ‘distilled spirits, being in most extensive use in all the Australian colonies, have not failed to corrupt, mentally and bodily, the natives, as well as the European settler’ [26].
Such beliefs culminated with the passage of the Sale of Spirits Ordinance in 1847, a statute necessary, so Governor George Grey reported, ‘for the safety of the European population’ since ‘the use of ardent spirits continues to increase among the native race, and on several occasions Chiefs of some importance, and who could bring a large number of armed followers into the field, have been drunk in the streets’ [27]. The statute gave the colonising population sole control of the distribution of alcohol. It provided a convenient way to cut Maori out of the economic benefits that the sale of alcohol could have brought to some of them, as well as limiting their ability to develop effective strategies to manage the social impact of alcohol.
In the late 1850s and early 1860s, colonial authorities used their powers to prohibit the sale of alcohol to Maori in certain areas, namely the Bay of Plenty, Hawke Bay, Auckland, the Upper Waikato District and the Bay of Islands [28]. This was done in the belief, and with apparent agreement and support of local Maori chiefs, that alcohol threatened Maori communities (and their non-Maori neighbours). According to the model advanced by Gluckman [1] and others [29], such proclamations demonstrate that Maori had abused alcohol in the nineteenth century.
The documentary record actually suggests wide variation in response from place to place, as well as between and within iwi (tribes). The above approach also fails to account for the process of colonisation. Despite the passage of laws intended to prevent the sale of alcohol to Maori, and despite the apparent support for such laws offered by some Maori leaders, surviving documents reveal a wide range of opinion within Maoridom over the sale and use of alcohol in their communities. One set of documents is particularly notable: a cluster of almost 30 responses to a government circular sent to Maori iwi by the Native Minister Donald McLean in 1870 soliciting their opinion about a new ordinance designed to prohibit the sale of alcohol in more Maori communities [30,31]. These responses demonstrate that some Maori wanted to halt the sales of alcohol in their iwi because alcohol was the source, as one put it, of ‘all that is ruinous’, but others did not agree. Wiremu Tana Papahia informed McLean that ‘all the people of Whangape, Herekino and the West Coast to the Mouth of Hokianga at Orongotea and up to Matamata’ spent 3 days discussing the issue and they decided that ‘licenses [to sell alcohol] should be granted in all these districts. We want three licenses in these districts. We want the licenses for all sorts of liquor: rum, brandy, gin, wine, and all sorts of beer’ [32]. Other Maori also spoke specifically of the desire to sell alcohol in their communities, often because they believed that they should possess the same political and economic rights that non-Maori possessed as promised in the Treaty of Waitangi [33].
Conclusions
The evidence offered here, and more recently by Hutt [34], is admittedly predominantly from non-Maori sources. However, it does not demonstrate widespread demand for alcohol by Maori in nineteenth-century New Zealand, nor does it demonstrate instantaneous widespread destabilisation or demoralisation of Maori communities as suggested by earlier commentators. Instead, the written record suggests that following its introduction alcohol was adopted in varying degrees by some, but not all, Maori individuals and communities. Both Maori and non-Maori sources concur that in certain areas problems related to alcohol abuse did occur, particularly for coastal communities such as Otago, Akaroa, the Chatham Islands and the Bay of Islands. The consequences are still evident in some of the Maori families in these areas today.
There is still no evidence to support the assertions of the colonial official James Busby or the physician Earnest Dieffenbach, that alcohol led to physiological problems among Maori. Although reports testify to alcohol abuse among non-Maori, with documented cases of delirium tremens among abusive drinkers [35–37], no such records exist for Maori.
The above caveats notwithstanding, the surviving evidence provides lessons for understanding the history of alcohol use in New Zealand. Despite the assertions which provided the basis for the introduction of the Sale of Liquor Act of 1847, the arrest statistics for the mid-1850s (the earliest set of quantifiable records relating to alcohol abuse) reveal that there were approximately nine pakeha convictions for drunkenness for every one conviction for Maori for the period 1853–1857 [38]. It is notable that at this time Maori constituted the significant majority of the total population of New Zealand. British authorities not being in a position to enforce the 1847 statute or other laws may have effected low conviction rates.
It is also notable that the desire for control over licences is consistent with recognition of the potential economic opportunities and social consequences related to the sale and distribution of alcohol. Denial of these opportunities was not only deleterious in terms of economic benefit but was also likely to have had a limiting effect on the development of Maori ability to manage alcohol and alcohol-related problems. This may be reflective of recognition of the potentially ‘ruinous effects’ combined with pragmatic approaches to dealing with alcohol, recognising the need for Maori control if the negative effects were to be minimised. Notable Maori leaders, such as Sir Peter Buck, have written that alcohol led to widespread problems for Maori [39]. Scrutiny of the available written records suggests that during much of the nineteenth century, many Maori in fact made consistent efforts to have control over the use and sale of alcohol in their iwi.
