FATALITY IN WHARE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 240, 11 October 1938, Page 11

FATALITY IN WHARE

MAORI BABY BURNED TO DEATH \ APPALLING CONDITIONS REVEALED [ Per Press Association.) GISBORNE, Oct. 9. A shocking tragedy occurred at Whenuakura East on Saturday afternoon, when a Maori baby, Kathleen Nukunuku, aged eight months, was burned to death. At the inquest to-day, before a coroner’s jury, it was stated that the mother, after washing the child, placed it in a galvanised tub improvised as a bed on the floor of the whare, 10ft. by 6ft., in which the husband, wife, and live other children lived. The father was absent and the mother and other children left the whare to gather wood after the baby was put to bed to sleep. The evidence disclosed that live embers were in the open fireplace and the floor comprised manuka sticks. When neighbours raised the alarm, the whare was a mass of flames and it was impossible to save the child. In returning a verdict of death due to suffocation and burns through the whare accidentally catching fire, no blame being attachable to anyone, the jury added a rider drawing the attention of the authorities to the appalling conditions under which the family was attempting to bring up the children.