Post #614205 by TikiTomD on Wed, Nov 16, 2011 10:22 AM

komohana, your point is also on the mark. Indigenous peoples, colonials and contemporary human societies were or are all capable of great nobility and selflessness, as well as cruelty and atrocity. No single group can lay exclusive claim to one end of the moral spectrum. So, it would indeed amaze me if the Maori didn’t do some hell raisin’ back in time. And there’s historical evidence that they did.

I appreciate these old news articles both for the story content and for the window back into time on social mores and customs. You can clearly see historical changes in cultural sensibilities or, as CN would rightly point out for this particular instance, cultural insensitivity. Time moves on and views moderate as assimilation and atonement is attempted for past transgressions and intolerance, if a stable civil society develops. When sensitivity eventually triumphs over truth, we have arrived at political correctness.

-Tom