TOHUNGAISM.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7918, 26 September 1904, Page 4

TOHUNGAISM.

Dr Pomahe, health officer to the Maoris, is very outspoken in his opinions regardingtohungas,andurgesthatstrmgentlaws be passed to suppress the evil. In writing to the Public Health Department Dr Pomare says: -" I cannot' be emphatic enough in. condemning these "tohungas, for I have seen the results of their work! In one p. a alone seventeen of what might -have been the hope and pride of thentribe were, I consider, cruelly murdered by. the wanton practices of a tphunga in whom many natives have faith, even to an individual who holds the highest position to which a Maori can aspire. I dp not think a single one of tho seventeen children who were sacrificed need have died, for they.were only ill;with.measles.

As one -who sees the incalculable harm; done to the Maori population bj tohungks I beg .the Government "to ajfc'once' pass: a" measure for s ever' aboiishing -this-; demoralising practice of .witchcraft.' One' can hardly realise that in this the: climax • of .civilisation, where it is; one's boast that New Zealandle'ads the world in many things, that in it witchcraft could possibly exist. .The Maori has passed his term of probation. Now is the time to be earnest, and therefore I implore the Government to 'arrest/th^ greaty eVU^' Dr Pomare says the curse'of the: Maori race-is^ the tohungas; if they could be got rid of, 20' per cent, of the children who die annually would be saved: .With such an opinion from a leader of the Maoris, the' Government should give some cohsidera- ■ tion to the question whether legislation can be passed in the direction suggested.