WHY ARE THE NATIVES DYING OUT ?

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 173, 19 July 1878, Page 4

WHY ARE THE NATIVES DYING OUT ?

This is a question which is at prepeot greatly agitating the native mind. Timoii Ropatlni, an intelligent Maori, living at Wairawa, writes to the Wdtt&nga, giviug bia belief on the matter: — " This is my answer to that question : The Europeans are the cause of the death of vs — (he Mnori people. In the days before the Europeans came to these Islands of New Zealand, (hat thing (death) was not known to the old men* The death the Maoris 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 lime of extreme old age, and then they died. But in this generation of Maori people, in these days of the European people, weakness comes over children, and the old people, and the very old and females, who do not arrive at the age of ra mbood. Hence I say the cause is with the Europeans why the Maori dies. It is in the European food, it is in the European clothiug, in the rum, in tobacco. Now let us look, in the Maori days of old, there was not any tea, not any flour, not any bread, not any pepper, not any mustard, not any butter, nor was there any pot in which Jo cook their food. And there were not any board beuses, there were not any beds to sleep in, there were not any blankets, or trousers, not any shirts, not any boots, nor any hats or cnps, nor any stockings with them of old days; hut the food was fern-roor, flow-thistle kunoera, tiroot, turo, hua, and the meut they ate was flab, eels, birds, dog, find man also in the times when they fought each other, And those sorts of food are ate indiscriminately. They did not use salt with 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 clothing was not like the European clothing, and then their hody was hard, and disease did not come to them. But when the European came, and these sort of things which they 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 everything 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 he did not wear flannel ; but the Maori is trying to do even as the European does, but the Maori cannot accomplish this, and hence by this disease comes (or is invited) from the European to eat up the Maori, on account of the Maori not being able to carry out fully all the customs of the Europeans. It is evea so with the sick people of the Maoris who are attended by the old Maori priest doctor, and 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 kil s him.'