KEEN INTEREST IN MAORIS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25705, 18 January 1949, Page 2

KEEN INTEREST IN MAORIS

JUGOSLAV CIVIL SERVANT LANGUAGE STUDIED FROM BIBLE Recently the director of the Canterbury Museum (Mr R. S. Duff) received a letter from a civil servant in Jugoslavia, who said that for a long time he had studied the ethnology and language of Oceania out of a very great interest and profound sympathy for the native peoples of this part of the world. He was now making a specialised study of the Polynesians, and especially the Maori, in whom he professed a profound .interest. "The Maori language I am studying by means of an inductive analytical study of the Maori translation of the Bible without any grammar or vocabulary,” he wrote. “In this way I have been able to appropriate a considerable knowledge of the Maori language, of course, with very much trouble and toilsome research. Study of Ethnology “But much more difficult is my study of the ethnology, culture, and history of the Maori, because it is for me almost impossible to get the necessary scientific literature for such a study. Here in Jugoslavia I cannot get any special or scientific literature on the Maori, and buy such works abroad I cannot, on account of my very great poverty. I am, to be sure, a civil servant, and I have a post. Nevertheless, however, I am unable to buy expensive books and literature on the Maori.” The writer added that the economic difficulties in his country were very great, His salary was very little and scarcely sufficient for’.the daily livelihood of himself and his “great family of a wife and three children.” “There remains to me only one possibility of getting any special literature on the Maori, that of going begging like a common beggar,” he continued- He asked for a copy of Mr Duff’s publication “Moa Hunters of the Wairau,” either as a gift or at a reduced price. He hoped that having regard to his “great poverty and above described difficulties,” Mr Duff would grant his “very great and impudent request.” Mr Duff is at present unable to supply him with a copy of the publication mentioned as it has sold out, but he will be sent a copy of Mr Duff s “The Moa Hunter Period in Maori Culture,” which is to be published by the Department of Internal Affairs this year.