Mixed Race Studies

The “Brown Tinge”

Evening Post, Wellington, New Zealand
Volume CVI, Issue 46
1928-08-31
page 11
Source: Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa

Future New Zealanders

“Science and history will both some day demand an explanation of the brown tinge in the future New Zealander,” said Sir Apirana Ngata in his address to the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Historical Association last evening. The present offered a unique opportunity for the study of miscegenation by means of genealogical data. The extent to which the mixture of blood had proceeded during the past four or five generations might be gauged with almost mathematical accuracy, if the genealogical method were applied to the problem. For the present and the last generation or two, other interesting problems might be elucidated by the study of the charts where the mixture of breeds was shown.

Thus the effect of miscegenation on virility, constitution, longevity, intellectuality, and morality might be gauged at first hand. Some loose generalisations, as, for instance, that the half-caste partook of the vices of the two races without the virtues of either, might be checked with the facts. Light might even be cast on aspects of Mendelism. The Scotch-Māori, the Irish-Māori, the English-Māori, the German-Māori, the Danish-Māori, the Dalmatian-Māori, the Negro-Māori, the Portuguese-Māori, and, in the present generation, the Hindu-Māori and the Chinese-Māori marriages might all be found on record. In the generation following the first crossing of pure-bloods (it that term could be used) bewildering inter-mixtures of half-breeds with half-breeds of any ot these stocks, of half-breeds with purebloods on either side, of half with quarter, or other fractional breeds might still be patiently pursued by the research student. Dr. Condliffe had expressed the hope that through the mixture of blood the Māori would add another element of romance and daring and poetry that would make the people of New Zealand different even from their kindred peoples in other parts of the Empire. If history should come to register such a result it should not miss the opportunity now offered or tracing the steps towards its attainment.

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