Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Maori Times, Maori Places: Prophetic Histories

Product Description Today, the Maori must live in a world that is dominated by European institutions. The ability to do this successfully depends on their constant vigilance in sustaining their beliefs, their views of themselves, and their notions of how the world works. Their membership in Maramatanga permits them to feel selected while they cautiously traverse a landscape which has lost its familiar outlines. This book is a compilation of twenty-five years of fieldwork with a group of Maori. It is an examination of oral histories, notebooks of songs, diaries, accounts of pilgrimages, and life histories. Critical issues are addressed including, written and unwritten histories, colonialism, gender, and membership in Maramatanga. This book examines in great detail what scholars of New Zealand have grown to understand, there is no monolithic Maori voice. Review A valuable book for and about a group of people who have lived mostly in isolation and were therefore largely unknown in the wider world.-- "The Contemporary Pacific"Maori Times, Maori Places is a book that will interest scholars of New Zealand as well as general readers. It is a history that seeks to place the Maramatanga within the changing landscape of New Zealand. Through all the political and social upheaval of the past seventy years, the gentle voice of Te Karere can still be heard by her people.-- "Oceana" About the Author Karen Sinclair is a professor of anthropology at Eastern Michigan University.