European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 13, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Magazine an example of traditional native Maori Wood carving from new zealand. Inventing culture by r old woodcut depicts a Maori Canoe legend that maoris arrived in new zealand in 1350 after a desperate voyage from polynesia in seven canoes is the Center of a controversy Between revisionist anthropologists and maoris is tradition fixed or in flux by John Noble Wilford new York times in the traditional tales of the Maori of new zealand their ancestors arrived in seven magnificent canoes after a heroic migration from the Distant islands of polynesia they believed in a supreme being known Aslo. And so Ever after the legend of the great Fleet and the cult of to have been Centrepieces of Maori culture. This Story of Maori origins is now the subject of heated controversy a scholarly Echo of colonialism with a twist. Anthropologists have determined that the tradition was More an invention of european anthropologists than an authentic heritage handed on by maoris from the past. But today s maoris accept the tradition As historical fact a never mind its dubious provenance a and angrily resist any revisionist assaults on their revered culture by White anthropologists. That episode and others like it raise some troubling questions for  there such a thing As unchanging tradition in societies is tradition largely fixed and Static or is it forever in flux with what certainty can anthropologists identify the principal characteristics of a culture for decades anthropologists in their Field work and i 93, strove to make their cultural studies a More f0 0006 but profession is now rent with aqq.ij1 de on a growing scepticism about Cutino pm inns of he very Reali a of the concept of Mantl j s a watershed moment a said George e. Lear for h ant re apologist at Rice University who is a bin e Leptis Quot we it re not talking about the Central concepls/f010 but he Concep Ion of Quot a ?82 an an hrs pm la Gist at the Institute for much mop to Princets Quot . Said Quot there s know what the 3 concern Over How anthropologists a Essen inn know about a cd Ture there s a Fth Rodning Odence in being Able to Model Sass �?�9y 0r any human science the natural some of the  a Ana anthropologists while accepting solid Saccom Sikhism As valid fear that it overlooks 0n the profession ? and wil1 have 3 parayzin9 effect n. Cultures May not be the timeless Phenomena they were once thought to be but scholars insist there is a Range of knowledge about societies that can be documented As fact and certain ideologies underlying the Way a society thinks and acts. Quot there s a danger we will do too much of this Navel watching Quot said Stanley j. Tamiah an anthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge mass. Quot in a not willing to say that there is no reality out there for us to observe and present. We have put together a certain fund of knowledge that cannot be  a new assessment of the Maori experience at the hands of colonial Powers and their anthropologists Points up the problems associated with the controversy. In a study published in the journal american anthropologist Allan Hanson a professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas said that the accepted Maori tradition was a a cultural invention Quot of the europeans that Quot raises fundamental questions about the nature of cultural reality and whether the information that anthropologists produce can possibly qualify As knowledge about that  Early this Century anthropologists in new zealand constructed the Maori tradition out of fragments of Art Oral legend and some manuscripts of questionable authenticity. A British scholar s. Percy Smith was instrumental in developing a single historical account about the migration in seven canoes and How most Maori tribes Trace their origins to one or another of the canoes. The europeans Hanson and other scholars argue had several reasons for fostering this invented tradition. In part they were influenced by the now discredited anthropological theory of diffusion ism and Lon distance migration. Many scholars of the Day sought to Trace the various primitive Peoples being encountered Back to a few cradles of civilization. Theory had a Way of colouring observations. Long before the great Fleet invention the first. Missionary to visit new zealand in 1819, suggested that the maoris had Quot sprung from some dispersed  later it was theorized based on supposed linguistic affinities that they were of aryan Stock. Such notions arose consciously or subconsciously because of scholarly preconceptions and an eagerness to assimilate the maoris into the european culture being planted in new zealand. Accordingly Hanson said. Europeans were pleased to discover in the Maori race the capacity for sophisticated philosophy As demonstrated by the to cult and a history of heroic discoveries and migrations that included the great  this seemed to ennoble maoris in european eyes to the Point he added Quot where it became possible to entertain the possibility of a link with  there was a Grain of truth in the tradition. The maoris did have stories of their ancestors arriving in canoes in the indeterminate past. In 1950, however. To Rangi Hiroa an anthropologist who is half Maori observed that the god loss creative activities a bringing Forth Light from primordial darkness dividing the Waters and forming the Earth a had too much in common with genesis to be convincing As a purely Maori tradition but the maoris had their own reasons for clinging fervently to Quot their Quot tradition. They accepted the invented heritage not As a step toward assimilation into the europ Dlan culture but to bolster a sense of their own ethnic distinctiveness and value. Quot this sense has grown dramatically in strength and Strid ency of expression in recent years Quot Hanson reported. Other anthropologists cite Many other examples of invented culture particularly by colonial scholars and explorers who thought they understood How certain tribal patterns should be the tribal people powerless then had to play by those rules. The land tenure system in the Fiji islands Lor example is the product More of anthropological interpretations than of actual practices in the dim past yet fijians would not hear of changing it. Anthropologists say. Quot we re finding that happened All Over the place said Richard handler an anthropologist at the University of Virginia. James Clifton an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin Al Green Bay has just completed a Book called Quot the invented Indian Quot which makes the Case that the image of the american Indian is largely a creation of White americans beginning with the romantic tale of Squanto teaching the pilgrims to Plant Corn and thus inspiring the first thanksgiving Day. And handler is studying the implications of historical restorations at places like Williamsburg va., where to said Quot people Are re inventing what they consider to be their  the stars and stripes Page 13