Angela Wanhalla

Housing Un/healthy Bodies: Native Housing Surveys and Maori Health in New Zealand 1930–45

This article examines the relationship between Maori health and housing during the 1930s and 1940s, a time when Maori did not have access to mainstream housing assistance. The article extends the scholarship on Maori housing, by focusing on the period prior to World War II and on rural communities; and argues that native housing surveys illustrate continuities with Maori housing policy established in the decades after World War II in urban areas. Undertaken as a result of the passage of legislation in 1935, which provided for state involvement in Maori housing for the first time, the surveys indicate that the establishment of western-style houses in rural areas was viewed as a key tool in improving Maori health in the years before World War II. Health improvement through housing, however, required that Maori society, particularly family structures and gender relations, undergo transformation.

New Zealand scholars have argued that the provision of housing to Maori in the post-World War II era is one way of measuring the state's concern for Maori, and its willingness to extend to them the rights of citizenship.¹ State intervention into housing post-World War II was inextricably attached to Maori migration to the cities. However it also grew out of an official interest—commented upon by officials throughout the first half of the twentieth century—in reforming Maori housing in rural communities. This article charts the continuities between the housing policy of the post-war period and the native housing scheme established in 1935, and argues that the housing surveys, undertaken as part of the native housing scheme, linked the adoption of the western-style home to the development of good work habits, improvements in living conditions, and better health.

By the 1930s housing officers, through surveys, positioned the western-style house as an important means through which Maori social and cultural practices, viewed as detrimental to Maori health, could potentially be transformed. Notably, living conditions were connected with improvements in health, and the erection of western-style dwellings, it was hoped, would transform family and gender relations. While this process of 'Europeanization' held that better health could be achieved through the provision of western-style homes, it also meant that learning how to live in a home was essential to healthy living. The restricted nature of the native housing schemes—due to poor funding, a limited geographical reach, and a lack of uniformity—led to a fragmented housing policy, which gave Maori room to develop houses that combined western structure with Maori needs and aspirations.

Housing and Maori health

The history of official intervention into Maori housing in New Zealand prior to World War II is intimately tied to the question of health. Tuberculosis, whooping cough, measles and typhoid fever were all too common in Maori communities in the late-nineteenth century, and continued to be prominent in the early-twentieth century. As a result of introduced disease, in combination with the erosion of social and economic life through land alienation, the Maori population had fallen to just forty-three thousand by 1896.² For colonial officials and social commentators, statistical proof of Maori depopulation reinforced a belief that this was a 'dying race.' Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Maori housing and living conditions were associated with population loss. Nevertheless, a welfare programme aimed at Maori was not established until the mid-twentieth century.

Prior to World War II, the predominantly-rural Maori population had access to limited and ad hoc health service provision through the native schools system and a network of native medical officers.³ Until the 1930s relief aid to Maori communities was minimal, and shelter requirements were considered on an ad hoc basis. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that welfare became the permanent responsibility of the Native Department. Initially a land purchase agency, the department later added Maori housing to its responsibilities; but, by 1940, it was dealing with only 20 percent of the Maori population in the course of its land and housing work.⁴ Its reorganisation into the Department of Maori Affairs in 1945 saw it undertake a wider range of social welfare functions. Prior to this, the government did provide a small fund for relief purposes consisting of £7,000 per annum; but very rarely was the total amount ever spent on Maori health or welfare.⁵ Successful transition to a settled way of life, in which Maori farmed individual holdings and were inculcated in the virtues of self-sufficiency and good work habits, was supposed to negate the need for extensive state welfare assistance. The imperative of departmental welfare policy was to control costs and to develop self-sufficient, independent, industrious, and responsible individuals, families, and communities. In reality, this was not the case, as many families lacked the capital to improve their living conditions.

One of the first ways in which the state was involved in Maori health was through Maori councils. Established under the Maori Councils Act 1900, their members had the power to establish by-laws and enforce sanitary regulations in Maori communities. Government unwillingness to provide substantial funding meant Maori autonomy was limited and the provision of health and welfare services was only partial.⁶ Further support for improving Maori health was forthcoming in 1901 when Maui Pomare, New Zealand's first Maori doctor, was appointed the country's first Native Health Officer under the Public Health Act 1900. In this role, Pomare had the power to order the demolition of houses or their improvement.⁷ In 1903, Native Health Officers were joined by Native Sanitary Inspectors, whose activities centred on house-to-house inspections. Sanitary inspectors also had the power to condemn houses and recommend improvements.⁸

A turning point in the history of health services to Maori came with the influenza epidemic of 1918–19, in which the Maori death rate was seven times that of the general population. The epidemic brought into Maori communities many observers and officials, who commented on what they considered to be 'shocking' living conditions. Houses were repeatedly described as 'hovels' and communities as 'slums' and 'filthy.'⁹ The revelations of the influenza epidemic led to a major effort by the Health Department, during the interwar years, to improve sanitation in Maori settlements. A greater focus on Maori health and housing was forged through the establishment of the Division of Maori Hygiene within the Health Department under the Health Act 1920. It was in this context that a loan scheme for Maori housing was implemented under the Native Housing Act 1935. The importance of housing reform was reinforced at this time by Harold Turbott's investigation, published in 1935, into tuberculosis (Tb) in East Coast Maori communities. It highlighted the extent of Tb amongst Maori, and identified improvements to housing as the solution.¹⁰ The link between health and living conditions endured in the work of Native Department housing officers, under the auspices of the Board of Native Affairs, in their survey of the living conditions of rural Maori from the 1930s.

