Post by Kiwi Frontline on Jul 13, 2016 6:45:41 GMT 12
Wanganui Chronicle 13/7/16
MAORI NUMBERS
I am not sure where Potonga Neilson (Letters, June 29) gets his "real history" from, but a thesis from the University of Canterbury reads, "Epidemics prior to 1800 were not recorded at the time of their arrival" — so how does he know that "cholera wiped out 90 per cent" (his words) of Maori in the 1700s?
It has been fairly reliably calculated that there were around 120,000 Maori in New Zealand in 1800, so is Mr Neilson saying that before introduced diseases (1700s) the Maori population was over a million?
Historian James Rutherford (University of Auckland library) has written that between 1801 and 1840 about 42,000 Maori lost their lives in the musket wars (Maori against Maori), and in that same period only 13,000 died from diseases and other causes. That is just 333 deaths per year from disease in a population of about 100,000, therefore disease was hardly the greatest cause of "almost Maori extinction" as Potonga claims.
Furthermore, Dr John Robinson's research establishes that if Maori had not practised female infanticide their breeding numbers would have been in a better state to withstand the effects of disease and tribal warfare.
GEOFFREY T. PARKER
Whangarei
Hawkes Bay Today 13/7/16 (Text Us section)
■ I'm happy in mainstream healthcare with my chosen doctor and dentist and have no desire to use a Maori healthcar professional. So how do I get if name off the Maori healthcare register? Apparently because I'm Maori, I'm automatically registered—but isn't that discrimination?
MAORI NUMBERS
I am not sure where Potonga Neilson (Letters, June 29) gets his "real history" from, but a thesis from the University of Canterbury reads, "Epidemics prior to 1800 were not recorded at the time of their arrival" — so how does he know that "cholera wiped out 90 per cent" (his words) of Maori in the 1700s?
It has been fairly reliably calculated that there were around 120,000 Maori in New Zealand in 1800, so is Mr Neilson saying that before introduced diseases (1700s) the Maori population was over a million?
Historian James Rutherford (University of Auckland library) has written that between 1801 and 1840 about 42,000 Maori lost their lives in the musket wars (Maori against Maori), and in that same period only 13,000 died from diseases and other causes. That is just 333 deaths per year from disease in a population of about 100,000, therefore disease was hardly the greatest cause of "almost Maori extinction" as Potonga claims.
Furthermore, Dr John Robinson's research establishes that if Maori had not practised female infanticide their breeding numbers would have been in a better state to withstand the effects of disease and tribal warfare.
GEOFFREY T. PARKER
Whangarei
Hawkes Bay Today 13/7/16 (Text Us section)
■ I'm happy in mainstream healthcare with my chosen doctor and dentist and have no desire to use a Maori healthcar professional. So how do I get if name off the Maori healthcare register? Apparently because I'm Maori, I'm automatically registered—but isn't that discrimination?