SOCIOL 101 Chap.3 Te Tiriti, Tangata Tiriti and Being Answerable
Te Tiriti, Tangata Tiriti and Being Answerable
Where Wolfe names the structure, Lincoln Dam asks where each of us stands inside it. His argument rests on a fact many students meet for the first time in this week: the agreement of 1840 exists in two texts that disagree. The Māori text, te Tiriti, signed by about 540 rangatira, gave the Crown kāwanatanga, or governance, while Māori kept rangatiratanga, their own authority.
The English text, signed by 39, claims a complete cession of sovereignty, and governments have usually relied on it. Dam takes up Eddie Durie's pairing of tangata whenua, the people of the land, with tangata tiriti, those who belong here through the Treaty, and asks whether Asian New Zealanders belong in the second group.
He answers yes, reasoning that the preamble already imagined later arrivals, and he roots his obligations in his own inherited Chinese, Thai and Buddhist ideas about relationship. His family history shows refuge and dispossession sitting on the same land. The result is a distinction the course uses repeatedly: guilt is about the past and about feelings, while answerability is about a present relationship and what it requires.
For students who are tangata whenua, the lecture framed the question differently, as the position of a Tiriti partner. The lecture stressed that this is analysis of a relationship, not an accusation aimed at anyone in the room.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Te Tiriti and the Treaty as different texts
- 02
Kāwanatanga and rangatiratanga
- 03
Tangata whenua, tangata tiriti and tauiwi
- 04
Dam's inherited relational worldviews
- 05
The refugee settler condition
- 06
Guilt contrasted with answerability
Worked example · free
Decide which text a club's Treaty commitment rests on
- 1Identify the wording: the constitution names the Treaty, the English text, rather than te Tiriti.
- 1State what the English text implies: if sovereignty was ceded, iwi are one voice to be consulted by an authority that already decides.
- 1State what the Māori text implies: kāwanatanga was granted while rangatiratanga was retained, so iwi hold authority of their own.
- 1Compare the practice with each reading: consultation after the board decides fits the first reading, not the second.
- 1Conclude on the evidence of the signatures: most rangatira signed the text that kept their authority, so a partnership reading asks for shared decisions earlier.
Key terms
- Kāwanatanga
- Governance, the authority the Māori text gave to the Crown, which is narrower than the sovereignty claimed in the English text.
- Rangatiratanga
- Māori authority and self-determination, which te Tiriti records as kept by rangatira rather than handed over.
- Tangata whenua
- People of the land, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa, set beside tangata tiriti in Durie's 1989 formulation.
- Tauiwi
- In this course, a general term for non-Māori living in Aotearoa, wider than the Treaty-based category of tangata tiriti.
- Refugee settler condition
- Espiritu's phrase, used by Dam, for people who found safety in a settler state on land taken from its Indigenous people.
Te Tiriti, Tangata Tiriti and Being Answerable FAQ
Why do the two texts matter so much?
They record different agreements. In the Māori text the Crown received governance while rangatira kept their authority; in the English text Māori are said to cede sovereignty completely. Most rangatira signed the Māori text, yet governments have usually relied on the English one, so arguments about partnership, consultation and authority in later weeks often come back to this gap.
Does Dam say recent migrants are bound by te Tiriti?
Yes. He argues that the preamble already looked ahead to people who would arrive after 1840, so te Tiriti created the conditions for later families, including his own, to settle and remain. On that reading, even people who feel no connection to the agreement live under its terms and share responsibilities through it.
What is the difference between guilt and answerability?
Guilt fixes attention on past wrongs and on how a person should feel about them, which can leave people stuck. Answerability, as the lecture used it, concerns the relationship you are in now and what it asks you to do. Dam goes further than most readers expect: he calls himself complicit as a beneficiary of colonisation and therefore answerable for it, without that turning into personal guilt for past acts.
How does the chapter treat students who are Māori?
The lecture was explicit that tangata whenua are not being asked to see themselves as settlers. Their relationship to te Tiriti is as Tiriti partners, which the course treats as a different and important question. The invitation to examine one's position as tangata tiriti is addressed to non-Māori students.
How can Dam's ideas help in an essay?
They help with the justice and limits sections. Dam shows how to connect an issue to te Tiriti without reducing it to a two-party story, and his relational framing offers a way to discuss responsibility that avoids blame. An essay can also note that the Māori and Pākehā framing leaves out other communities, which is the gap Dam writes into.
Assessment move
Make a small comparison card with te Tiriti on one side and the Treaty on the other, listing signatories, what the Crown received and what rangatira kept, and learn it until you can explain the gap in two sentences. Then write your own short answers to Dam's three prompts about inherited worldview, obligation and what it asks of you here; the exercise makes his argument concrete and prepares material for reflective writing.
Practise using the words kāwanatanga, rangatiratanga, tangata whenua and tangata tiriti precisely, because loose use of these terms weakens an otherwise sound paragraph. If the Tiriti background is new, the reading guide points to the Waitangi Tribunal's explanation of the two versions.
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