Let’s call this for what it is: utter nonsense. Before Europeans arrived, there was no “traditional medicine.” There were no magical balms, no bottles of “healing oils” made from random leaves. There were no fancy glass jars or eco-friendly labels. This entire idea has been cobbled together in the last few decades to tick cultural boxes and, more importantly, to suck up taxpayer money. It’s a travesty, not a tradition.
They parade this charade as “empowerment” – but what it really is, is make-believe. A bunch of bored teenagers playing dress-up in an attempt to make something out of nothing. Making balms isn’t entrepreneurship. It’s not innovation. It’s performance art dressed up in cultural garb and paraded as if it’s some monumental breakthrough.
They parade this charade as “empowerment” – but what it really is, is make-believe. A bunch of bored teenagers playing dress-up in an attempt to make something out of nothing. Making balms isn’t entrepreneurship. It’s not innovation. It’s performance art dressed up in cultural garb and paraded as if it’s some monumental breakthrough.
Here’s the real kicker: they believe it. Or at least they’re expected to. A few empty words about “love,” “tradition,” and “connection” – and suddenly, we’re all supposed to get teary-eyed and nod in approval. This is not business. It’s not even a good hobby. It’s a well-coordinated, taxpayer-funded farce designed to keep the grievance industry running.
Where’s the hypocrisy, you ask? It’s in the very heart of this charade. They cry about “authenticity,” but what do we see in these “traditional” remedies? Modern ingredients – grapeseed oil, eucalyptus – things that have no place in the so-called ancestral practice. If it were truly authentic, they wouldn’t be slapping on modern labels and packaging it as if they’re creating the next big health craze. Instead, they’re selling a myth – and profiting from it, thanks to our government’s misplaced desire to be seen as culturally sensitive.
What’s even worse is how they’ve convinced themselves that this is the future. It’s not. If these balms worked, they’d be in pharmacies, not in the hands of teenagers looking for something to do. If this were real entrepreneurship, there wouldn’t be a committee, a marae, or a gaggle of bureaucrats making sure the product fits the cultural narrative. It’s not business – it’s a hobby wrapped in the illusion of purpose.
These kids aren’t learning anything practical. They’re being handed a cultural placebo, a sop to make them feel better about their lack of direction. The country doesn’t need more kids with a knowledge of how to mix leaves into potions. We need doctors, engineers, skilled tradespeople, not more mysticism wrapped in the guise of tradition.
If you want to honour the elders, stop pretending the way to do it is by rubbing bush balms on your chest. Teach the next generation something that’ll actually help them in life. Something that doesn’t require you to sit on a carved bench and pretend you're curing the nation’s ills.
Bush balms and fairy dust won’t solve anything. But they’ll certainly keep the grievance industry rolling and ensure the cultural circus keeps pulling in the money.
Tui Vaeau is a digital marketer with a background in real estate and security. Unmoved by the fashionable absurdities of modern politics, he stands for national cohesion and the principle that all New Zealanders should be treated as equals. His views are forthright, unswayed by ideological theatrics, and firmly grounded in reality.
Where’s the hypocrisy, you ask? It’s in the very heart of this charade. They cry about “authenticity,” but what do we see in these “traditional” remedies? Modern ingredients – grapeseed oil, eucalyptus – things that have no place in the so-called ancestral practice. If it were truly authentic, they wouldn’t be slapping on modern labels and packaging it as if they’re creating the next big health craze. Instead, they’re selling a myth – and profiting from it, thanks to our government’s misplaced desire to be seen as culturally sensitive.
What’s even worse is how they’ve convinced themselves that this is the future. It’s not. If these balms worked, they’d be in pharmacies, not in the hands of teenagers looking for something to do. If this were real entrepreneurship, there wouldn’t be a committee, a marae, or a gaggle of bureaucrats making sure the product fits the cultural narrative. It’s not business – it’s a hobby wrapped in the illusion of purpose.
These kids aren’t learning anything practical. They’re being handed a cultural placebo, a sop to make them feel better about their lack of direction. The country doesn’t need more kids with a knowledge of how to mix leaves into potions. We need doctors, engineers, skilled tradespeople, not more mysticism wrapped in the guise of tradition.
If you want to honour the elders, stop pretending the way to do it is by rubbing bush balms on your chest. Teach the next generation something that’ll actually help them in life. Something that doesn’t require you to sit on a carved bench and pretend you're curing the nation’s ills.
Bush balms and fairy dust won’t solve anything. But they’ll certainly keep the grievance industry rolling and ensure the cultural circus keeps pulling in the money.
Tui Vaeau is a digital marketer with a background in real estate and security. Unmoved by the fashionable absurdities of modern politics, he stands for national cohesion and the principle that all New Zealanders should be treated as equals. His views are forthright, unswayed by ideological theatrics, and firmly grounded in reality.
12 comments:
This author should be an MP for NZF or ACT.
