Impact on People

Impact on people: The Influenza

In November 1918, Aotearoa New Zealand was hit by the influenza. What was different about this flu? There are estimates that it killed up to 50 million people, some research says more. This was all in the space of a year. The biggest disaster of this sort to hit the world.

The whole video is good but to save time:

History of epidemics - 1:11
Maori Epidemics - 4:03
Loss of land - 6:18
1918 Flu - 16:51

The reaction to the flu resulted in a scene we are all too familiar with. Around the world cities like New York went into lockdown to try and stop the spread of the disease.

In Aotearoa shops were closed, public gatherings and events were postponed and posters were put up to spread awareness.

Primary Source: Influenza Poster

In History we analyse difference sources. This poster is a Primary Source.

What is a primary source?
What is the main message of this poster?
What are some other warnings the poster shows?
Who is responsible for making it?

Worksheet version here

The facts

By 1918 the population of Aotearoa had tipped over 1 million (around 1,150,000 people) around 50,000 of these were Māori.
In two months it had killed over 9000 people. Māori people were hit particularly hard, around 2500 died due to the virus.
There has been no other event that has killed that many New Zealanders in such a short space of time.

Finding useful stats: Percentages

In the above facts some numbers have been put in BOLD. These are numbers that are useful to Social Scientists because they give us a picture of the impact this event had.

One way to process this information is to turn it into percentages. With a little maths we can work out what percentage of the Māori population was affected, in this case 5% of Māori people died.

In comparison only 0.6% of settlers died from the the influenza.

In your own words, what do these numbers show?
What reasons are there that one group of people were more affected than others?

Extension: How could you use this data for a graph? What sort of graph would you use?

Primary Source: Witness account

We have already used a poster from the time as a primary source. Another type of primary source is first hand accounts from an event. Whina Cooper recalled suffering at Panguru, Hokianga:

"Everyone was sick, no one to help, they were dying one after the other. My father was very, very sick then. He was the first to die. I couldn't do anything for him. I remember we put him in a coffin, like a box. There were many others, you could see them on the roads, on the sledges, the ones that are able to drag them away, dragged them away to the cemetery. No time for tangis."

How would you describe the impact on Māori people based on this account?
From this quote, what can you understand about the access to healthcare for these people? (use evidence if you can)
Why do you think there was no time for tangi?

Torohanga - extension

Impact on the Pacific

Sadly New Zealand is responsible for spreading the influenza to Samoa where it killed a third of the population. View more here. Full documentary here.

Question sheet here.