*Many participants present at the conference also scrambled to check the meaning of AUTOCHTHONOUS, a word they couldn't even pronounce (AU.TOCH.THON.OUS), when Attorney-General SIROMI TURAGA slipped it into his speech:
“I encourage you to give some thought as well to his [presumably referring to Darwin] comments about social evolution. You might consider how this applies in the context of legal evolution. I urge you to explore what he said about autochthonous laws that grow out of the population and our circumstances.”
Autochthonous, Adjective (of an inhabitant of a place) indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists.
