"unless you're the people who were already there, nowhere is really empty when immigrants arrive."
My country was the last country to be settled by people (about 800 years ago, with a possible settlement in the first century CE that died out), not to mention having had no mammals without wings or flippers up until people got here, so there's a strong sense that *land mammals* (let alone humans) are newcomers here.
The local mythology places pretty heavy emphasis on the canoes that the original settlers arrived in and their voyage from Hawaiiki. This must also be different from somewhere like Africa or Australia, where the local indigenous people may have lived there for tens of thousands of years and their histories don't focus on the original human migrations but instead suggest that the people have been there forever.
(Please note that I'm not trying to suggest that 'different' = 'less bad to have land stolen'. Different histories doesn't alter or in any way reduce the fact that the Maori had a lot of their land flat-out stolen in the hundred years after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. However, at least we have a general understanding that the Maori *owned* the place, sold some outright, had some rentals and leases misinterpreted as sales, had some stolen, gave some away (our first national park), and still own some. The Waitangi Tribunal is slowly working its way through the stolen land and organising reparations and so on, and it probably will be for the rest of my life at least. We don't have to deal so much with complete denial of the idea that the indigenous people of an area might have had a right to it.)
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Date: 16 May 2010 07:15 am (UTC)My country was the last country to be settled by people (about 800 years ago, with a possible settlement in the first century CE that died out), not to mention having had no mammals without wings or flippers up until people got here, so there's a strong sense that *land mammals* (let alone humans) are newcomers here.
The local mythology places pretty heavy emphasis on the canoes that the original settlers arrived in and their voyage from Hawaiiki. This must also be different from somewhere like Africa or Australia, where the local indigenous people may have lived there for tens of thousands of years and their histories don't focus on the original human migrations but instead suggest that the people have been there forever.
(Please note that I'm not trying to suggest that 'different' = 'less bad to have land stolen'. Different histories doesn't alter or in any way reduce the fact that the Maori had a lot of their land flat-out stolen in the hundred years after the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. However, at least we have a general understanding that the Maori *owned* the place, sold some outright, had some rentals and leases misinterpreted as sales, had some stolen, gave some away (our first national park), and still own some. The Waitangi Tribunal is slowly working its way through the stolen land and organising reparations and so on, and it probably will be for the rest of my life at least. We don't have to deal so much with complete denial of the idea that the indigenous people of an area might have had a right to it.)