436 Transactions. 



When, during the fighting on the East Coast in the "sixties," native 

 prisoners were sent down to Chatham Isles it was noted that some of the 

 women of No. 4 batch, who came fi-om Tarawera and Te Whaiti, much 

 resembled Moriori women in physique, and more particularly in their 

 frizzy hair of Fijian appearance. A member of the Ngati-Awa Tribe 

 there remarked, '' They are exactly like Moriori women." A few of the 

 Tuhoe hill tribe seen by the writer at Te Reinga in 1877 had the same 

 Fijian-like heads of hair. 



The culture plane of these Maruiwi seems to have been lower than that 

 of the Maori of Polynesia, so far as we can gather from tradition. They are 

 said to have been ignorant of their own lineage, a sure mark of an inferior 

 people in Maori eyes : " They were an indolent and chilly folk (kiriahi), 

 fond of sitting round a fire. They slept anyhow, and in summer-time went 

 almost naked, wearing merely some leaves. In the winter season they 

 wore rough capes made of the fibrous leaves of toi {Cordyline indivisa), 

 of kiekie {Freycinetia Banksii), and harakeke {Phormium). They were 

 improvident in the matter of food-supplies, and did not construct good 

 houses, but merely rude sheds that our ancestors called taivhamu. On 

 account of these peculiarities of those people our ancestors called them, 

 in contempt, kiri ivhakapajya and pakiwhara. It is also said that Maruiwi 

 had overhanging or projecting eyebrovrs, and were thin-shanked : an un- 

 pleasant and treacherous folk. Our ancestors from Hawaiki and Rarotonga 

 were given some of these women as wives when the}^ first arrived. Later- 

 comers asked for them ; in yet later days they took them, enslaving women 

 and young men. They always selected the best-looking women as wives; 

 and those women approved of it, for the Maori men were much better- 

 looking than their own, and more industrious. Now, as time rolled on and 

 generations went by, the mixed folk became numerous in the land, the 

 result of the Maori taking Maruiwi wives. Then troubles between the two 

 peoples became frequent, Maruiwi stealing from our folk and murdering 

 them. At last it was resolved to exterminate them, and they were attacked 

 in all parts. War raged all over the island— a war of extermination against 

 all of Maruiwi not connected with the Maori. Thus were they slain at 

 Te Wairoa, Mohaka, Taupo, Rotorua, Maketu, Tauranga, Tamaki, Hauraki, 

 Hokianga, Mokau, Urenui, and all other places where they lived. Thus 

 originated the famed saying ' Te Heke o Maruiwi,' as meaning death. But 

 ever were spared those living with the Maori people. Some of the survivors 

 of Maruiwi are said to have fled to forest ranges in the interior. Some 

 fled to Arapaoa from Taranaki and Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Port Nicholson). 

 These were attacked by the party of Tama-ahua that was going south to 

 seek for greenstone. The survivors of Maruiwi fled to Rangitoto (D'Urville 

 Island), where they were again attacked, and many women captured. The 

 last seen of the remnants of these folk was the passing of six canoes through 

 Raukawa (Cook Strait) on the way to Whare-kauri (Chatham Isles). Such 

 is the story of the folk to whom this land belonged, and it is known that 

 all of us are descended from Maruiwi — from those women taken by our 

 Maori ancestors." 



Such is the account of Maruiwi, though much abbreviated, preserved 

 by oral tradition. We here have, if reliable, a description of a people much 

 inferior to the Maori in appearance and general culture. We are also told 

 that the thick projecting lips, the bushy frizzy hair, dark skin, and flat 

 nose often seen among the Maori are derived from Maruiwi. The writer 

 has seen many natives showing these peculiarities among the Tuhoe Tribe ; 

 and we know from the traditions of that tribe that some of the Maruiwi 



