A MENACE TO HEALTH.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1813, 28 July 1913, Page 4

A MENACE TO HEALTH.

OLD MAORI CUSTOMS. Sir,—X should liko to draw attention through tho medium of your valuable paper to tho necessity of some legislation being passed making tho registration of births and deaths amongst tho Maoris compulsory. At tho present tinio tho Natives in the Auckland Province are suffering from u virulent disease, adjudged to be smallpox, and some hav? died from it; but, until the disease spread that much that public notice was drawn to it, these were buried withouit inquiry, and the usual tangi was held, and, of course, the affection was spread, till it has assumed serious proportions. There have been two deaths in this locality during the past ten days, and 110 notico seems to have been tatecn of them, although thero are several cases of the smallpox amongst the near relatives of tho at ceased. The child mortality is appalling, and I don't think I ain overestimating it when I say that seventy per cent, of tho children dio under the age of two years. They are rary poorly cared for, and owing to hereditary tendencies, due to consanguineous marriages and lack of tho knowledge of hygiene, tliey start ouit wry poorly equipped to battle with the ordinary infantilo diseases, and, consequently, go under. A child died not long ago on ouv main, road while being carried" bv its father, and it was just buried next day in a bit of a box of a collin, and no more notice taken of it. Now, if a issponsiblo Department had knowledge of all these deaths and tho causes, something could be dono to mitigate them. , The Maoris can no longer be treated as they have been in the past. Some of their old customs wiJl die hard, but die they will have to, for they are a menace to tho public health. For instance, tlie congregating for a week or a fortnight over a corpse, as occurred here within the last twelve months. An old lady of rank died, and, of course, tho usual tangi 'had to be held. It was three or four days before all the relatives could bo gathered in. And then another threo days' feasting and cryingAbout 300. Natives at tho least were congregated on about lialf an aero. Thero was a small stream close at hand, which quickly l>ecamo polluted. Heaps of shellfish lay about, and quickly becamo odoriferous. No sanitary arrangements of any kin-;! were dreamt of. Result: Typhoid. A Native called me in a few days after to see a child very sick. I asked a few questions, and 'found that it had been at the tangi for a week, and that there were plenty of bad smells. Tho child died, and the whole thing was repeated, but not on such a large scale, as funds had got low. This is a fair sample of what occurs at most of tho big meetings and tangis, and as the Natives mix up with Europeans, it is only reasonable that the Health Department should take a hand in the matter. Tho remedy is to make them register births and deaths, and to make them bury any dead on tho second day in the summer months, and the third in tho winter; and if the Natives still congregate (as they would till tho ltui was iinished), the local authorities have power to step in and disband them if they are not taking -reasonable sanitary precautions. I could state cases worse than this, but I do not want to shock too many nervous persons at once, and space will not allow—l am, etc., EDWARD TIIORNEYCROFT 1110 ST. Tuakau, July 19.