MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1939, Page 2

MAORI MEMORIES

DISCORDANT FACTORS. (Recorded by J.H.S. for “Times-Age.”) As with the gods of the Maori, each of whom was an object or attribute of nature, their land titles were many and varied. Raupatu (by conquest) or in other words. Kua riro i te Toa (gone to the brave) was frequently in question, because the sons of a marriage between the members of two tribes took part in the fight which gave them a claim to possession. Tauira (precedent), as in our complex laws, was a powerful argument in every dispute concerning title. Whaling ships were among the first visitors to New Zealand, and these were manned mainly by convicts from the thousands in Australia who had been brutalised by cruelty. Hundreds of them deserted and hid in the Maori kaingas (villages) sheltered by the hosts and permitted to make alliances with their daughters. Taku Pakeha (my white man) each one was called, until by the result of their convict experience, perverted nature caused serious discord. For two generations the Maori race was subject ,to this degrading influence. Knowing this, we may understand the problem confronting Marsden and other missionaries who came some forty years later. Only the moral and physical nature of the original Maori race permitted a survival, despite this degenerating influence. Among the notable survivors are many men of outstanding ability, who in due course -will produce the rulers and scientists, statesmen and teachers, poets and philosophers whose influence, coupled with nature’s abounding generosity, will yet make this favoured land the Britain of the South.