Atkinson. — The Aryo-Semitic Maori. 563 



I hope it will not be thought presumptuous if I suggest that, 

 though Mr. Tregear shows uot less than the usual boldness of a 

 pioneer, he yet seems unreasonably timid in the limits he sets 

 to the application of his own method. "It has," he says, 

 " been asserted lately that the Maoris are children of Abraham. 

 They will have to alter almost every important word in their 

 language before it can be claimed that they are of Semitic 

 parentage. Mauris or Moors they are not." I should have 

 agreed with him before I had seen his method in use : but I am 

 confident that he has supplied the means of proving that he has 

 altogether under-estimated its power. 



I have not a word to say against the Aryan affinity of the 

 Maori or his language. It has been more than once pointed 

 out, and, indeed, is obvious, that if we believe in the original 

 unity of the human race, it is reasonable to suppose, or at least 

 unreasonable to deny, the original unity of human language. 

 But this is a far-reaching argument, and encourages us to look 

 in all directions for our kin. I therefore propose, with the help 

 of Mr. Tregear's method, to show, not that the Maoris are not 

 Aryan, but that they are also Semitic — i.e., Mauri. If I fail, it 

 must be set down to my own incompetence, and not to the 

 insufficiency of the method. 



As a first step, then, I would venture to say a few words on 

 the name "Maori," which (for the purposes of this paper) I 

 would submit should be Mauri. 



The word " Maori " is, confessedly, not a noun or a proper 

 name, but an adjective. The Natives are not Maoris, as we call 

 them, but tangata Maori, "Maori people," as I have been re- 

 minded by them, more than once. The word when applied to 

 men is commonly translated " native ;" on the other hand, wai 

 maori has to be translated " fresh water." The same word in 

 Hawaiian, maoli, is said to mean " indigenous," but also "real, 

 true, genuine." The latter seems to be the fundamental, or very 

 nearly the fundamental, meaning in both languages. As Dr. 

 Codrington says, in his most instructive work on " The Melane- 

 sian Languages" (p. 82): "When a native says that he is a 

 man, he means that he is a man and not a ghost ; not that he is 

 a man and not a beast. . . . There is in the [Mota] lan- 

 guage ta-maur, ' live man,' as opposed to ta-mate, ' dead man,' or 

 ' ghost ;' no doubt the Fate and Sesake word ta-moli = ta-maur. 

 . . . . In Saa, mauri is ' to live.' "'■' The word maori, also, 

 it seems, was used in this way to distinguish the living from the 

 dead man, and the real man from the fabulous or fictitious beings 

 in human shape, such as the PatujmiareJie, the so-called fairies. f 



* See Dr. Shortland's " Maori Eeligion and Mythology," pp. 46, 47 ; a 

 work full of valuable information, but all too short. 



f In the Motuan, (of New Guinea,) mauri is " life," and "living." 



