Tohunga Suppression Act

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Tohunga Suppression Act was passed in New Zealand in 1907, sponsored by Maui Pomare who was at that time a Māori District Health Officer. The aim of the act was to replace tohunga as traditional Māori healers with "modern" medicine.

Pomare's intentions were sincere. Aside from helping establish two Royal Commissions on Māori land grievances, it was through his efforts the Act was passed, Maori Councils were formed, and sanitation inspectors were appointed to Māori villages. In addition he advocated and, in large measure, achieved the registration of all Māori births and deaths"

Parliament debated the Act with the argument "directed primarily at Rua Kenana", also argued that the traditional practices in curing smallpox (and other introduced diseases) being ineffectual and sometimes dangerous. This led to claims that some Tohunga as being "bogus, ...exploiting their fellow Māori". MP James Carroll of Ngati Kahungunu had "impatience with what he considered regressive Maori attitudes"

Tohunga were the holders of knowledge of most rites and knowledge in general in wānanga. This included health matters, many Tohunga declined to pass on their oral traditions leaving Māori bereft of much of their traditional base. Whatever the overt intentions, there was a paradigm of the time amongst English colonists that Māori were a "lost race", the effect of banning the practices of spiritual and cultural leaders was that it hastened the assimilation of Māori.

The Act was repealed in 1962.