Lost in translation

A trailblazing critique of the Treaty of Waitangi has proved, like the treaty itself, open to interpretation – affecting NZ law, policy and culture ever since

- BAIN ATTWOOD

The ways in which te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi has been interpreted by New Zealanders over the past 50 years owe a great deal to a famous scholarly journal article published in 1972 by a remarkable historian, Ruth Ross.

Or rather, interpretation of the treaty owes an enormous amount to the changing ways in which her article has been read, inside and more especially outside the cloistered world of universities.

This is probably unsurprising. The main reason an article such as Ross's becomes famous is that interpretation of it does not lead to any definite conclusion. The history of any major text is often a history of divergent or even conflicting interpretations, and the different uses to which it is put by those who read it. This is true of both Ross's article and the treaty itself.

In other words, her famous article in the New Zealand Journal of History is something like a bellwether seat in national elections.

As interpretation of it changes, so, too, does the way in which the treaty is interpreted.

Yet, as far as Ross was concerned or aware, she had just one thing to say in her article: the treaty was "a hopeless shambles".

The historic agreement was deeply flawed in her view because, at the time it was made in 1840, the English text had been hastily and inexpertly translated into te reo Māori.

As a result, she argued, its provisions were ambiguous and contradictory, and this meant it could never amount to a sacred covenant or a legal contract between the two peoples who had signed it. This was despite claims to the contrary by many Pākehā and Māori that it was New Zealand's founding document.