The first generation of Maori university graduates in the early-twentieth century sought to extend state health services to Maori; in 1936 these services included, for the first time, a systematic housing programme. The provision of housing for Maori in the 1930s existed outside of the mainstream state housing policy of the Labour government and encompassed a number of goals. For the board, the provision of western-style housing to rural Maori represented the implementation of a programme designed to improve standards of living and individual health. Importantly, these schemes were based around providing access to loans rather than public housing assistance. For Maori politicians and officials, the extension of western-style housing to Maori was also viewed as critical to the improvement of health, and central to the maintenance of communities as economically-viable entities in rural areas. To university-educated politicians such as Apirana Ngata, and Maori doctors Peter Buck and Maui Pomare, it seemed that western medical knowledge and western ways of living could provide the solution to poor Maori health. Leader of the powerful Waikato-Tainui tribes, Te Puea Herangi, accepted this position, viewing western medical knowledge and techniques as essential to eradicating European disease from Maori communities.¹¹

A structured and systematic welfare programme for Maori was beginning to be developed by the late-1930s. By 1939, the Board of Native Affairs was cooperating with a number of other government departments, notably education and health, and their agents, to improve Maori services. Its principal welfare activity, however, was the native housing programme established under legislation passed in 1935 and 1938. The board hoped the housing programme would reinforce the goal of the land development schemes, which had been established in 1929 by Apirana Ngata and maintained by the department after his resignation in 1934.¹² As stated by the Board of Native Affairs in 1944, the

fundamental objective of the development schemes now established, is to encourage and train the Maori people to become energetic, thrifty, and industrious farmers; to revive that passionate attachment to the soil, so inherent in the race; and to create a form of life [which], while retaining the best elements of Native culture, will profitably settle the Maori on his own lands.¹³

Maori land development and settlement, as well as the provision of homes, represented a policy of 'helping people to help themselves.'¹⁴

By 1938 there were four ways in which Maori could obtain financial assistance for new homes, and for which housing officers embarked on surveys of housing needs. Under the Native Housing Act 1935 a loan of up to £750, provided an applicant had land and could make repayments, could be applied for by any Maori. Ngata's land development schemes, which made loans available to Maori farmers to develop their land, were also in operation. While the development schemes were initiated to assist Maori in becoming economically independent, the loan money was also used to erect essential farm buildings and to build homes. Between 1929 and 1936, 551 houses were built as part of the land development scheme.¹⁵ In 1938, under the Native Housing Amendment Act, the Labour government set aside £50,000 for the housing of 'indigent natives.' The practical side of this Special Housing Fund was managed by the Maori Land Boards, but the standard of security required was lower than that for applicants under the 1935 act.¹⁶ Housing syndicates were also in operation. In this case, wage-earners formed a group and contributed a weekly sum to a common fund. When a certain amount had been generated, a ballot was held and the winner applied for funding from the board with the saved amount as a deposit. The first syndicate in operation was at Bridge Pa, Hastings.¹⁷

All the housing schemes were financed and managed by the Board of Native Affairs. Its responsibilities involved the control and direction of land development, and control over expenditure for all farming operations undertaken or approved by the Native Trustee and the seven Maori Land Boards.¹⁸ Under the 1935 act the board's powers were extended to the financing of new houses in rural Maori communities. As well as providing new houses, the board also funded the repair, alteration or improvement of dwellings, as well as the provision of amenities, including lighting, heating, sanitation and water-supply systems. Under the 1938 act, houses could also be purchased for applicants.

Applicants experienced a number of difficulties peculiar to Maori when attempting to access loans under the 1935 act. Through surveys 'many problems [were disclosed] which render a housing scheme for Natives more complex than is the case with Europeans. Indigency [sic], defective land titles, multiplicity of ownership, insufficient security, Native custom, and even religious beliefs are factors which have retarded the Government's housing policy for Maoris.'¹⁹ These difficulties were a constant and oft-repeated theme in the reports. Housing schemes were limited in scope, and often hampered by a lack of funding and a shortage of materials and labour; land titles posed a major difficulty; and most Maori could not provide the required security to obtain a loan. The government acknowledged the limitations of the 1935 act and in 1938 passed legislation that established the Special Housing Fund, which opened up the possibility of housing to a greater number of Maori. It did not, however, solve the problem of multiple ownership of land or the fact that many Maori were landless. As a result, most new homes for rural Maori were provided under the land development programme rather than the native housing loan scheme and Special Housing Fund. By March 1940, 1,224 houses had been erected under the land development scheme, 171 financed under the 1935 act and 197 homes provided through the special fund.²⁰

