THE HOLDING OF TANGIS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18774, 30 July 1924, Page 10

THE HOLDING OF TANGIS.

DEPARTMENT'S ATTITUDE*

I ';■■ :'<■' ! ;•;_ , , ' • V.., ! Safeguarding public health. [by tklegbaph.—speciai. bepobteb.] WELLINGTON. Tuesday. i,'*Tangi simply means weeping. The ; Health Department will not attempt to ! stop .that,/because/it is impossible. You might as well try to stop people flying as j stop weeping at funerals, said the MinI ister for Health, Sir Maui Pomare, in reply j to Mr. H. W. TJru (Southern Maori), who I asked, in the House of Representatives to- | day, whether it was the department's ini'tenttOn to abolish the Maori custom of I holding tangis. Mr. Uru wanted to know, I if such a prohibition was contemplated, I how it "-WW proposed to stop tangis. He ?uoted from the' reported statement of lr. Telford, medical officer of health, ! Canterbury, in connection with a tangi at | Rapaki. ■■> r h The Minister said the matter had not ! been before him officially, but lie did not [ think the jiepartment wanted to stop !,tangis. , It was impossible to prevent the bereaved weeping. Mr. T. M. Wilford: Whether collec- ! tively or individually. I Sir Maui Pomara agreed that tangis had, i however, to be controlled, Erorn a public | health point o£ view certain customs were | not altogether ! hygienic, but he thought ! this Maoris had conformed to the law*; of j hygiene fairly well in the past few years. | "We can't do away with the tangi," he I said, "but we do want to take precauj tions against the spread of infectious disease by hastening the burial of the dead. !In fact, it is laid down in the Maori ! Councils Act that the dead shall not lie !in state for more than three days. At one ■ time it used to be two or three weeks or a month. The custom is not, however, peculiar to the Maoris. The Jews, from whom the pakehas borrowed their religion. wept: for Moses for 40 days and 40 nights." .