GROUP DIFFERENCES

Te Ao Hou, December 1960, Page 8

GROUP DIFFERENCES Over and above these causes are certain group differences. 1. The feeling that all illness arises from an interference with personal tapu and that this state renders a person susceptible to evils which include illness. A very large section of the Maori people believe that their illness should be managed by the local tohunga. It is unfortunate that tohungaism has been made illegal because the only way to deal with this sort of thing is for the local doctors to work in with the tohunga. The tohunga is the person to whom the propanganda should be directed and this is the way they are trying to deal with this sort of thing overseas. We must remember that to lots of people tohungaism is a religion, that these people feel they have become ill because they have offended against the sacred laws of their gods. 2. There is often a reluctance in the rural areas on the part of the people to invite nurses or doctors into their own sub-standard dwellings. And it is here important to make sure that there is room provided for a clinic, in the meeting houses. 3. There is a very great reluctance on the part of Maori women to go to men doctors with any intimate ailments. The whole picture of physical ill-health points to poor housing, over-crowding, lack of knowledge, and a life-time of bad or indifferent health which is tolerated and endured, so that when something serious does happen to the people, they do not realise that these are danger signals which must be observed. They are so used to enduring their pain with a stoical indifference, and they do not notice when something serious happens to them.