Housing surveys

After the passage of the 1935 legislation, the Native Department instituted surveys in rural Maori communities across the country designed to assess housing needs. At the heart of housing surveys was the investigation of individual homes in order to ascertain not only the assistance required, but also the cost to the department. At the same time the surveys provided 'a comprehensive summary of the housing conditions of Natives throughout New Zealand.'²¹ Housing surveys were run by the Maori District Land Boards in seven districts. Each settlement was visited by a housing or health officer who classified houses as 'Good; Fair; Bad or Over-Crowded.' The residents were also reported upon in detail by the officer, who described the living conditions, commented on the health of residents in each dwelling and noted whether they were overcrowded—perpetuating a long-held state perception that Maori settlements were unhealthy and sites of disease.

In the first half of the twentieth century, Pakeha/European working-class homes were also subject to official investigation and intervention. During this period, successive New Zealand governments positioned housing as crucial to improvements in health for a rapidly-urbanising Pakeha population, at a time when eugenic fears about the health of the 'white race' were prominent. From 1905, the provision of housing for working-class families represented a significant shift in welfare policy, culminating in the state housing scheme of the first Labour government in the 1930s. Housing surveys of urban slum areas were instituted under the Housing Act 1935 under a Coalition government, and were carried out by the new Labour government. In their analysis of the 1937 housing survey of Dunedin's southern suburbs, Penny Isaac and Erik Olssen found that the 'discourse of the slum' dominated the official view regarding urban dwellings.²² As in the discourse surrounding Maori homes, Pakeha working-class houses were overcrowded and thus unhealthy and immoral.

Maori homes were not the same as those of Pakeha working-class families in Dunedin. Maori health statistics were particularly poor, and Maori communities were more likely to suffer from outbreaks of typhoid and influenza in the first two decades of the twentieth century. Maori communities were also overwhelmingly rural during this period and had limited access to health and welfare services at a time when these were being extended. While the discourse linking health and immorality—involving the construction of three- or four-bedroom houses that promoted separate sleeping quarters to prevent overcrowding and the spread of disease—was the same, poor Maori health was explicitly linked to cultural practices. Maori health standards were viewed as the inevitable result of unhealthy customs and unsanitary living conditions.²³

Officials blamed Maori for their predicament, but rarely understood the meaning of the house/whare in Maori society and communal life, in which a complex system of housing was employed and dwellings were carefully sited. The plain wharepuni/sleeping house was a one-room dwelling built low to the ground, and was heated by a fire with roof ventilation near the entrance. An extended family slept in the wharepuni and it was designed to provide warmth and shelter in the winter months. During the summer, a time of seasonal migration for food, less permanent dwellings were erected.²⁴ Separate structures stored food, garments, and implements, highlighting their significance to the community and the strict adherence to custom, which separated places, people, and items into tapu/restricted and noa/accessible.²⁵ Following the rules of tapu and noa was essential to the holistic Maori view of health that linked people and the environment. Application of tapu and noa regulated the accessibility of sites and therefore assisted in the containment of disease. Food for instance, was stored in a specified place, prepared elsewhere, and then cooked at yet another site.

Surveys illustrate that housing reform was central to a wider policy goal of Europeanisation, which took different forms for men and women and was reinforced by health, education, and land policy. Home ownership was equated with the development of individual property rights, and reformulated men as economic subjects. Improvements in agriculture and wage labour were connected with manhood, while property ownership and improvements in housing were connected with the successful implementation of a cash economy.²⁶ This shift was reinforced by images in departmental reports during the late 1930s of men at work on land development farms. Images illustrated the attainment of the desired masculine virtues, such as industry and independence, through wage work. The link between Maori masculinity and wage labour was reinforced on the housing schemes in an additional and significant way: Maori men comprised the majority of the labour needed to build new homes. Not only did the training of Maori men in the building trade provide that industry with a source of much-needed labour, it also solved the problem of unemployment amongst Maori men, and consolidated their role as the breadwinner. The housing schemes put 'idle' hands to work, and impressed European standards of masculinity on Maori men by engaging them in the western wage economy (Image 1).

Image 1: Maori Carpenters at Work on a Housing Scheme Cottage (AJHR, 1938, G-10, 112).

