MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 November 1940, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES

A DEAD LANGUAGE. (Recorded by or Palmerston North, for the "Times-Age.”) With a restricted but clearly expressive vocabulary the Maori was logical and consistent in his words. Having learned to read and to correctly translate the Governor’s messages, the Chiefs detected every difference between the Gazetted instructions and those coming from the Queen’s British officials. One instance alone will suffice to illustrate this. During the Taranaki war the Duke of Newcastle’s instructions to the Governor were correctly translated by the Chiefs into Maori as follows: “I am clearly of opinion that attempts of the Maori Land League to prevent persons over whom they had no authority from alienating their lands, should be inflexibly resisted.” This, however, came to the Maoris from the Native Office in the following terms: “Unless you give up your Maori King, the Governor has no option, but was commanded by the Queen to make war upon ypu.” At a time when the Maoris regarded the Queen as the protector of their King, this came as a bitterness to their loyalty and a grave impeachment of Pakeha integrity. In the opinion of the great majority of the Maoris, war was inevitable. Can we wonder that men of high character like Wiremu Tamihana, who had so loyally helped us in the past should lose confidence in our State documents and in our leaders? Tamihana emphasised the fact that the Maori King's flag was an emblem of loyalty to the Queen, and because it was a token of agreement not to part with the land of their inheritance the British soldiers were directed to take the land by force of arms. Even today with our far famed education system, not more than one European in 20.000 here can be regarded as a Maori linguist.