The Meeting Place - A New Zealand History Blog

In pre-contact Māori society young unmarried men and women had a high degree of sexual freedom. With the exception of a few high-born women who were ceremonially bethrothed, pre-marital sex was considered socially acceptable, though blatant promiscuity was frowned upon and a certain level of discretion expected.   Sex was considered a normal and healthy part of every day life, with no particular taboos around it. Copulating couples were depicted in carvings and bawdy stories and waiata concerning sexual exploits or the size of men’s penises were common. Te Puawai o Te Arawa, 1905, 1/1-003279-G, ATL That relative openness extended to same-sex relationships, of which there is ample evidence from waiata and other traditional sources. Tutanekai, for example, who famously swam to Mokoia to be with Hinemoa, was also known to have had an initimate male companion known as Tiki. (By contrast, in the eighteenth-century Royal Navy death was the mandatory penalty for anyon...

Here's a story I like. On one level, it's a simple love story. But as I explain in The Meeting Place: Maori and Pakeha Encounters, 1642-1840 , the events described also provide a rich insight into the sexual politics of pre-Treaty New Zealand. Richard Cruise, a member of the crew that visited New Zealand on board HMS Dromedary in 1820, first told the story of two young lovers, one Maori, the other Pakeha, and the complex chain of events their desire to be together set off. Here is the story in his words: The ascendancy that the native women were capable, in some instances of obtaining over the mind of a European, was strongly exemplified, at this time, in the person of a very young man who held a situation of much respectability in the ship. Soon after our arrival at Wangarooa, he was employed with others in superintending the men employed in making the road; and during his residence on shore, he so strongly attached himself to the daughter of Towi, the chief of Rangehoo,...