Housing surveys also explicitly linked health and hygiene with housekeeping. It was through intervention in the home, primarily through education in domesticity, that Maori women, and by extension their family, were to become civilised subjects. Housing officers not only reflected on the nature of housing in the settlement but also on the role of a good home in improving living conditions and personal health. At Tuahiwi, in Canterbury, many homes were not structurally pleasing to the eye, but they were found to fit the standards of good housekeeping. Many were described as 'very nice and clean inside,' 'very well kept,' and 'quite nice inside.' Successful housekeeping was associated with European standards of living. Housing officers found that the Rupene family 'know how to look after a home and live like Europeans'; the Grennell family home was 'well kept and compares favourably to a European home'; while Emma Korako and Taiaroa Grennell 'live as Europeans do and are a cut above the average Maori.'²⁷

In architectural style the healthy home had to be a moral one, where sleeping quarters were separated. For a good home to become a moral home gender relations were required to undergo a transformation. This was to be achieved through the restructuring of the domestic economy during which process women were instructed in housekeeping skills.²⁸ Surveys, with their emphasis on interior examination, found that sufficiently-high standards were often not met by Maori women. Some, however, had their success explicitly acknowledged through references to their cleanliness and good housekeeping. It was noted in Tokerau that good housekeeping practices were prevailing in new homes, while in Waikato-Maniapoto 'real pride is being taken in the appearance and cleanliness of the homes.'²⁹ In most cases, however, when women were explicitly mentioned in these reports, they either were said to be unable to provide a decent and clean shelter for the family, or were depicted as unruly, troublesome, or not in their proper spaces.

The solution to the problem of the resistance of some women to the prescriptive standards of domesticity was instruction in becoming civilised subjects. Instruction on how to live in a home would, it was claimed, have beneficial effects on personal habits, cleanliness, sanitation, and health. Hygiene and domestic education had featured prominently in the education system from 1884, when James Pope's Health for the Maori was published. Emphasising hygiene and sanitation rules, Pope's book became a standard text in the native schools system.³⁰ Education was put forward as the best solution to the appalling living conditions and poor health that housing officers encountered in Maori communities during the 1930s. After reading the report on a 1935 survey of the Little River community, the under-secretary of the Native Department commented:

To teach the young Maori how to live seems the first essential. I sometimes wonder whether Native School teachers are not placing too much importance on the academic rather than on the practical side of education. A knowledge of health, hygiene, simple economy and the practical sciences would seem to me to be infinitely more important than even a knowledge of reading, writing and simple arithmetic.³¹

Gendered notions of citizenship based around industry, thrift, self-sufficiency, and domesticity were also an integral aspect of the native schools system, in which boys were to become good farmers and girls good farmers' wives. The extension of western understandings of domesticity through the education system sought to transform physical structures and behaviour, and was 'one of many spatial techniques of conquest and control' in colonial societies.³²

Physical hybridity was also viewed as an element of successful Europeanisation and in many reports was equated with wealth, welfare, and good health. The attainment of good homes and economically viable farms, like those of Toby Robinson and James Daniels, was linked to having 'Pakeha blood' which, it was argued, made them more 'thrifty.' The community at Port Levy on Banks Peninsula was found to be 'get[ting] along very nicely' with many residents having modest farms. In reporting on each home, the housing officer attributed the success to possessing 'European blood' or, like Meri Tiripa, living 'as Europeans do.'³³ Europeanisation was not just cultural but also had a biological component.

Poverty and illness were prevalent themes in the 1937 housing survey of Maori communities in the South Island. Olive Te Pura Wera's six-bedroomed home was, according to the housing officer, 'one of the better houses in Tuahiwi.' She lived there with three of her four children, her seventy-six-year-old father, her uncle Teoti Matene, and four others.³⁴ While Olive may have possessed a modern and well-ordered home, on closer inspection poverty and illness marked the lives of her family. In 1937, she presented evidence before the Native Land Court on the family's situation. Her father was blind and living off an old age pension, and the land at Tuahiwi had been mortgaged to the State Advances Corporation 'to put the house up. We are still paying for it. The mortgage has been running for 21 years. Father has no income and is practically bedridden.'³⁵ On the surface Olive's home fitted the ideal desired by the Board of Native Affairs and its agents; but in fact it reinforced a widespread Maori narrative about the 'colonial experience.'³⁶ Crucially, the shift to a western-style home did not ensure better health and welfare. In Olive's case poverty was the result.

Housing surveys, as report cards on Maori progress, often found communities to be lacking the markers of Europeanisation. Inferior housing was aligned with poverty and poor health. Similar stories to Olive's were repeated in the housing officers' reports as they visited settlements throughout the South Island and elsewhere. At Taumutu, Teone Wiwi Paraone was recorded as being a widower, the father of six children, who suffered from periodic bouts of illness.³⁷ While only one of his children resided with him, Paraone lived a life of poverty. He did not work, received £12 per year rent, had only a few landed interests of a small size, and lived in a home that consisted of '2 tin shacks' that were in a 'disgraceful condition and are condemned.'³⁸ Descriptions of appalling living conditions were a constant feature of the reports. Housing conditions at Waimiha, for instance, were described as 'unsightly' and a 'positive menace to the health of the occupants.'³⁹

Housing design

The investigations of houses by departmental agents point to the development of a set of standards that prescribed a European way of living in western-style dwellings in rural areas. In particular, houses were to have straight fences and a well-maintained garden, be tidy inside and out, and be comfortably furnished. By the 1930s, these ideals were given formal architectural expression in the form of the Public Works Department houses provided under the schemes.

