Dear Editor
Part-Maori Rawiri Waititi has dredged up the hoary tale of how the tribes ‘lost’ all but 4% of the land they once owned.
Anybody less ignorant of our history than he appears to be knows that most of the 96% was sold eagerly by the tribal chiefs in exchange for European goods which vastly improved the tribes’ standard of living.
He also spoke about their ‘language extinction’ through ‘law’.
Ignorant again. It was the eagerness of most Maori parents in the colonial period to have English only as the language of ‘native schools’.
Part-Maori Marama Davidson also chimed in with similar ill-informed comments.
Are Waititi and Davidson so ignorant that they do not know that slavery, female infanticide, cannibalism and continual tribal warfare were dominant features of their culture?
Do they not know that this culminated in the Musket Wars of 1807-1837 in which about one-third of the Maori population was slaughtered and eaten by other Maoris? Do they not know that, with so many Maori exterminated, the population declined in the early colonial period?
Obviously, there was a culture shock to these Stone Age people so long isolated from the rest of the world.
More readily available food, clothing, housing, medical treatment, transport, rule of law and cessation of the constant fear of attack by more powerful tribes meant that colonisation brought tremendous benefits to them all. Indeed, colonisation saved the Maori tribes from inter-tribal warfare!
Signed
Tony
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