1834: The Harriet Affair
April 29, 2019
By AHNZ
Today in New Zealand History, 29 April, 1834, a settler family were on their way home to New Zealand. Jacky Guard was the South Island’s first permanent settler and was returning with his young family from Sydney on the Harriet. Wild weather struck the ship and wrecked it on the Taranaki coast. All passengers and crew made it to shore safely and there set up a survival shelter, salvaging as much as they could.
Set Upon By Savages
Horrifically, the survivors were attacked and plundered, killed (14,) eaten (2,) looted, and imprisoned by the Maoris. Why was this the custom of these New Zealanders? Kicking your fellow man when he’s down was their ethic rather than lending a helping hand.
If a man’s child fell into the fire and was severely or perhaps fatally burned, he was plundered of nearly everything he possessed, and the same was the case if his canoe upset while he was fishing, or any other accident happened to him..”- Ref. ‘The Boy Travellers in Australia’ (1888)
The same giant jerk custom prevailed with South Island Maori too…
“In traditional Maori thought survivors from calamities were not seen as fortunate, inasmuch as they were considered to be tragic figures in themselves. In all cases of Ngai Tahu traditions that tell of survivors from failed campaigns returning to their kin, the lives of the survivors are endangered by the host people.” Te Maire Tau (2011)
We must remember that New Zealanders in this era were locked in a long Honour Culture (HC) phase. Sectarian tribes scrambled to survive in a Mad Max world where superstition and paranoia were virtues. An HC’s worldview tells him that bad luck events like accidents and shipwrecks are personal to the victims. It’s a signal that this person is out of favour with spirits and gods, they are marked as sinful and unfaithful and are fair game according to the law of muru.
Harriet wrecked herself on the fatal shore of an Honour Culture Maori world in 1834 but in my opinion that’s only a snapshot in time of who the Maori were. At an earlier time a Dignity Culture New Zealand developed refined arts and crafts and agriculture.
Oh to have met the New Zealanders at or before the Opening Ceremony of the Musket Steroid Olympics! A different people! The pre-Colonial Maori’s addictive substance was iron and muskets just as the modern athlete’s augment themselves with steroids and hormones. In the c.1820s Musket Wars the people became minimalist survivalists in a really bad dogfight of all against all. Those left standing were selected for being mongrul bad-ass or the lowly slaves thereof. No time for long-term pursuits like agriculture or passing on the skills of weaving or carving; All was war.
The Maoris that Colonists got to know were either these wild Harriet-raiding savages or the washed out junkies they had become in the aftermath. The higher, most civilised form, of Maori was largely abandoned and forgotten. That’s what I think of it anyway.
See you Later: Alligator
What became of the Harriet captives is another story. In short, Jacky Guard got away to Australia and returned on HMS Alligator to liberate his people. This included his wife and children. He got them all out of a jam, I guess, but used a little too much force.
—
John Guard; Wiki
image ref. Harriet anchor dug up by Arthur Gibson 1969; NZH&H, Facebook (2015)
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