“BREAKING DOWN."

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19033, 10 June 1924, Page 12

“BREAKING DOWN."

MAORI COMMUNISM. OLD CULTURE GOING. A satisfactory report On the general prospects of North Island Maoris was given on Monday to a representative of the Christchurch Star by Dr. P. H. Buck, Director of the Division of Maori Hygiene in the Health Department. Chatting of the members of his race, he said that there was a marked advance in material welfare, and in ideas and aims. In some villages Maoris had taken to milking. The regular work, hours, income, food supplies, and almost constant demand on their time had a very good effect. A few years ago a huit of at least several hundred people could he got together at very short notce. In these days it was difficult, sometimes, to get them together at all, as they were scattered instead of hanging about the villages. When a gathering was held it was fairly brief, as the people had to get back to their cows, or had to get to bed early in order early to rise. Even on the holdings the people were separated. The time-honoured communal system once the life-blood of the race,, was breaking down before the principle of individualism. The family was taking the place of the community. The old culture was going surely; and it was a good movement, no matter how regrettable it ipight be sentimentally and ethnologically. Superstition still has an influence in parts of the North Island. The tohunga has not been completely put down, but he usually keeps out of the way of the health officers. After all, Dr. Buck states, Maori tohungas may not be in more evidence than tohungas who find followings amongst the Europeans. To show how Maori superstitions are dying, he said that not long ago he spoke to Maoris at Te Aute about the ventilation of their meeting-house. He suggested a window in one wall. The old people of the village became very angry with him, said it was against all old ideas, and would have none of it. The window was put in. and they now would not be without it. They objected to collecting rainwater from the roof of a meetinghouse because it was tapu, but discarded that superstition also, and the roof of the meeting-house now is one of the chief supplies of water. In the Wanganui, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne districts there are numbers of the Hau-hau sect —Te Ringa-tu—-established by Te Kooti some sixty years ago, but it is a religious sect, and nothing more; it is harmless, perhaps, in some respects, “quite all right.” Maori schools are increasing in number with European teachers,, and, in some cases, Maori girl pupilteachers. The total Maori population is increasing.

More than twenty trained nurses are employed by the Health Department in the thickly populated Maori districts. They treat minor cases, arrange for sending cases to the hospital, lecture to Maori women on feeding the children, home nursing, and so on, and visit the Maori schools. If an epidemic occurs they get into touch with the medical officers. Where it is impossible to take patients to a hospital, the nurses establish local isolation hospitals, where the patients’ relatives are instructed. Although some Maoris refuse to call in the nurses, relying on their old superstitions, the people generally are awaking to the benefits of the Health Department's efforts, especially as the administration is carried out by the authorities through Village Committees, consisting of prominent men selected by the Maori villagers.

The Maori Board of Ethnological Research is working in another field, in which Dr. Buck is equally active. He now is studying the evolution of Maori material culture. His visit to Christchurch is to give an address on the subject before the Canterbury Philosophical Institute. His research into Maori clothing has disclosed interesting facts connected with the te aute plant, now extinct in New Zealand, but plentiful in other countries, where It is known as the paper-mulberry. He believes that Maoris brought it from the islands on their migrations, but found it unsuitable for the colder climate here, and resorted to flax. The climate apparently, was unsuitable to the te aute, and it died out, although the Maoris cultivated it to some extent. Two wooded implements found in Whangarei Harbour, Dr. Buck believes, were used for beating the bark of the te aute, in the same way as tapa cloth is beaten in Polynesia.