43 VOLUME 32 • NUMBER 3 • 2020 AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND SOCIAL WORK ORIGINAL ARTICLE THEORETICAL RESEARCH CORRESPONDENCE TO: Erica Newman erica.newman@otago.ac.nz AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND SOCIAL WORK 32(3), 43–53. The purpose of this article is to discuss the practices of adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand before the enactment of the first Adoption of Children Act in 1881 and its intersection with parallel Māori practices of the 19th century. This article begins with a description of the Māori practice of whāngai and the European practice of adoption preceding the 1881 act, highlighting the key differences between them—the most significant of which were the European idea of permanent and the Māori idea of temporary care arrangements. Finally, we follow how initiatives led by the government of Aotearoa New Zealand resulted in the legal, permanent care arrangements for children by initiating the 1881 Adoption of Infants Act. Wha ¯ngai Whāngai is the Māori kinship method of child circulation where a child may move, or be moved, from one familial household to another for a specific reason, sometimes temporary and sometimes permanently (Newman, 2011). The practice of whāngai within Māori society, even with Crown intervention, is still evident today. The word “whāngai,” means “to feed” but in the context of a child, a tamaiti whāngai: … focused not only upon food but also upon nurturing, educating, providing opportunities to grow up as a healthy individual with one’s mauri strong, one’s mana secure and one’s tapu intact. (Mead, 1997, p. 209) Atawhai is another concept that is often interpreted as adoption and is defined as meaning to show kindness or to foster (Williams, 1992). However, neither whāngai or atawhai are equivalent to the English term Practice of adoption in Aotearoa before the 1881 Adoption of Children Act Erica Newman (Ma ¯ ori descent, Iwi unknown), University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: With the arrival of Europeans in Aotearoa New Zealand came a familial kinship structure and ideas of caring and nurturing children different from that of indigenous Ma ¯ori society. Europeans brought with them a practice of adoption, a concept that differed from the indigenous kinship practice of wha ¯ ngai. This led to misunderstandings between the two cultures about care arrangements, particularly when a Ma ¯ ori child was left with a European couple. Even the reasons why Ma ¯ ori engaged in this type of arrangement was often not fully understood by Europeans. For Ma ¯ ori, these arrangements were usually temporary, while Europeans considered them to be permanent. Hence, we have the beginning of the challenges that contributed to the creation of the 1881 Adoption of Infants Act, a first within the British Empire. APPROACH: This article begins with a description of the Ma ¯ori practice of wha ¯ ngai and the European practice of adoption preceding the 1881 act, highlighting the key differences between each—the most significant difference being the European idea of permanent and the Ma ¯ori idea of temporary care arrangements. KEYWORDS: Adoption; wha ¯ ngai; kinship; Ma ¯ori; European