This is not an attack on you K Kawerau (The Weekend Sun, March 9), just an opinion. Growing up side by side and working alongside Maori I was taught and told such things by them, such as there was no universal Maori language, rather many dialects between tribes.

There was also no form of land ownership or borders, just a knowledge of landmarks. They fought amongst each other's tribes, taking and plundering.

They did farm but very minimal, however in later years after Europeans' arrival, farming grew amongst tribes and most of their food was from hunter-gathering. All Maori were still in the Stone Age ­­– there was no form of offshore trade and they were cut off from the rest of the world.

Your suggestions are at best a wish or want of a perfect, innocent, inventive race – clearly they were not. To suggest that those Europeans that came here were displaced, poor and had nothing is ignorant. Your ideas will only hold you back and segregate yourself with the support of the greedy and ignorant. Live in the hate-filled, false past if you wish, but do not hold me or the hundreds of thousands of other Kiwis accountable for your racism.

R Stewart, Te Puke.