There was no one set plan for all houses built under the housing schemes. Those who received a loan were able to purchase a home or alter an existing house to their own specifications. Few detailed descriptions of housing interiors exist in annual reports. In 1938, an image was published of the type of home being established in Maori communities, along with the following description: 'One house contains a front sleeping-porch; a living-room with range, sink and cupboards; a sitting-room and bedroom combined, with fireplace; a bedroom opening on to an open-air nursery; a bathroom with bath and all conveniences, and a detached washhouse with a copper and tubs.'⁴⁰ The Board of Native Affairs viewed these homes as being the first step towards better housing and improved individual health. Indeed, houses with a 'front-sleeping porch' were essential in fighting the spread of Tb, which was endemic in many Maori communities in the mid-twentieth century.

However, the majority of houses built were for 'indigent' cases, and followed an established government design. Houses for the 'indigent' were built along the lines of the Public Works Department workers' cottages. Many were two-bedroomed houses, even though it was recognised that such homes were not always appropriate. In 1938 came the statement that 'it is not intended to build a stereotyped house'; equally, however, the houses had to be inexpensive, as: 'We are talking business not charity,'⁴¹ and materials for homes were sourced with cost in mind. Timber was milled by unemployed Maori labour; relief wages were paid to Maori to build the cottages; and second-hand furniture was sourced for the homes.⁴² By late 1937, the department was recommending that housing costs be kept to under £300 pounds for Special Housing Fund applications. Further savings, it was stated, could be made by adopting the 'lean-to type for cheaper houses' (Image 2). Costing less than £200, these houses were specifically designed for pensioners and the indigent, but rarely included a bathroom or other amenities.⁴³

Image 2: A Pensioner's Cottage built under the Special Housing Scheme at Hokianga (AJHR, 1939, G-10, 78).

Once new houses were built, the department ensured that the owners maintained the homes to required standards. At Te Arai, the housing officer noted that 'the occupiers have already improved the grounds by putting down lawns, shrubs and gardens' and they 'are all aware that they must see that the houses are to be kept clean and in good repair.'⁴⁴ After his inspection of Tuahiwi in August 1937, J.H. Grace suggested:

some person should be appointed as Welfare Officer to keep the people up to the mark after these houses are built or renovated. There should be some control over the wages and incomes coming to these people and a small portion set aside to be spent on their own homes. It is by having a better home to live in, provided there is constant employment, that gives them a start towards better living conditions; and by keeping them up to the mark after the better living conditions are attained should be a step towards elevating the general welfare of the Maori people [sic].⁴⁵

Many boards instituted a programme of regular inspection for new houses. Inspections were needed, stated the Aotea district officer, because improved housing was not enough to ensure good health. Home 'maintenance is a matter that has to be carefully watched.' Of particular importance was the manner in which the home was used,

as there is also a tendency for the houses to be overcrowded, to the detriment of the health of the inmates, [therefore] the supervisor in each area has been instructed to inspect the houses at regular intervals and to report any cases of overcrowding, neglect in proper maintenance, or the non-payment of rates.⁴⁶

In the Ikaroa and South Island districts, new home owners were informed of the 'necessity for keeping their houses in good order both inside and out, and householders are urged and encouraged to lay out flower-gardens and shrubberies of Native trees surrounding the new dwellings' (Image 3).⁴⁷

Image 3: 'Hokianga Scheme: A Well-kept Settler's Dwelling which was erected by Native Labour' (AJHR, 1939, G-10, 78).

Inspectors emphasised that houses had to be well maintained for the purposes of improving health standards. In order to ensure that this took place, housing officers cooperated with other government departments, exchanging information regarding housing conditions on the completion of regular inspections. In the Tokerau district cooperation was sought with the Health Department 'in the periodical inspection of houses to ensure that they are kept clean and in a satisfactory state of repair' and that residents are 'carefully looking after their houses.'⁴⁸ A similar policy was pursued in the Aotea district, where health inspectors and district nurses informed the Maori Land Boards of unsatisfactory housing conditions.⁴⁹ In addition, the Aotea Maori Land Board employed local building supervisors 'to inspect regularly the houses provided ... and to see that the better living conditions provided are maintained.'⁵⁰

Improvements rendered to the houses were often recorded visually (image 4). Between 1937 and 1939, 131 photographs were published in the annual reports of the Board of Native Affairs, and forty-five of these images were of houses erected under the housing programme. None of these photographs provides a view of the interior of the home, something in which housing officers and inspectors were keenly interested and often described. In the Waikato-Maniapoto district, health officers associated with the Department of Health undertook the 'periodical inspection of houses which are now occupied, and reports received concerning the cleanliness and maintenance of these houses are most gratifying. In practically all the cases the occupants are anxious to obtain furniture and to live according to good European standards.'⁵¹ Acquiring furniture indicated 'progress' and 'improvement,' in terms of both material circumstances and cultural assimilation.

