Practice of adoption in Aotearoa before the 1881 Adoption of Children Act
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol32iss3id768Keywords:
Adoption, wh?ngai, kinship, M?ori, EuropeanAbstract
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.
References
Aginsky, B. W., & Buck, T. R. H. (1940). Interacting forces in the Maori family. American Anthropologist, 42(2), 195–210.
Adoption Act 1955. Reprint as at 07 August 2020.
Amendment to the Neglected and Criminal Children‘s Act. (1870).
An Act to consolidate and amend certain enactments of the General Assembly relating to the adoption of children. (1955). [Short title: Adoption Act 1955].
An Act to grant a Representative Constitution to the Colony of New Zealand. (1852). [Short title: New Zealand Constitution Act 1852].
An Act to Legalize the Adoption of Children. (1881). [Short title: The Adoption of Children Act, 1881].
An Act to Provide for the Care and Custody of Neglected and Criminal Children. (1867). [Short title: The Neglected and Criminal Children Act, 1867].
An Ordinance for the Support of Destitute Families and Illegitimate Children. (1846). [Short title: Destitute Persons, 1846].
Bradley, J. (1997). Kei konei tonu matou [We are still here]. In
Adoption and Healing: Proceedings of the international conference on Adoption and Healing. Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Adoption Education and Healing Trust.
Caversham Industrial School. (1880). Report of Commission appointed to inquire into the working and management of. Retrieved from https://atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/ atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1880-I.2.2.3.9
Daily Southern Cross. (1843). The Euronesians, Or the Children of European and Native Parents. (Vol. I), 23, 23 September.
Daily Telegraph. (1889). Waipawa. Issue 5494, 05 April.
Else, A. (1991). A question of adoption: Closed stranger adoption in New Zealand 1944-1974. Bridget Williams Books.
Gillard-Glass, S., & England, J. (2002). Adoption New Zealand: The never-ending story. Harper Collins Publishers.
Graham, G. (1948). Whangai tamariki. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 57(3), 268–278.
Griffith, K. (1997). New Zealand adoption: History and practice, social and legal, 1840–1996: process and practice, special issues, records and access, Maori adoption, statutes and rules, bibliography, case law indexes. Author.
Griffith, K. (1981). Adoption: Procedure—Documentation - Statistics, New Zealand 1881–1981 100 Years. Victoria University Press.
Hope, G. W. (1843). The Euronesians, or the children of European and native parents. The Southern Cross. (Vol. I), 23, 23 September.
Mead, S. M. (1997). Tamaiti whangai: The adopted child. In Landmarks, bridges and visions (pp. 204–212). Victoria University Press.
Metge, J. (1995). New growth from old: The whānau in the modern world. Victoria University Press.
Mikaere, A. (1994). Maori Women: Caught in the Contradictions of a Colonised Reality. Waikato Law Review Vol. 2. Retrieved from http://www.waikato.ac.nz/ law/wlr/1994/article6-mikaere.html.
Newman, E. (2011). A right to be Māori? Identity formation of Māori adoptees (Master’s thesis). University of Otago, Dunedin.
New Zealand Herald. (1888). Untitled. (Vol. XXV), 9024, 10 April.
New Zealand Mail. (1882). Untitled. Issue 564, 25 November. New Zealand Parliamentary Debates. (1881). (Vol. 39). Government Printer.
New Zealand Spectator and Cook Strait Guardian. (1852). On the causes of decay among the New Zealand Race. Preview of the report (Vol. VIII), 722, 26 May.
New Zealander. (1846). Legislative Council. (Vol. 2), 72, 17 October.
Otago Daily Times. (1888). Special Telegram: A Strange Application. Issue 8154, 11 April.
Otago Witness. (1888). Telegraphic Briefs. Issue 1899, 13 April.
Papakura, M. (1986). The old-time Maori. New Women’s Press. Retrieved from http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/ tei-MakOldT-t1-body-d2.html
Report on Education. (1881). Industrial Schools and Orphanages (Papers Relating To). Retrieved from https:// atojs.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/atojs?a=d&d=AJHR1881-I.2.1. 6.9&e=-------10--1------0--
Soanes, C., & Stevenson, A. (Eds.). (2008). Concise Oxford English dictionary (11th ed.). Oxford University Press. [Original edition, 1911].
Tennant, M. (2007). The fabric of welfare: Voluntary organisations, government and welfare in New Zealand 1840–2005. Bridget Williams Books.
Te Rito, J. S. (2007). Whakapapa: A framework for understanding identity. MAI Review, 1–10. Retrieved from http://www.review.mai.ac.nz/mrindex/MR/article/download/56/56-65-1-PB.pdf
Walker, P. (2001). The Fox boy: The story of an abducted child. London, UK: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Walker, S. (2001). The Maatua Whangai Programme o Otepoti: From a caregiver perspective (Master’s thesis). University of Otago, Dunedin.
Wanganui Herald. (1877). (Vol. XII), 2972, 30 June.
Wellington Independent. (1869). Local and General News: Brutality Extraordinary. (Vol. XXIV), 2867, 27 July.
Williams, H. (1992). Dictionary of the Maori Language (5th ed.). Wellington, NZ: GP Publications.
Willis, A. (1901). Regulations under Section 50 of “The Native Land Claims Adjustment and Laws Amendment Act, 1901”. The New Zealand Gazette, 12 December (Vol. 104. p. 2352).
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
By completing the online submission process, you confirm you accept this agreement. The following is the entire agreement between you and the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) and it may be modified only in writing.
You and any co-authors
If you are completing this agreement on behalf of co-authors, you confirm that you are acting on their behalf with their knowledge.
First publication
By submitting the work you are:
- granting the ANZASW the right of first publication of this work;
- confirming that the work is original; and
- confirming that the work has not been published in any other form.
Once published, you are free to use the final, accepted version in any way, as outlined below under Copyright.
Copyright
You assign copyright in the final, accepted version of your article to the ANZASW. You and any co-authors of the article retain the right to be identified as authors of the work.
The ANZASW will publish the final, accepted manuscript under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence allows anyone – including you – to share, copy, distribute, transmit, adapt and make commercial use of the work without needing additional permission, provided appropriate attribution is made to the original author or source.
A human-readable summary of the licence is available from http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, which includes a link to the full licence text.
Under this licence you can use the final, published version of the article freely – such as depositing a copy in your institutional research repository, uploading a copy to your profile on an academic networking site or including it in a different publication, such as a collection of articles on a topic or in conference proceedings – provided that original publication in Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work is acknowledged.
This agreement has no effect on any pre-publication versions or elements, which remain entirely yours, and to which we claim no right.
Reviewers hold copyright in their own comments and should not be further copied in any way without their permission.
The copyright of others
If your article includes the copyright material of others (e.g. graphs, diagrams etc.), you confirm that your use either:
- falls within the limits of fair dealing for the purposes of criticism and review or fair use; OR
- that you have gained permission from the rights holder for publication in an open access journal.
