TBEaEAE. — On Old Maori Civilisation. 535 



is pertinent to ask, "What caused forgetfulness ? " It pro- 

 bably arose from emigration, and the result was worked out 

 in two different ways. If a body of explorers, seeking new 

 abodes, sets out among strange people armed for war, unless 

 the expedition finds a higher civilisation than it left behind, 

 or is constantly renewed by accessions in numbers from the 

 parent country, the issue is almost certain to be degeneracy in 

 culture. If we picture such an expedition starting, we see 

 many armed men, few women (if any), few priests or other 

 representatives of learning, and only such animals and such 

 stores of food as can be most compactly stowed. Such a party 

 emigrating into unknown seas has little chance of return ; 

 those who survive will take wives of the women of the 

 country they colonise ; hard work and hard fighting are their 

 lot, and the finer, softer things of life are forgotten. Such we 

 may imagine to have been the case with the New Zealand 

 Maoris : in a variable climate, and in a land where animal 

 food was scarce, sustenance would have to be wrung from 

 earth and sea only by the incessant efforts of " the strong 

 man armed." In Eastern Polynesia and the islands lying 

 nearer the tropics a different cause for deterioration presents 

 itself. In lauds where the work of a single day can provide 

 food for a year, where the warm sun tempts to repose, and 

 nature basks in prodigal luxuriance of vegetation, toil of any 

 kind seems out of place, and laziness becomes one of the first 

 duties of man. In this land of the lotus-eaters arts and 

 artifices are forgotten', the calabash replaces the earthen 

 vessel, the girdle of leaves becomes the successor of the 

 woven garment, the bamboo knife is easier to procure than 

 the blade, the metal of which must be smelted from the 

 scarce and heavy ore. 



This is, of course, a mere hypothesis ; we see the islanders 

 in their girdles of leaves, with their calabashes and their 

 bamboo knives ; we have no circumstantial evidence to show 

 that they adopted these to the neglect of materials requiring 

 more labour or skilled direction in manufacture. But there 

 may be evidence which is not circumstantial, yet convincing ; 

 and a convergence of many lines may indicate a point as cer- 

 tainly as one line leading directly to the object. That in the 

 case of the Maoris we find a possibility of rapid forgetfulness 

 and deterioration is shown historically in their having forgot- 

 ten the use of the double canoe within the present century, 

 a thing hardly to be believed had we not the best evidence on 

 the subject. If so useful, roomy, seaworthy a vessel as the 

 double canoe (or even the outrigged canoe) can pass from 

 memory in so short a time, we can easily understand how, in 

 the thousands of years which lie behind us, the Maori could 

 forget arts, appliances, and culture which did not seen3ri\QX> 



