Best. — Maori Voyagers and their Vessels. 461 



Easter Island was resettled by people from Rapa Isle, who are said 

 to have found a strange " long-eared " folk in possession — possibly the 

 authors of the strange script and the stone images of that lone isle. 



But enough of drift voyages, for their number is legion. Cases of drift 

 voyages in many directions across the Pacific Ocean are on record. Feckless 

 writers have told us that no drift or other voyage in an easterly direction 

 could have been made by Polynesians, on account of the trade-winds ; 

 that no Polynesian could have reached New Zealand ; that no Polynesian 

 canoe could carry sea stock for a lengthy voyage ; that such canoes were 

 too frail for deep-sea navigation. The hapless Polpiesian could not sail 

 out of sight of land because he possessed no compass ; he could not traverse 

 the open ocean because it provided no cabbage-trees to tie his canoe to 

 at night! Pretty soon we shall hear that there never was a Polynesian 

 canoe, or a Polynesian to use it if there had been one. The fact of natives 

 occupying all groups and most isolated isles of Polynesia has apparently 

 been viewed by the above writers as a personal injury, hence the evolving 

 of the sunk-continent theory, the sudden disappearance of half a world, 

 leaving a few continental folk clinging desperately to mountain-peaks, 

 somewhat startled doubtless, but by no means downhearted. 



For centuries the Maori voyager was crossing the Southern Ocean 

 between New Zealand and Polynesia ; for a very much longer period he 

 was weaving innumerable sea roads across northern oceans. No timid 

 coast paddler was he, but a bold navigator of great oceanic areas, who, 

 ever listing to the lure of Hine-moana, broke through the hanging skies, 

 and lifted every water trail of the Realm of Kiwa. 



But we do not like it, and cannot gra.sp it. For we feared to do these 

 things when in the same culture stage as the Maori, and for long after. 

 Hence our search for lost continents and land bridges, and a special creation 

 of man for Auckland and another for the Great Barrier. Our fears ran 

 to the anger of the gods, ever averse to wild entei-prises, and initiative, 

 and a round earth, and other desirable things. The Polynesian voyager 

 who pushed out into the unknown went down the changing centuries as 

 a hero. We would probably have burnt him. We poled a log raft, wdth 

 anxious hearts, across the raging Thames, but the Maori hewed him a 

 dugout with a sharp stone, tied a top strake to it with a piece of string, 

 dumped his wife and bunch of coconuts into it, and paddled forth to settle 

 an isle beyond the red sunrise. 



The voyages of Tama-ahua, Tu-moana, Tuwhiri-rau, Mou-te-rangi, and 

 Pahiko from New Zealand to Polynesia we have no time to discuss — • 

 a remark that also applies to two traditions of drift canoes from New 

 Zealand reaching those parts, and returning here. 



Though the Maori has long ceased his voyages to Polynesia- — for the 

 last we know of took place ten generations ago — yet has much of the 

 adventurous spirit been retained to our own time — the days of the white 

 man. When Ngati-Awa seized the " Rodney " at Port Nicholson, in 1835, 

 to raid and settle the Chatham Isles, they wrote the last chapter in the 

 long, long history of the Maori buccaneers. And is it not on record that 

 these daring Vikings had arranged with an American whaler to transport 

 them to Samoa, when the arrival, cutting-ofi, and plunder of the "Jean 

 Bart " marred the scheme, and saved Samoa some stirring times. 



The Polynesian voyager left the so-called adventurous Turanian folk 

 to longshore traffic, and the isles adjacent to their homes ; he passed through 

 the dark-skinned folk of Melanesia, despising them for their colour and 



