THAT WICKED BOOK !

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 34, 30 August 1887, Page 2

THAT WICKED BOOK !

Certain worthy but mistaken individuals at Wellington have raised a howl of virtuous indignation at the publication of Mr John White’s book on the ancient history of the Mauri, the full title of which is “ The Ancient History of the Maori, his Mythology and Traditions, Horo-uta or Takituma migrations.” The author is a fine ripe Maori scholar, one well versed in all the ancient traditions of the aboriginal race of these islands. He has worked arduously for nearly six years at the book at a cost to the Colony of nearly £5OOO, and now when the first volume of the work is issued we find its publication suddenly vetoed by the Government who have foolishly yielded to the noisy clamour of a few Pharisees who say it is “ obscene."

Now[touching this alleged “obscenity.” What are the bare facts ? Simply these : that the author seeking to give a truthful resume of the Maori legends as to the creation of the human race has given under Latin synonyms certain somewhat “ broad ” renderings of the rough, sensual, uncultured ideas of the Maori mind as to the bringing upon earth of the female being. People who expect to find in Mr White’s book the amusing stories which made Judge Manning's “ Old New Zealand ” so charming a book to the ordinary reader will be disappointed. The book also, from the accounts we have read of it, is quite different from the graceful, almost poetic “ Polynesian Mythology ” from the pen of Sir George Grey. The book is purely one for the student of ethnology, and would be of no more interest to the general public than would be the third book of Euclid to a young lady whose favourite reading was the fiction produced by Miss Rhoda Broughton or Ouida. The book is purely one for the Student, and to the student of ethnology gross expressions are by no means unfamiliar. Let the reader take up Taylor's handbook of Ethnology, or Sir John Lubbock’s "Early History of Man," or even in the department of travel, study Winwood Reade’s “ Central Africa,’’ and he will find in abundance details which would certainly not find favour with the presiding genius of a young ladies' academy or with the superintendent of the average Sunday school, The book wouid never be read by the general public, for the general public would never care about ploughing through even five pages of it, but it has a great value to scientific students of the past traditions of an interesting race, and it is unreasonable to suppose that it should be expurgated and sub-editedjas if it were a sixth standard reader, Mr Wakefield, of the Wellington Evening Press, puts the whole question of the suppression of the book so well that we quote his concluding remarks verbatim. They are sensible and to the point, and are as follows :— “ It would be as reasonable to abolish a great part of chemistry on account of the grime of the laboratory or the nasty smell of the substances used in the preparations. For certain studies, which are deemed of great importance to human knowledge, and are unquestionably quite unobjectionable, this book will be a veritable treasure. There is nothing in it, either, which a clean mind need take offence at. To the pure all things are pure; and there can be no more odious cant than to pretend to be shocked by the naming of natural things, under the decent cover of Latin equivalents, in a scientific work. There is not the slightest fear of bread-and-butter misses being soiled as to their imagination by reading ‘The Ancient History of the Maori? They will never get through the first page of it. Yet we learn, though we can scarcely believe it, that in consequence of objections having been taken to one or two passages in the Nga-i-tahu legend of the Creation, which are said to be obscene, the Government have stopped the publication of the work, and it is now no longer to be got. Anything more absurd we never heard of; and we hope the Government will reconsider the decision and proceed with the issue of the book without delay. It has taken, as we have said, the labour of the greatest living Maori scholar for six years, and has cost thousands of pounds ; and it would be perfectly monstrous to waste all that for fear

somebody’s mock-modesty should be shocked by picking out a dirty word or two. The mistake that has been made is in allowing‘what ought to be regarded as a scientific book, to be got up in a catchpenny binding of scarlet cloth, with a Maori’s head on it as if for sale to booksellersand circulating libraries. Weunderstand that the second and third volumes are ready, but are not bound, and we should strongly recommend the Government to have them bound in plain paper wrappers, and to issue the whole work as a scientific publication. That will save a large and totally unnecessary outlay, and will also do away with the objection that the book, as first published, might convey undesirable information virginibus iucresque.