11ENGE MYE ESSAY

#1

In The 28th Māori Battalion, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell explores the deep and enduring relationship between Māori soldiers and their cultural identity. This relationship is expressed through their connection to whakapapa, spiritual tradition, and collective memory. It is a relationship tested by war, carried across continents, and ultimately honoured in grief and survival.

#2

Through his cantos in the poem, Campbell uses metaphor, symbolism, tone, and cultural allusion to show that Māori soldiers did not abandon who they were when they entered foreign battlefields. Instead, they fought as Māori — spiritually grounded, culturally aware, and deeply connected to their people. This relationship helped me understand that the heart of this text is not just military history, but cultural resilience.

#3

In Tohi, Campbell presents war not as a political choice, but as a sacred undertaking grounded in the relationship between the soldier and his ancestry. When the speaker says, “When Death sings in his hair and crackles to his fingertips, he becomes fully alive,” the personification of death reframes war as a spiritual threshold. It is not destruction, but transformation — a moment when the connection to ancestors becomes most intense.

#4

The relationship between the soldier and tikanga is deepened through the symbolism of the tohi ritual. Campbell writes, “the fighting man performs the rituals in his heart and guts,” suggesting that cultural identity is not erased by colonisation or war. It lives within. Even when formal ceremony is absent, the warrior enacts spiritual connection internally. This internalisation becomes an act of resistance — Māori are not fighting as subjects of empire, but as sons of their people.

#5

This mirrors the view of Sir Āpirana Ngata, who wrote, “We are the possessors of rights which we must qualify to exercise.” His words describe service as a way of asserting Māori identity — not erasing it. Campbell’s poem reclaims that idea with emotional and spiritual depth. The relationship between the soldier and his cultural identity helped me understand that Tohi is not about obedience — it is about survival through whakapapa.

#6

In When Tū Commands and Green Lizards, Campbell explores how this relationship survives across time and geography. In When Tū Commands, the speaker asks, “Why do we hurl ourselves into bloody conflict?”, then answers: “When Tū commands, we must obey.” This cultural allusion to Tūmatauenga, the god of war, reframes the soldier’s motivation — it is not loyalty to empire, but loyalty to tīpuna. Through this relationship, the soldiers become part of an unbroken spiritual whakapapa.

#7

The intertextual reference to the haka — “Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora, ka ora!” — reminds the reader that identity is performed, even in violence. The soldier’s voice is a continuation of ancestral voice. He fights not alone, but as part of a line stretching back through generations.

#8

In Green Lizards, vivid imagery of Greece — “mountainous country, deep wooded gorges… waterfalls and swift streams” — parallels the landscape of Te Urewera. This juxtaposition creates a powerful sense of tūrangawaewae in exile. When the speaker observes, “we had come a long way to find people like ourselves,” the relationship between soldier and home is rekindled. Even far from Aotearoa, they find ways to belong.

#9

Together, these two cantos helped me understand that Māori identity is not dependent on location. The relationship between the soldiers and their culture is not broken by distance — it travels with them, offering meaning and connection in unfamiliar spaces.

#10

In Māori Battalion Veteran, Campbell turns to what happens when that relationship is damaged. The speaker says, “Where my mind used to be, there is nothing but darkness, the sound of roaring, and emptiness.” Through metaphor and imagery, Campbell portrays a mind fractured by war. The line, “I have become an empty street in a town that has been blown to pieces,” symbolises emotional and cultural collapse — the soldier is no longer connected to life, to others, or to himself.

#11

But this disconnection is not the soldier’s fault — it is the nation’s. The only healing comes when he remembers the battalion’s hymn: “my dead mates came alive, and for the first time in years I wept.” In that moment, the relationship with his people returns, briefly. Through collective memory, he reclaims what war and silence almost erased.

#12

Henare Ngata’s words reinforce this injustice: “They fought for mana. But when they returned, the land was still lost.” The relationship Māori soldiers had with the land, their whānau, and their identity was never fully honoured. Campbell makes this absence painfully clear. This poem changed my understanding of the battalion’s legacy — it was not just heroic, but heartbreakingly unacknowledged.

#13

Ultimately, the most significant relationship in The 28th Māori Battalion is between the Māori soldier and his cultural identity. Through spiritual ritual, memory, and trauma, Campbell shows that this relationship is not broken by war — it is reinforced.

#14

In Tohi, When Tū Commands, Green Lizards, and Māori Battalion Veteran, the soldier is not just a fighter — he is a vessel of whakapapa, honouring the past while enduring the present. This relationship helped me understand the true meaning of Campbell’s work: Māori culture survives not just in peace, but in pain. It is remembered, carried, and lived — even when the world tries to forget.