Maori copying theory ‘racist’

Press, 16 January 1986, Page 25

Maori copying theory ‘racist’

PA Auckland Suggestions that the Maori copied stepped, fortified pas from an earlier white-skinned race are inherently racist, says the Auckland district Maori Council’s chairman, Dr Ranginui Walker. Dr Walker said he was angered by the theories advanced by an Australian archaeologist, Mr Rex Gilroy. Mr Gilroy, who is coming to New Zealand next month to research his theories, believes Middle East explorers discovered New Zealand before the Maori. He contends members of an ancient Indo-Aryan civilisation built enormous wooden ships for trade and mineral-seeking voyages and colonised the Pacific region. As evidence, he points to rock inscriptions and stone structures in New Zealand. Mr Gilroy also believes Maori legends which speak

of a white-skinned race who inhabited the North Island before the coming of the first Polynesian explorers. “Who were these mysterious white-skinned people? Were they survivors of an earlier, Indo-Aryan culture which established itself in the Pacific Islands and Australia centuries before?” he asked. But Dr Walker said the “white skinned folk” were Patupaiarehe, or fairies. “All tribal people have legends of fairy folk but it has nothing to do with his theory,” said Dr Walker. He said he was angered by Mr Gilroy’s claims that stepped, pyramid-shaped pas and Maori fortifications had been copied from the stepped pyramids of ancient and Middle East civilisations. “It’s inherently a racist thesis to claim we had to copy from another culture when the fortifications are a response to attack.”