MAORI MORTUARY RELICS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 39, 15 February 1945, Page 4

MAORI MORTUARY RELICS

May I support Mr. Hedley in his remarks about the desecration of Maori burial places. It is true that such an act (in fact a series) was committed by the foreigner Reischek and with the aid of others, when they located several Maori ancestral burial sites. The human remains and associated relics of those dead have been identified reposing in foreign museums, to the horror and humiliation of Maori families and the people generally. Our local pseudo scientific searchers are not guiltless of such doings in the alleged' interest of ethnological knowledge. A comparatively recent series of graves was rifled of things interred with the dead. In another instance an ancestral cavern was entered and-the contend systematicaly looted; the human remains were also interfered with and parts removed, no doubt for craniological study. Throughout New Zealand, where the dead of the past, or unto even recent times, are reposed, these improper methods are pursued. Even when such places are by Native Land Court orders declared as tapu urupas (sacred or interment places), the activities of these despoilers go on unchecked. The very nature of these urupas— usually in some secluded spot and apart from any near-by habitation, lends them to desecration. The only way to check up on this kind of thing is to require that every such Maori relic "find" be reported to the Native Department in order that the circumstances may be investigated, and suitable action taken if improper doings are disclosed. If the Maori people evinced a penchant for exploring pakeha cemetery areas to collect objects interred with the dead there would be a rightful outcry in resentment, and appropriate deterrent action taken. Why then allow the activities objectionable to Maori feeling to continue? GEORGE GRAHAM.