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Book Reviews
Skin to Skin
Wednesday, 13 July 2005
• Tamaki and Districts Times
Skin to Skin
. By: Carol Archie. Publisher: Penguin Books. Price: $35
It has been said by none other than Emeritus Professor Ranginui Walker that New Zealand race relations will be worked out in the bedrooms of the nation and this book sets out to offer some proof.
There are tens of thousands of New Zealanders who are and have been embracing both Maori and Pakeha cultures for years (although much media coverage would have us believe otherwise.)
The book covers the stories of more 10 New Zealand families of mixed ethnicity. Even the participants were surprised to discover how other family members were reacting to the cultural differences.
Carol Archie has mainly concentrated on Maori and Pakeha but includes a Maori marriage to a Thai/Chinese and another between a Maori and a Fijian.
The book begins with the Walker clan. Deirdre Walker, married to Ranginui has assisted the ‘browning of New Zealand’ with three children, nine grandchildren and one great grandchild. She has constantly supported her husband’s endeavours to increase Pakeha understanding of Maori.
Next the focus is the Hirschfeld family. Charl Hirschfeld (senior), an Australian, came to New Zealand in 1955 and married Ngawiki from the East Coast. Ngawiki died of a brain haemorrhage when his eldest child of three was 15. For this, and other reasons made evident in the book, the family’s cultural focus was largely Pakeha.
Then there’s Jackie Taylor, the daughter of a former Marlborough Mayor Tom Harrison—accused of racism at the height of the foreshore and seabed debate. The Prime hapu also feature as do the McGruers, and the O’Regans of Ngai Tahu fame.
These intimate stories are well told and show how, even if we are led to believe otherwise, people from different backgrounds can live contented lives. Carol Archie has done us a service by writing this illuminating book.
