WHY ARE THE NATIVES DYING OUT?

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1370, 6 July 1878, Page 3

WHY ARE THE NATIVES DYING OUT?

The above question is discussed by Timoti Ropatini in a recent number of the “ Wananga,” as follows: This is my answer to that question—The Europeans are the cause of the death of us—the Maori people. In the days before the Europeans came to these islands of New Zealand, that thing—death—was not known to the old men. The death the Maori of old died of was being killed in war ; then they knew death. Man was turned over (drowned) in the water, then the Maori knew death. Man was murdered in those days, then he knew death, and only by these did man know what death was. But the old men of those days went (lived) on to the time of extreme old age, and then they died. But this generation of Maori people, in these days of the European people, weakness comes over children, and the old people, arid the very old and femalea, who do. not'arrivo at the age of manhood. Hence I say the cause is with the Europeans why the Maori dies. It is in the European food, it is in the European clothing, in the rum, in tobacco. Now let us look, in the Maori days of old, there was not any tea, not any flour, any bread, nor any pepper, nor any mustard, not any butter, nor was there any pot in which to cook their food. And there w'erc not any board houses, there were not any beds to sleep in, there tvero not any blankets, pr trousers, not any shirts, not any boots, not any hats or caps not any stockings with them of old days ; but their food WQ3 fern-root, sow-1 histle, kumava, ti-root, taro, hue, and the meat they a f e was flsh, eels, birds, dog, and man also in the times when they fought each other. And those sorts of food they ate indiscriminately. They did not use salt witli this sort of food, but they ate it when it was hot, or ate all these sorts of food when they were cold. And their clothe ing was not like the European clothing, and then their body was h ad, and disease did not come to them. But when the European e&me, and these sort of things which tiny

were accustomed to for ages past were neglected, and when they turned from their old ways of living, and followed the customs of the Europeans, but as they, the Maoris, could not follow anything the Europeans did, could not fully carry out all the European customs of living, as the Maori did drink tea some days, and some days he did not drink tea ; he, the Maori, did eat salt some days, and some days he did not eat salt; and the Maori clothed himself with drawers in some days, and some days he did not; he put boots on his feet some days, and some days he did not put boots on his feet; some days he put flannel on his body, and some days ho did not wear flannel ; but the Maori is trying to do even as the European does, but the Maori cannot ac complish this, and hence by this disease comes (or is invited) from the European to eat up the Maori, on account of the Maori not bring able to carry out fully all the customs of the European. It is even so with sick people of the Maori who are attended by the old Maori priest doctor, who are attended to by these old Maori priests, who, if they do not do all that is ordered by the Maori priest, and if the sick do recover, if they have not done all that was ordered, the sickness will come back to them in some days to come; even so the Maori is not able to do all that the customs of the Europeans prescribe in regard to European food, hence the food so used by the Maori turns on the Maori and kills him.