In swearing an oath in a court of law, one is required to
tell the whole truth. It is recognized
that half the truth may be worse than no truth at all.
So we have Anne Salmond who says that there
are examples "ad infinitum" of Maori kindness to children
("Comment", 'NZ Herald', Dialogue Section, 26/5/16). Well so be it but there is another half of
the truth. Female children who could not
become warriors had little value and when deemed surplus were disposed of at
birth, usually by their own mothers.
Slave and half-caste children often had a similar fate. Depressing the
fontanelle or holding the nostrils together until the infant ceased to breathe
were ways of doing this.
