"At the time I gave the paper (1987), New Zealand history was still being evaluated from a Eurocentric viewpoint. It generally glorified the European settler experience and by doing so negated the MÄori experience and settlement of Aotearoa. A look at some of the vocabulary in use could be taken as a quick example. Take āpioneerā and āsettlerā. These referred to British pioneers and settlers. The ancestors of the MÄori children sitting in our classrooms were referred to in many less complimentary terms. They were savage barbarians, hostile, cunning. Warlike. Yet the British with all their guns and armoury, sweeping in on many indigenous areas of the world, were never referred to as warlike. In those times, the wars between MÄori and PÄkehÄ were still being referred to as āMÄori Warsā. A British fighting force was an army. A MÄori fighting force was a war party (a term still in use). British fighters were soldiers or colonial forces. MÄori fighters were rebels and raiders and warriors (again, still in use). A successful battle by the colonial forces was a victory, by a MÄori fighting force a massacre."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Patricia_Grace
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Patricia Grace
Patricia Frances Grace (born 17 August 1937) is a New Zealand author of novels, short stories and children's books. She was the first female MÄori writer to publish a collection of short stories, Waiariki (1975) and has since written seven novels, seven short-story collections, a non-fiction biography and an autobiography.
74 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Patricia Grace ā
Related Quotes
"When I began to write in the 1970s there were three women I considered my elders: Katerina Mataira, Arapera Blank andā¦"
"It's as though the pushing outward allows understanding to drop down-as though you've given words, ideas, sometimes cā¦"
"I think that with writing, every experience is important; everything that happens around us or near us or inside us, ā¦"
"Grace's stories make a shining and enduring place formed of the brilliant weave of Maori oral storytelling and contaiā¦"
"Patricia Grace's writing is as delicate as Japanese brushwork, yet as poignant and throat-aching as the loss of a lovā¦"
"(What would you say is the main motivating factor that keeps you writing?) PG: I keep wanting to explore, that's probā¦"
"The city was a great loom weaving its tangles and tufts of people into haphazard multicoloured fabric."
"The days before my wedding were full and busy ones but more so for my mother than for any of us. It was summer, with ā¦"
"I never found myself in a book. The children I read about lived in other countries, lands of snow and robins. Sometimā¦"
"To get back to writing the 'ordinary lives of ordinary people'. This is what I believed I was doing when I wrote Potiā¦"