A ‘forgotten’ whakapapa: historical narratives of Māori and closed adoption

Abstract

The era of closed stranger adoption is a significant part of Aotearoa New Zealand’s social and colonial history; some 80,000 children were legally adopted between the years 1955–1985. Māori children constituted a considerable proportion of these legal adoptions, although little attention has been given to their experiences. The relative silence surrounding this phenomenon exists alongside narratives of colonisation and a professed abhorrence by Māori to closed adoption practice, producing a narrative discrepancy. This article aims to understand and account for some of the discrepancies in public narratives by providing an accurate historical account of engagement with the 1955 Adoption Act and its 1962 amendments from a Māori perspective, and unpacking the legal, political, social and cultural aspects from a historical experience. The complexities and nuances of settler colonialism are highlighted, as well as the effects for Māori adoptees of not being publicly and historically narrated–forgotten subjects. Glossary of Māori words: Aotearoa: the Māori name for New Zealand; hapū: kinship group, clan, sub-tribe; iwi: kinship grouping, tribe; korero: to tell, say, speak, talk (verb); speech, narrative, story, discussion (noun); Māori: normal, usual, natural, common or ordinary, used to refer to indigenous New Zealanders; mokopuna: grandchild/grandchildren, descendant; Ngāpuhi: the people or tribal grouping of the Northland region; Pākehā: New Zealanders of European origin; tamariki: child/children; Te Tiriti o Waitangi: the Māori text of the Treaty of Waitangi, the founding document which enabled British settlement of Aotearoa; tikanga: culture, customs, traditions; whakapapa: genealogy, lineage, descent (noun); to place in layers (verb); whanau: family; whanaungatanga: relationship, kinship; whāngai: customary child placement, literal meaning to feed, nourish or nurture.