The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1885. THE PRESERVATION OF THE NATIVE RACE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2110, 2 October 1885, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1885. THE PRESERVATION OF THE NATIVE RACE.

The interesting and able report of Mr E, S, Maunsell on the condition of the natives in the Wairarapa, which we published on the 11th September, has, it appears, only reached the natives residing iu the neighborhood of Masterton a few days ago, when they obtained several copies of the paper, The paragraph that specially interested them was naturally the one which relates to the early death of children, and which reads as folio vs" Children for the most part die between their infancy arid the age of fifteen years, from pulmonary disease and constitutional derangement. This is due in a large measure to consanguineous mariiages, the offspring thereby being constitutionally weak, and which can only be obviated by intermarriage with distant tribes. There are a few cases where marriages have taken place bebetween persons of distant tribes, and t-he results have proved fruitful and healthy. In conversation the other day with Piripi te Maari, a respectable and influential man, hementioned thathehad tlireegrowndanghtersandhewasanxious to have them married to men of outside tribes, ' For,' ho said, ' I wish to have many grandchildren. If I give them to men of the Wairarapa, and they bear children, the children will die; the blood is too close,' I coincide, with him, and lie further told me tlmfc there were many children in the Lower Valley whose mothers came from the South Island, the Ngaitahu tribe." While some of the Maories coincide with Mr Madnsell's views, there are others, chiefly young men, who are inclined to ridicule it, Many of the older ones acknowledge that the Maories in the district have, for some time past, married too closely, and say that the remedy is a difficult one, In this they are, no doubt, right, foiv it is to be presumed that young men are in the habit of falling in IoW - with'those damsels whom they con-v see about them, just as Eur<i^

peans do. The casual visits of one tribe to another are too few and far. between to effect much, and it is also to be noted that on these occasions the young girls are almost invariably left behind to attend on the aged who are unable to travel; If the Maories were to consent to being settled within a limited territory, so that there could be a greater intermingling of tribes, a great deal of good would, no doubt, be done; but'as every tribe in the country would raise a vigorous protest against such arbitrary dealing, the idea cannot be carried out. We can only see one way in which the Government may, to some extent, effect the desired purpose, The report should be widely circulated among the Maories, in their own language, together with an explanation, that it is entirely approved of by medical officers in Native districts. By this means, general attention would be drawn to the risk of extinction which they are running, and they could then apply the remedy themselves as fur as lay in their power, We believe that the cause assigned by Mr Maunsell for the gradual extinction of the Maori race, is one of the two principal ones, and that an increase of intertribal marriages would have a most salutary effect,