The Humpty Dumpty Mistranslation and Misrepresentation Deployed in the British Colonization of Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

Māori have fought continuously to end British colonization in Aotearoa. The violent dispossession the British perpetrated against us and other Indigenous Peoples deprived us of our lands, power, language, and lives, relegating us to poverty, deprivation, marginalization, and powerlessness in our own ancestral lands. It has not stopped us from refusing to accept false British rhetoric that New Zealand is their possession and that they took control legitimately. They did not. Rather we have continued to preserve accounts passed down to us by our ancestors in our own language in order to know what happened, to understand our British immigrant guests and to realize the promise of a just, peaceful, and balanced society in New Zealand. In the process, we identified British myths and lies fabricated to deny the atrocities they were committing and to perpetuate their wealth, prosperity, power, and privilege....