MAORI BURIAL GROUND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3783, 14 September 1926, Page 9

MAORI BURIAL GROUND.

ANGLICANS AND RATANAITES. AN IMPORTANT DECISION. AUCKLAND, September 6. A decision of considerable importance regarding the use of burial grounds attached to Maori Anglican Churches was given by Mr F. O. V. Acheson, Judge of the Native Land Court, at Kaikolie to-day. The majority of the Kaikohe Natives, who were formerly adherents oi the Anglican Church, have become fol lowers of Ratana, and claim the right of burying their dead in the Anglican Native Churchyard with their own burial service. They alleged that the service used by the Maori clergy in connection with the burial of non-Anglicans treated them as outcasts. They claimed that the land had never really passed out of Maori ownership into the possession of the church and that they were entitled to the unrestricted use of it for burials. In the evidence it was shown that, while the land had been used for Anglican Church purposes since 1845, it had been vested in four Maoris and their Successors as trustees in 1876 by Judge Monro, no use for the land having been specified In 1884, when the present Maori church was opened by the late Bishop C’owie, the churchyard was consecrated by him, and had since been under purely Anglican control. In his judgment, Mr Acheson pointed out that he was satisfied from the evidence that the Anglican Church had about 80 years of undisputed occupation, and both parties admitted that the land had been set aside for the use.of the church, and that, as the burial service objected to was that used over all non-Anglicans, the fol lowers of Ratana must submit to Anglican control if they desired to bury their dead there.