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What is the Tohunga Suppression Act?
he Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 was intended to stop people using traditional Māori healing practices which had a supernatural or spiritual element. Māui Pōmare, who became New Zealand’s first Māori doctor in 1899, Māori Health Officer in 1901, and Minister of Health in 1923 strongly supported the Act:
"Pōmare was a fierce critic of the practices of some tohunga. These included treating feverish patients by putting them in cold water and plying them with alcohol, as well as exorcising devils. Much to his outrage, the ministrations of tohunga had led to the deaths of 17 children in one pā alone."
The law didn't prohibit traditional treatments, such as medicinal plants and herbs. It was designed to stop dangerous "snake oil salesman" types pretending to possess supernatural Maori powers.
However, the Tohunga Suppression Act 1907, is being used to promote Maori Victimhood with the help of media such as The Listener, The Post and even Time Magazine. Last November, Te Pāti Māori's Maipi-Clarke was quoted:
“So mātauranga — knowledge from not just Māori but indigenous people specifically within the Pacific and our great migration to Aotearoa — allowed us to be scientists in our own ways, it allowed us to calculate our environment, allowed inclusion. It was a whole other perspective that colonialism actually wiped out through the Tohunga Suppression Act.”
That last statement is 100% not true.
To learn more, read the original article by investigative journalist Graham Adams here: https://theplatform.kiwi/opinions/the-tohunga-suppression-myth-that-wont-die
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