As an easily confused 'white guilt pale male', I consulted with a matarangi scientist, who pulled out a murri calendar. After hearing about rivers and mountains, I have been recommended a traditional salve/balm of eucalypt/puha. If only I had paid more-I'd have been told where to apply it?..................Now, where's that calendar he /she/they/them sold me........
Spot on. Newly created Maori history (fantasy) is not helping disillusioned or disaffected young people from being valued for their own merits and character, nor virtue signalling displays adding to society.
In the early 1970s, Tim Shadbolt wrote a book entitled Bullshit and Jellybeans. The title was a good description of what we witnessed almost every day in this country back then. We were/are consistently fed a line of spin (bullshit) to the point it is increasingly hard to separate fact from fiction.
The title could be upgraded to Lies and Tithe today, as we make sacrifice at the altar of the fraudulent Freeman apartheid treaty.
I tell international visitors not to go to Rotorua to see those fabled Maori and their traditional customs and lifestyle.
Absolutely nothing they will see there is authentic, it was all adapted from European materials.
Even singing waiata is nonsense, until the missionaries showed up with their hymns, all Maori had was percussion from banging sticks together.
So much Maori culture is deliberately false, and so much of this crap is being foisted on our vulnerable and gullable.
Have these " bush balms" been properly tested ?
Will these kids be prosecuted if their " balms" are toxic ?
The main ingredient of this magic balm seems to be kawakawa leaves which allegedly have anti-inflammatory properties. A quick Google search will reveal a number of businesses that promote products containing this ingredient. If it works, who cares whether it's made by big Pharma or a marae in the country.
The problem is of course that no-one seems to be able to point to the scientific evidence that it does work. All the evidence is hearsay. If people feel better after rubbing the stuff on themselves, that's highly likely to be the well documented placebo effect at work. Particularly if they have just paid a lot of money for the stuff. Which presumably is why these balms are not legally able to be prescribed as real medicine. So, of course the promoters will emphasise the spiritual component of their product. It's all they have.
But it's totally hypocritical of Vaeau to engage in cultural warfare to stop the practice because Maori are just aping the rest of the non-Maori world. Think homeopathy. Think faith-healing. Think crystal healers. Think bleach and Ivermectin. Think dancing naked by the light of the full moon. Everybody's doing it (well, maybe not by the light of the moon). Why? Because there's a ready market for snake-oil in all cultures. Roanga Maori is just the home-grown version.
But nothing will change while the money keeps rolling in. Perhaps Vaeau's indignation would be better employed advocating for an evidence-based approach to the marketing of natural health products. Government is currently developing a standalone bill to regulate these things, so now would be the perfect time to engage in that process.
In the meantime, the promoters of the balm could always produce scientific evidence that it works. But don't throw away your prescription anti-inflammatory while you wait.
Stop it! Rapidly losing the will to live. Here.
Jones Boy, Now, Ivermectin has your disproval against decades of sterling service against parasites . Worth a try for you maybe.
Also proving effective for treating cancer.
Unfortunately Big Pharma has been determined to promote pharmaceuticals only and ridiculed herbal remedies. You are worse off if you suppress cold symptoms with pharmaceuticals , apparently and paracetamol is not a good idea if you have a temperature , according to a Canadian professor of medicine.
Big pharma is into snake oil too , it seems , with the covid vaccines. RF Kennedy is demanding all vaccines have a placebo control group as well as the experimental group. Pfizer vaccinated their control group , which is unheard of in research. This renders their research on covid vaccines invalid.
The bio pharmaceutical business model is also heavily orientated towards profit.
I see the Jones Boy being a bit of a tosser - yet again! Carroll and Pomare were both advocates of the Tohanga Suppression Act, which was against this 'snake oil" type nonsense, and for good reason. That aside, what did pre-colonial Maori "bottle" anything in, yet alone have a pestle and mortar - other than the most rudimentary implements that would have made the creation and storage of any kind of liquid or potion very difficult at best?
Nah, you're right Tui - this is all BS in the extreme, but it certainly supports the myth of more Maori wonderfulness. Tis such a shame the real-world fact that Maori life expectancy only improved after the Pakeha, and their medicine and health knowledge, was on the scene.
Kawakawa balm may be snakeoil but to savage it on the grounds it is a Maori product is just stupid, and says more about the accuser than the product. By all means complain about the efficacy of the product or the morality of its marketing, but I suggest Maori are doing precisely what their colonial masters taught them to do with snakeoil. Flog it off to the gullible for a handy profit. If pointing that out makes me a tosser then guilty as charged. But what does it make Anon 9.30 and his/her fellow travellers, Including the author of this nasty little piece? Oh, and by the way, Pakeha life expectancy wasn't that flash back in 1840 either. But that's a whole different story and irrelevant to the continuing existence of snakeoil salesmen, whatever the colour of their skin.
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