ADDRESS BY DR. BUCK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 17, 12 September 1931, Page 4

ADDRESS BY DR. BUCK

MAORI SCIENTIST DEPLORES EFFECT OF WESTERN CIVILISATION. A clipping from an Hawaiian paper of an address by the well known Maorx scientist, Dr. Peter Buclc (Te Rangihiroa) has been received in Rotorua and is of generaf interest in its application to the Maori' race. In tbe address, which was given ih the lecture hall of Kawau University, Dr. Buck deplored the efifsct 1 of Western - civilisation in its contact with dependarit "races. "The trouble, the atrocity, of Western civilisation is that it has impressed on the dependant races the idea that their systern and culture are inferior. For the sake of government it has endeavoured to make them' inferioi*. But a person or a race with an inferiority complex is a rather poor sort," Dr. Buck said. "The spirit of the race shoujld never he dinlmed," he added, pointing to the- magnificent ventures of the early Polynesian journeyings from Tah'iti to Hawaii and to New Zealand in their canoes. "Those traditions should be a spur to great endeavour among the descendants of the early seafarers." Polynesians in New Zealand trace their descent from a particular anestral canoe, the one in which their forhears landed in the colonisation movement which took place about 1350, Dr. Buck related. Their achievements are told in traditional songs, for each canoe had what compared with a "chanty" of later day nav'gation. The exploits of the ancient voyagers remain a source of pride to New Zealand tribes to-day. They make themSelves "worthy of ancestors whd conquered the Pacific," Dr. Buck declared. "The early voyagers loved the islands that they discovered," said the speakei'. "In their stories their islands were likened to hsh, fcr to them th'e land was fished out of the depths of the sea. The north island of New Zealand in reality has the appearance of a fish. Tribes living there refer to their particular province as various parts of a fish — the head, the tail or the fins as the case may be." Chants of New Zealand tribes were reclted by the speaker, showing that

the early voyagers reached a port of the world where the sea was covered with iee, where icebergs were found and where kelp abounded. Dr. Buck spoke of the "centre of distribution," of the human race, believed to be in Asia. Overcrowded conditions led to migrations. The Polynesians, derived from Caucasian stock and mixed with Mongoloid elements, were outstanding in the era of ■migrations in that they were among the first seafarers. Peoples settling in the Americas were pedestrians, making their way across the Aieutian islands. Migrations to Africa were made on foot. Paleolithic man walked to Europe. Those who found Australia benefited by the' f act that only narrow passages of water existed at that time between their first home and their destination. The early voyages of the Polynesians were made in the traditional outrigger canoe, Dr. Buck declared. The voyagers made their way by sail and paddle. They knew something of astronomy and picked their course by the stars, the speaker asserted. But there was no written language then. The scenes of their discoveries and sailing directions were memorised anid handed down: to future generations in chants.