WHY ARE THE NATIVES DYING OUT?

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5408, 27 July 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHY ARE THE NATIVES DYING OUT?

This is a question (says the “New Zealand Herald ”) which is at present greatly agitating the native mind. Timoti Ropatini, an intelligent Maori living at Wairowa, writes to the “ Wananga,” giving his belief on the matter This is my answer to that question: The Europeans are the cause of the death of us—tho Maori people. In the days before the Europeans came to these Islands of New Zealand, that thing (death) was not known to tho old moh. The death tho Maoris of old died of was being killed in war; then they know death. Man was turned over (drowned) in tho water, then tho Maori know death, Man was murdered in those days, then ho know death ; and only by those did man know what death was. But the old men of those days wont (lived) on to tho 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, and the very old anti females, who dp not arrive at the age of manhood. Hence I say tho cause is with the Europeans why the Maori dies. It is in the European food,"it is iu tho Europcon clothing, in tho rum, in tobacco. Now lot us look, in tbo Maori days of old, there was not any tea, not any flour, any broad, not any popper, not any mustard, not any butfor, nor was there any pot in which to cook their food. And there were not any

board houses, there were not any beds to sleep in, there were not any blankets, or trousers, not any shirts, not-any boots, not any hats or caps, not any stockings with them of old days ; but their food was fern-root, sow-thistle, kumara, liroot, taro, hue, and tho meat they ate was fish, eels, birds, dog, and man also in tho times when they fought each other. And those sorts of food they ate indiscriminately. They did not use salt with this sort of food, but they ate it- when it was hot, or ate all those sorts of food when they wore cold. And their clothing was not like tho European clothing, and then their body was hard, and disease did not come to them. But when the European came, and-these sort of things which they were aojustomod to for ages past were neglected, and when they turned from their old ways of living, and followed the customs of tho 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; ho, the Maori, did eat salt a (fine 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, ho put flannel on his body, and some days he did not wear flannel; but the Maori is trying to do even as tho European does, but the Maori cannot accomplish this, and hence by this disease comes (or is invited) from tho European to eat up the Maori, on account of the Maori not being able to carry out fully all the customs of tho Europeans. It is even so with the sick people of the Maories 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 kills him."