Downes. — Some Historic Maori Personages. 121 



benefit to all students by his dictionaries ; but, until lately, 

 in point of art the Maori has been left severely alone. 

 Mr. Hamilton's beautiful work, and Robley's " Moko," are 

 almost the only works we have in this respect ; and Angas 

 alone has attempted to give us pictorial representations of 

 the old-time warriors. I consider that I have therefore been 

 singularly fortunate in coming across some very old unpub- 

 lished sketches made about the year 1813 by the late J. A. 

 Gilfillan, photographs of some of which I have much pleasure 

 in submitting to this Society. For the privilege of examining 

 the Gilfillan sketches and copying some of the most interesting 

 I am indebted to the kindness and courtesy of T. Allison, Esq., 

 of Wanganui, a grandson of the late Mr. Gilfillan, who, I might 

 here say, was a middle-nineteenth-century artist of a high order. 

 The sketches display careful and beautiful work, and there is 

 abundant evidence that great pains have been bestowed on many 

 of the representations in order to secure accuracy. I may men- 

 tion that several pictures from this artist's brush are in collec- 

 tions in England and Australia (one in the Melbourne Art Gallery 

 — " Captain Cook proclaiming New South Wales a British 

 Possession, Botany Bay, 1770," which is reproduced in the 

 " Picturesque Atlas of Australasia," page 8, Part i), and others 

 are occasionally met with in New Zealand, whilst he has also 

 illustrated a few literary publications. I am persuaded, there- 

 fore, that the portraits I am reproducing from the sketch-books 

 are to be relied upon for accuracy, and should supersede those 

 of the same personages already in existence. 



Gilfillan's name is not unknown in New Zealand history, 

 owing to the unfortunate and terrible massacre which took 

 place at his farm at Matarawa, near Wanganui, on the 18th 

 April, 1847. Several accounts of this sad event have been 

 written, but I consider that one of the best is given in Power's 

 " Sketches in New Zealand." Power was one of the rescue 

 party which went out to Matarawa the morning after the mas- 

 sacre, and therefore, being almost an eye-witness, his account 

 should be fairly correct. 



There are in the original sketch-book already mentioned 

 several names of great interest to all who study the history of 

 New Zealand from the time of the incoming of the Britisher, 

 and of these I am selecting the most prominent — namely, Te 

 Rauparaha, Heke and his wife, and Maketu. Rauparaha and 

 Heke are the two most illustrious of the Maori chiefs, or ranga- 

 tiras. of the early days of New Zealand colonisation, and were 

 perhaps the greatest warriors of their race. Heke, by reason of 

 his determined opposition to British rule on any and every oc- 

 casion, and Rauparaha, by his bloody ravages on other Maori 



