Let Not the Maori Forget His History

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 8

Let Not the Maori Forget His History

ADDRESS BY DR. BUCK THE POLYNESIAN NAVIGATORS (From Our Resident Reporter.) THE Maori race was absorbing * European ideas and forgetting its own fine traditions. The young Maori should learn his own history and be proud of it, and not only the Maori but each young New Zealander. Te Rangi Hiroa (Dr, H. P. Buck), given a farewell by the Maoris of the district at the Tamaki Maori Tennis Club’s dance at Onehunga last evenign, exhorted the Maoris of the younger generation not to forget their great history and traditions. People of the same stock had come together from Tamaki, Waikato and Onehunga in the bonds of blood and common interest. There was something he would like to say alike to Pakeha and Maori, now also united In the one nation, New Zealand. New Zealand was in a unique position. Earl Balfour, one of the greatest intellects in England, had conveyed a wonderful thought to the Prime Minister in his last trip to England. He had ppinted to the native race in New Zealand as a .people distinguished in warlike, brave and chivalrous characteristics, received by and receiving the pakeha as equal. To those scientists who believed civilisation to-day was effete, New Zealand provided an interesting possibility. The European had the support of a native race nearer the stone age, which might be able to supply some qualities which were lacking in white civilisation. The Maoris were a branch of the Polynesian race, an offshoot of the Caucasian stock to which the European also belonged, so that the pakeha found in this country a people of his own stock. What was going to happen in the future? The Maori people were absorbing European ideas too rapidly and forgetting their own civilisation. They had an unparalleled history. In their voyages by canoe they had boldly attacked the broad Pacific, beside which the Mediterranean, scene of voyages of Viking and corsair, was a mere lake. The Polynesians were the greatest of navigators. “And all this history belongs to us. What our ancestors did in the past we may do in the present and future in a different form.” He exhorted the young Maoris to remember their pride of race and their traditions. They should learn this history and be proud of it. The Maoris had a saying, “If a man die let him die for the land.” If there was one thing that made the AngloSaxon respect the Maori it was the Maori War, which resulted when the folk of “Tamaki - of - a - hundredwooers” had tried to put a bluff across his folk in Taranaki on a question of land rights. No race had a higher record in the late war than the Maori, but war now was over, and the spirit was put into football and sports. Along the lines of sports such as tennis there was a great hope of keeping the Maori race together.