MAUI POMARE and TE ORA O TE MAORI

Te Ao Hou, Autumn 1953, Page 23

MAUI POMARE and TE ORA O TE MAORI by J. F. Cody Perhaps it was not entirely by chance that Maui Naera Pomare was the first of his race to qualify in medicine—the family name originated through an ancestor who had the unusual pre-pakeha experience of catching a cold and spending a night in coughing. (Po, night; Mare, cough.) He was born at Pahu Pa, near Urenui, in 1876. His boyhood was passed partly in Taranaki and partly in the Chatham Islands; on his father's death he was sent to board at Christchurch Boys' High School, and later to Te Aute. When he was included in Massey's first Cabinet he was the first Old Boy of Christchurch Boys' High School to attain Ministerial rank. It was at Te Aute, and in his thirteenth year, that Pomare helped to lay the foundations of a movement which became the Young Maori Party of the early nineteen-hundreds, and which did so much towards the elevation of Maori social life. At that time pupils of Te Aute did not go home for the winter holidays, so, spurred on by John Thornton, headmaster of the College—a man who preached that the regeneration of the dwindling Maori race could come only through its own exertions—three school-boys set out to convert their own elders. The leader was Rewiti Kohere, of the East Cape; with him Timutimu Tawhai, of the Bay of Plenty; and Maui Pomare, of Taranaki, packed their swags and set out to tell the people that unless they changed their ways of living they must die out and disappear as a race. Their reception was a mixture of incredulity, anger and indifference, for they knew little of the deep-rooted conservatism of the Maori character, and their elders declined to be judged and directed by schoolboys. Nevertheless, they initiated a movement which became first the Association for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Maori Race, later the Te Aute Students'. Association, and finally the Young Maori Party. While he was still a student at Te Aute, an acquaintance with some people of the Seventh-day Adventist persuasion led to the suggestion that he should enter the Adventist Missionary College in Michigan, U.S.A., and train in medicine. So we find Maui Pomare becoming for a time probably the only Maori on the American continent. The Battle Creek ‘Moon’, reporting a meeting of the missionary society, wrote: ‘After the usual devotional exercises and a song by the college quartette, the speaker of the evening, Mr Maui Pomare, a young chief of the Te Atiawa tribe of Maoris (pronounced Mowrys) of New Zealand, was introduced and gave a very interesting and instructive talk concerning his people, their religion, manners and customs. Mr Pomare is a sturdily built, sunny-faced young man, a pleasing speaker, bubbling all over with good nature; a lineal descendant of those gentlemen who, in times past, were said to have had an extreme fondness for the missionaries—stewed, fried or toasted.’ Commenting later on the reporter's flippant allusion, Pomare showed the mixture of diplomacy and humour for which he became so well known, by admitting the partial truth of the statement, and ending: ‘But you need not be afraid of me—I am a vegetarian!’ After completing the prescribed course of studies at Battle Creek, Pomare went on to the American Medical Missionary College at Chicago, from whence he graduated M.D. in 1899, returning to New Zealand in 1900. He returned at an auspicious moment. The Seddon Government, perturbed at the continuing decline in the Maori population, had passed the Public Health and Maori Councils Act, by virtue of which a Native Health Officer was

to be appointed. His duties would consist of investigating health problems, and lecturing on hygiene. The Native Health Officer would normally have been a European, but the advent of a Maori doctor, by birth a chief—one who had the mana of pakeha learning as well as the authority of lineage—was providential. Dr Pomare was twenty-five, and full of enthusiasm. He had need of it. ‘What we should first do,’ he wrote in a Departmental report, ‘is to educate the mothers how to bring up their children…Educate the mothers to recognise the efficiency of the bath-tub, clean warm clothes, plain and wholesome food, and you will regenerate the Maori quicker than by teaching the youths and maidens embroidery, Latin and Euclid, and then sending them back to live in the same groove as their parents.’ Dr Pomare was quick to see the shortcomings of the education system. ‘We educate them up to a point, then leave them to drift just when we ought to hold on to them, and make them into useful members of society,’ he declared. Undeterred by rebuffs, Dr Pomare threw himself into his work with an enthusiasm equalled only by his lack of material resources, for words alone are poor weapons against inertia and indifference born of ignorance. Every word of advice he gave cut across customs and traditions; horrified remonstrances and threats of personal violence followed his suggestions that old and disused whares should be pulled down, but his answer was to take a fire stick, and within three years burn nearly two thousand such breeding-grounds for rats. The fiercest and most consistent opposition came from the village quacks, who had usurped the position of the old-time tohunga, who were learned men and versed in the medical knowledge necessary for the treatment of the few ailments of pre-pakeha days. Their degenerate successors coupled witchcraft with charlatanism of the grossest description, to the detriment of Maori health. Pomare wrote: ‘I cannot be emphatic enough in condemning these “tohunga”, for I have seen the result of their work. In one pa alone, seventeen of what might have been the hope and pride of their tribe were, I consider, cruelly murdered by the wanton practices of a “tohunga” in whom many natives have faith. I do not think a single one of the seventeen children who were sacrificed need have died, for they were only ill with measles.’ His cry went unheeded, and he battled on alone. He battled on alone, but not unsuccessfully, in the general field of sanitation. As a result of his representations, Maori sanitary inspectors were appointed to see that his recommendations were carried out, and the 1906 census disclosed the heartening fact that the Maori population had increased by 4588. The tide had turned, and his work was justifying itself. During these uphill years another young Maori was studying medicine at Otago University, and in 1905 Dr Peter H. Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) was appointed Assistant Health Officer, and was stationed in the West Coast area, which included the Wanganui and Taupo districts. It is a coincidence that the first two Maori doctors were born within a few miles of each other, in Taranaki, at that time the most backward of the provinces. Dr Pomare's next victory came in 1907 when his continued importunities resulted in the passing of ‘The Tohunga Suppression Act, 1907’. The penalties were substantial, and tohungaism was a dying force from that day. Maui Pomare was first elected to Parliament in December, 1911. His decision to enter politics resulted from his keen interest in one of the burning questions of the day—the Taranaki land claims. He no doubt felt he could do more to advance the cause of the Maori people of Taranaki as a member of the legislature than in any other capacity. The seat was, however, in the gift of Waikato, and Waikato was approached with the request that for at least one Parliament the Western Maori seat should be relinquished in favour of a Taranaki nominee. Pomare was offered the nomination and accepted, and in the time-honoured way the request for support was sent in the form of song, by Hapimana Tauke, on behalf of Taranaki: Tena koe, Tuku mai koia ra Te tau aroha — He po kotahi nei E awhi ai au, Ka hoki atu ai Ki te hoa tapua Na Hapimana Tauke. I greet you, O let her, O do let her come, The one beloved For but one night With me in fond embrace: Then we will return again To you whom she loves. From Hapimana Tauke. Dr Pomare secured sufficient Waikato votes to be elected, and found himself in Massey's first Cabinet, with the post of Member of the Executive Council representing the Maori Race, (Continued on page 46)

Maui Pomare with the then Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) during their visit to New Zealand in 1927. Leper Hospital on the island of Makogai, which serves Samoa, the Cook group, Niue, Tonga, and the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, as well as Fiji. Maui Pomare, as Minister of Island Territories, was the prime mover in the establishment of this hospital. Photo: Rob Wright, Fiji Official Photographer.