Image 4: Tidy and well-maintained homes, like this house erected under the Waiapu-Matakaoa Scheme, were praised by housing officers in annual reports (AJHR, 1938, G-10, 102).

Hybrid homes

The building of 'European-style' homes did not necessarily entail cultural assimilation. Field officers and inspectors had to contend with Maori families who had very different ideas about the style and type of home in which they wished to live. From the mid-nineteenth century, many communities built wooden structures that combined elements from Maori culture and decorative arts with European materials, architectural construction and style.⁵² This pattern continued into the 1930s and is reflected in the reports of housing officers. In some cases, families used the state loan to build homes in which to accommodate their extended family. John Whatarau of Whakatau lodged an application for a loan in 1937 in order to 'enlarge their home to accommodate the unmarried family and parents.'⁵³ Even the department acknowledged that 'in order to conform with Maori architectural ideas, the raised roof is to be preferred.'⁵⁴ Some officials understood that supplying Maori families with small two-bedroomed homes was 'insufficient for the needs of the people' at a time when Maori families were large and inter-generational in structure. The state and its officials, however, had little regard for the extended family model, with its agents often labelling it as 'overcrowding.'⁵⁵

A number of communities resisted housing schemes, viewing them as another way for the government to alienate their land. At Waimako the housing officer encountered little enthusiasm for government assistance in 'building them new homes, [or] repairing or enlarging their present houses in order to make them more habitable.' The community feared the consequences of failing to make repayments.⁵⁶ In 1937 Sister Kearney of the Presbyterian Maori Mission wrote to the minister of Native Affairs about fears concerning the loans. Members of the community desired houses but 'they refuse to fill in one of those forms, for they have it firmly fixed in their minds that should they be unable to meet their obligations, the Gov. will step in and claim their lands in lieu of unpaid rent [sic].'⁵⁷

Maori values and customs were reflected in the manner in which the new home was used. Houses were often inhabited by an extended family, like Olive's at Tuahiwi, and the occupants continued to engage in customary activities, and the hosting of significant social events. The oft-stated lack of indoor cooking facilities perplexed housing officers, who failed to understand the cultural significance of separate sites for food preparation and communal cooking, which took place outdoors.⁵⁸ Plans for workmen's cottages built for indigent cases may not have included a bathroom but always included a stove in the kitchen.⁵⁹ Housing design was an issue that continued to be negotiated throughout the 1940s. By 1949 Maori women were asking for homes that had 'large kitchens with coal ranges, instead of electric stoves, [as] the former would be cheaper and give warmth to the families while cooking and having meals.' A large covered bin was also suggested, as a practical way to store potatoes and kumara.⁶⁰ Some families resisted the advice to beautify their new home and surroundings. In 1940 an officer of the Ikaroa and South Island Maori Land Board observed that there had not been 'any marked improvement in the grounds and surroundings of the houses erected, especially in the nature of gardens and ornamental trees.'⁶¹

A housing and building construction organisation was established within the Native Department in 1944. With its establishment the department instituted building standards across all the housing schemes in order to 'provide a more effective control of a progressive Native housing programme.'⁶² Responsible for 'the administration of the housing activities, architectural work and village planning, construction and repair of houses, and the training of Maori youths in the various building trades,' the housing and construction organisation took over the planning and building of homes from the Public Works Department, thereby bringing the housing schemes under a central authority.⁶³ From the mid-1940s uniformity of planning and design negated the possibility of hybrid homes being established. It did not, however, curtail the traditional uses of interior space.⁶⁴

In many cases the western-style houses erected for Maori in rural areas were not an improvement upon the traditional structures. Native officers commented on the changing style of houses and other markers of Europeanisation, such as a well-tended and neat garden and a small farm on an individual holding, but this was often 'substandard permanent housing.' Upon investigation of Maori communities, it was commonly noted that Maori homes lacked a toilet and running water, had overcrowded sleeping quarters and poor ventilation, and were generally unhygienic.⁶⁵ As housing surveys indicate, these were the characteristics of Maori dwellings into the 1940s. Given the department's desire to keep the cost of the building schemes manageable, the state did not succeed in its desire to house healthy bodies and encourage Maori 'to make their homes more than just places to sleep and eat in.'⁶⁶

Conclusion

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s the notion of the 'home' and its relationship with Maori health was constantly negotiated by government officials and Maori communities. The Board of Maori Affairs encouraged Maori to build western-style homes for practical reasons. Obtaining improved health through better living conditions and sanitation was a particular concern. Given the associated difficulties peculiar to Maori land ownership, the Board, however, encountered obstacles in improving Maori living conditions through housing schemes. For Maori leaders, better housing was certainly about achieving better health; but it was also part of a larger philosophy of social and economic betterment. Improvement, both economically and bodily, was a difficult goal to achieve for those families who applied for assistance, as home ownership placed them under a great deal of financial pressure, creating further debt and poverty. Most importantly, housing surveys illustrate that the push for better health amongst Maori involved the Europeanisation of Maori society and, in particular, the transformation of family structures and gender relations. Housing was thus a key site of official intervention and reform, and a point from which progress was judged in the adoption of western modes of living. Maori, however, did not make the transition to western-style homes as smoothly as annual reports suggested or illustrated. In the absence of a uniform housing policy, Maori families occupied houses that were architecturally hybrid, and selectively adopted western spatial usages of the home.

