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Maori Messenger : Te Karere Maori, Volume 1, Issue 7, 29 March 1849, Page 3

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In the last paper UNKNOWN of warm and proper clothing occasiened dis cuses of the various kinds and especially

those of the lungs; causing, occasionally, a preat mortality amongst yon. I will in this letter tell you of some other things which, in like manner, tend to create sickness amongst you. nnd to thin your numbers. Y"ou allow your women to work too hard on the cultivation;, nnd Jo enrry loads which nre far too heavy for them; anil that frequently nt a time when they are suckling their young children. « Although the work of planting, or taking up potatoes, or cutting wheat may not do anjhurt to strong girls or women who are not suckling, yet the hard work of cutting and pulling up roots; nnd carrying oil' the wood from a new clearing, is so fatiguing that n woman must be very strong and healthy, who can both do that woik and support an infant nt her breast. Remember thnt, f r nil the hard work ol that kind which the mother does, the child will have the less milk, because the more weary the woman is, the less is the milk produced. Tn this way, by allowing your women to work so hard your-children suffer ; they become weak, and -then, When any disease of" the lungs attacks them,, they are not strong enough to get over the sickness. In the settlements ;you must have noticed how many chikjrqn .there are in a white man's family. Manvwhite women you will see with seven nnd eight strong children, and others with ten nnd twelve. Amongst you the women seldom have more than threo or four children alive. Many have no more than one or two, while seven would be thought a very large family. Now why is this ? You are a strong people : you are tall nnd powerful, quite as much so as the English people, ami why should your children not be so numerous? There are ninny reasons, but one of the chief reasons is, that their mothers work too hard, nnd the children nre neglected. Very hard work makes a woman soon lose her strength, and become feeble and grey ; and so they cense to bear children at a much earlier age than do English women. It is a very common custom amongst you • for a \yomnn to lake a long journey from one : pa to'anojher, and to enrry on her back a heavy loTid 'of clothes and provisions. Her husband ndcompai'ies her, but carries nothing during the journey ; in fact, she would be ashamed if he Mere to be seen carrying nny thing. White people do not do this. They know that the man is more able to stand the fatigue cnused by carrying a heavy load on a journey, nnd they leave the women, therefore, : to attend only to the child. From a knowledge of his being the stronger, an Englishman would be ashamed to allow his •wife to carry a load, or to do but the light work, which will not much faliguo her. She attends almost exclusively to her children, and the consequence is, that they grow up slronger ::-.id more healthy, and the women leaves behind many sons and daughters. With you —amongst even all your tribes—it has been the custom for the mother to kill many young children about the time of their birth, or shortly after. Female children espc cially have been so got rid of. Beside this , being a cruel thing, and, as murder, a great crime, it is a very unwise act. Your tribes are getting smaller nnd smaller in number ; and this is the result of tec few children which then: have been, and which there nt present are, to succeed you in the next generation. A tribe should be proud of its numbers ; and although many of those who compose it may be females and children, yet that circumstance insures the powers and numbers of it for the fuuire. .' ] This is a matter of so much importance to ' your welfare as a people, that I shall again irriie to you upon the subject. Think on the subject, and you will perceive that in every child which dies your respective tribe will in : the future suller in its importance and prosperity. ] Another bad habit which you have, causes many of you to die early, nnd this is your ' fondness for unwholesome food. ' From the many bad things which you now eat, such as the saturated Indian corn, which ' is very unwholesome, and the rotten potato, you contract the diseases of the skin which ' are so common amongst you. These lotten

things contain much dirt; and such dirt, when eaten, becomes partly mixed with ihe blood, nnd eventually produces those skin-diseases. Such food also has nothing in it to give strength to those who eat it. The white people cat none of these things ; nnd tha diseases which I have mentioned are scarcely seen amongst them. We wish, therefore, for you to have plenty of sheep and cattle, of milk and flour, and other kinds of good and nutritious food, in order that these diseases, which are now so common, may ceiseto afilict yourselves and jour children, nnd to be the cause of the depopulation of your tribes.