What is clear, regardless of how one interprets the evidence from the mid-nineteenth century, is that Maori responses to alcohol were varied and complex. While there are some data, we cannot be sure about the exact nature of or motivation for the various responses. However, we can extrapolate from what we do know about the nature of Maori society and communities, currently and in the past, to formulate hypotheses that can inform current practices.
The history outlined above and that which has not yet re-emerged has important implications for modern-day interventions. The diverse responses to the introduction of alcohol in the nineteenth century show that Maori did not all share the same view. Clearly, individual and local differences affected how alcohol was used and whether or not it was abused. Not all Maori drank, and nor did all drinkers become ‘slaves to intoxication’. Further, rather than viewing developments in the nineteenth century in the light of an inevitable and growing problem for Maori, it is necessary to consider the sociopolitical context of Maori contact with alcohol, especially with respect to the Treaty of Waitangi.
Viewed in light of the Treaty, Maori who wanted (in the years after 1840) to drink alcohol, yet who lacked the ability to purchase it, justifiably complained. Under the law they stated they were entitled to the same rights as pakeha. Nineteenth-century laws that barred Maori from purchasing or consuming alcohol were not necessarily based on accurate observations of actual Maori alcohol abuse, but rather were likely to have been a reflection of processes of colonisation and the pejorative attitudes of many colonists toward the ‘natives’. Thus, the historical record suggests that current views on Maori drinking are at least in part an inheritance of an age when the rights of Maori were curtailed by the colonial administration which acted on negative stereotypical perceptions of ‘native inferiority’.
In the past, some Maori alcohol and drug workers and others have continued to articulate the received wisdom cited above. In recent years, various Maori health professionals have considered the impact of the colonisation process on contemporary views and policy related to Maori health; they have particularly considered the implications of the Treaty of Waitangi for health care [40]. Increased understanding of the processes of colonisation and its impact has also contributed to a more critical analysis of the current position of Maori in New Zealand society and the nature of culturally responsive healing for Maori.
In terms of interventions, historical information would be optimally presented in such a way as to enable individuals and communities to draw on lessons and experiences from their own past to identify factors likely to contribute to more positive outcomes. For example, there is a need for information relating to varied and flexible ways that Maori historically responded to alcohol. Integrating history into therapy in this manner is likely to have benefit for some Maori clients in terms of helping to create a sense of being able to respond to situations in ways which are not stereotyped or ‘predetermined’. Mana (prestige/standing) and related concepts of self-determination and self-efficacy are also likely to be reinforced by the presentation of such historical information. This historical information could also encourage communities and workers to look for local solutions which do not focus solely on encouraging or enforcing abstinence alone.
While presenting accurate historical information is likely to be of benefit, caution is advised when using such information to facilitate the therapeutic process. Care needs to be taken that such information is not used in a punitive way, which further demoralises clients/patients as they become more aware of the limits of their own cultural knowledge. For example, some Maori clients may be demoralised by non-Maori demonstrating superior knowledge, in relation to the things that define them and their culture. There is also a risk that such history may be taken on as an excuse for drinking by individuals who take a ‘victim stance’ and attribute their behaviour to the processes of colonisation and alienation, rather than taking responsibility for themselves.
In summary, consideration of non-Maori historic records indicates a variety of responses by Maori to the introduction of alcohol and a situation that is far from the ‘universal ruination of the savages’ promoted as fact in some quarters, even today. Understanding the history of alcohol use in particular areas and for specific iwi, hapu (subtribes), and even whānau; (family groups) is likely to be an important addition to strategies and therapies offered to Maori. Consideration of factors could well contribute more to positive outcomes. In particular, emphasising tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) would be a useful way of encouraging individuals and communities to take greater control and responsibility for their substance use. Future efforts to identify and apply aspects of tikanga Maori (Maori practices and protocols) and culture in culturally responsive treatments of alcohol and drug problems are likely to benefit from taking account of the historical responses of Maori.
Every good physician takes a history before attempting a cure.
—Bert Vallee [41]
Acknowledgements
Funding for Peter Mancall's participation in this project was provided by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand (ALAC) Research Fellowship for 1998. Peter Mancall thanks ALAC (particulary Val Norton), Marten Hutt, and Trevor Burnard for their assistance with arranging his research in New Zealand. Thanks also to Russell Stone for sharing his notes about the fermentation of tutu berry. The authors would also like to acknowledge the support of Michelle Anngow and Alison Pickering in the preparation of this article.