University of Otago

Notes

^1. Barbara Brookes, "Nostalgia for 'Innocent Homely Pleasures': The 1964 New Zealand Controversy over Washday at the Pa," in At Home in New Zealand: History, Houses, People, edited by Barbara Brookes (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2000), 210–25; Margaret McClure, A Civilised Community: A History of Social Security in New Zealand, 1898–1998 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1998); Bronwyn Labrum, "Developing 'the Essentials of Good Citizenship and Responsibilities' in Maori Women: Family, Life, Social Change, and the State in New Zealand, 1944–70," Journal of Family History 29, no. 4 (2004): 446–65 and "'Bringing families up to scratch': The Distinctive Workings of the Maori Welfare State, 1944–1970," New Zealand Journal of History 36, no. 2 (2002): 161–184; Ben Schrader, We Call it Home: A History of State Housing in New Zealand (Auckland: Reed Books, 2005); Megan Woods, Integrating the Nation: Gendering Maori Urbanisation and Integration, 1942–1969 (PhD thesis, University of Canterbury, 2002).

^2. Mason Durie, Whaiora: Maori Health Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 33. See also Ian Pool, Te Iwi Maori: A New Zealand Population Past, Present and Projected (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1991).

^3. Raeburn Lange, May the People Live: A History of Maori Health Development, 1900–1920 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999), 53–83. There is an extensive scholarship on health services to Maori prior to World War II: Derek Dow, Maori Health and Government Policy, 1840–1940 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1999); "'Specially Suitable Men?' Subsidized Medical Services for Maori, 1840–1940," New Zealand Journal of History 32, no. 2 (1998): 163–88. See also Alexandra McKegg, "The Maori Health Nursing Scheme: An Experiment in Autonomous Health Care," New Zealand Journal of History 26, no. 2 (1992): 145–60; Geoffrey W. Rice, "Maori Health and Heaton Rhodes as Minister of Public Health, 1912–1915," New Zealand Journal of History 35, no. 2 (2001): 204–20; Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa, "'The Power of the Physician': Doctors and the "Dying Maori" in Early Colonial New Zealand," Health and History 3, no. 1 (2001): 13–40.

^4. Labrum, "'Bringing families up to scratch': The Distinctive Workings of the Maori Welfare State, 1944–1970," 163.

^5. See Lange, 70.

^6. See Gael Ferguson, Building the New Zealand Dream (Palmerston North: Dunmore Press, 1994), 163–5; Lange, 189–228.

^7. Lange, 139, 150–3.

^8. Ibid., 214.

^9. See Geoffrey W. Rice, Black November: The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in New Zealand (Wellington: Allen and Unwin, 1988).

^10. H.B. Turbott, Tuberculosis in the Maori, East Coast, New Zealand (Wellington: Department of Health, 1935).

^11. See Michael King, Te Puea (Auckland: Penguin, 1977). The health goals of Maori leaders in the early-twentieth century are examined in Lange, May the People Live and Dow, Maori Health and Government Policy.

^12. Apirana Ngata, of the Ngati Porou tribe, was the minister of Native Affairs in 1928. The first Maori to graduate from a New Zealand university in 1893, he trained as a lawyer, but is remembered as one of New Zealand's great statesmen. His political career lasted from 1905–43 and during this period he implemented a number of policies, notably land development schemes, designed to place Maori on an equal economic footing with Pakeha.

^13. Appendices to the Journal of the House of Representatives (AJHR) (1936) G-10, 1.

^14. AJHR (1944) G-10, 1.

^15. Ferguson, 100.

^16. Memo to Crown Solicitor, 18 February 1938, MA 1/606 30/3/79, Archives New Zealand, Wellington (hereafter ANZ-W).

^17. On the different ways Maori could access funds for housing in the early-twentieth century see Ferguson, 164. On the establishment of housing syndicates see MA 1/606 30/3/79, ANZ-W.

^18. AJHR (1935) G-10, 1.

^19. AJHR (1938) G-10, 6.

^20. Ferguson, 164.

^21. Letter, under-secretary to registrar, 3 September 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/70, ANZ-W. See Ferguson, Building the New Zealand Dream and G.V. Butterworth, Maori Affairs (Wellington: GP Books, 1990) for details of the Native Housing Act 1935. For an analysis of the housing programme see Mark Krivan, "The Department of Maori Affairs Housing Programme," 1935–1967 (MA thesis, Massey University, 1990).

^22. See Penny Isaac and Erik Olssen, "The Justification for Labour's Housing Scheme: The Discourse of 'the Slum'," in At Home in New Zealand: History, Houses, People, edited by Barbara Brookes (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2000), 107–24. On the state housing scheme and urban housing surveys, see Ben Schrader, "Labour at Home: The First Labour Government and the Familial Suburban Ideal," in At Home in New Zealand: History, Houses, People, 125–39.

^23. David Williams, Crown Policy Affecting Maori Knowledge Systems and Cultural Practices (Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal, 2001), 188.

^24. W.J. Phillips, Maori Houses and Food Stores (Wellington: Government Printer, 1952), 18–22.

^25. See Elsdon Best, Maori Storehouses and Kindred Structures: Houses, Platforms, Racks and Pits used for Storing Food (Wellington: Government Printer, 1916).

^26. Adele Perry, "'From the hot-bed of vice' to the 'good and well-ordered Christian home': First Nations Housing and Reform in British Columbia," Ethnohistory 50, no. 4 (2003): 596.

^27. See the Housing and Economic Survey of Tuahiwi, 1937, MA 1/604 30/3/9, ANZ-W.

^28. On the domestication of Maori women in the pre- and postwar period see Bronwyn Labrum, "Family Needs and Family Desires: Discretionary State Welfare in New Zealand, 1920–1970" (PhD thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2000).

^29. AJHR (1939) G-10, 2.

^30. See Judith Simon and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, eds, A Civilising Mission? Perceptions and Representations of the Native Schools System (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001).

^31. Letter, under-secretary, Native Department to native minister, 31 October 1935, MA 1/605 30/3/12, ANZ-W.

^32. Katharyne Mitchell, Crossing the Neoliberal Line: Pacific Rim Migration and the Metropolis (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004), 165.

^33. See MA 1/605 30/3/123, ANZ-W.

^34. Report 22, Tuahiwi Housing Survey, 1937, MA 1/604 30/3/9, ANZ-W.

^35. Evidence of Olive Piper, 13 August 1937, South Island Maori Land Court Minute Book 28, 288, Macmillan Brown Library, Christchurch.

^36. The term 'colonial experience' is borrowed from Judith Binney and Gillian Chaplin, Nga Morehu: The Survivors (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986).

^37. Report 3, Taumutu Housing Survey, 1937, MA 1/605 30/3/11, ANZ-W.

^38. Ibid.

^39. Letter, under-secretary to the registrar, 12 January 1938, MA 1/606 30/3/70, ANZ-W.

^40. AJHR (1938) G-10, 12.

^41. Letter, C.V. Fordham to under-secretary, 15 February 1938, MA 1/606 30/3/79, ANZ-W.

^42. Letter, F.O.V. Acheson to under-secretary, 17 July 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/63, ANZ-W.

^43. Letter, registrar to under-secretary, 1 December 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/70, ANZ-W.

^44. Letter, K. te Hau, welfare officer to the registrar, 13 March 1939, MA 1/604 30/3/4, ANZ-W.

^45. Housing and Economic Survey of Tuahiwi, 19 August 1937, MA 1/604 30/3/9, ANZ-W.

^46. AJHR (1939) G-10, 10.

^47. AJHR (1939) G-9, 14.

^48. AJHR (1940) G-10, 7.

^49. AJHR (1940) G-10, 8.

^50. AJHR (1941) G-10, 8.

^51. AJHR (1940) G-10, 6.

^52. See Anna K.C. Petersen, New Zealanders At Home: A Cultural History of Domestic Interiors, 1814–1914 (Dunedin: University of Otago Press, 2001); Michael King, Maori: A Photographic and Social History (Auckland: Heinemann, 1984).

^53. Letter, E.T.W. Love to registrar, 5 November 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/80, ANZ-W.

^54. Letter, registrar to under-secretary, 1 December 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/70, ANZ-W.

^55. Letter, registrar to the under-secretary, Native Department, 27 January 1938, MA 1/606 30/3/70, ANZ-W.

^56. Letter, P. Tureia to registrar, 12 July 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/53, ANZ-W.

^57. Letter, Sister Kearney to native minister, 9 August 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/53, ANZ-W.

^58. For instance, it was noted that at Anaura seven houses had a stove but the remainder used an open fire for cooking (MA 1/605 30/3/35, ANZ-W).

^59. Letter, under-decretary to registrar, 21 September 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/65, ANZ-W.

^60. Letter, Mrs Hunter to minister of housing, 14 October 1949, HD AC1353 3/211 part 1, ANZ-W.

^61. AJHR (1940) G-9, 10.

^62. JHR (1944) G-10, 4.

^63. AJHR (1945) G-9, 1.

^64. On the use of interior space in the postwar period see Brookes, "Nostalgia"; Labrum, "the Essentials of Good Citizenship"; Labrum, "Bringing families up to scratch" .

^65. King, Maori, 75.

^66. Letter, E.T.W. Love to registrar, 5 November 1937, MA 1/606 30/3/80, ANZ-W.

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