CHAPTER XV 
THE MAORIS OF NEW ZEALAND* 
No thinking person can visit New Zealand without becoming 
immensely interested in its aboriginal people, the Maoris. My 
acquaintance with the natives themselves is almost nil, as my 
work did not take me to those parts of North Island where they 
still live in considerable numbers. Although a good many were 
seen about Auckland and Wellington, they did not wear their 
native costumes, as did the Fijians, and their European elothes 
were by no means pictureseque. They looked very much like the 
civilized Indians in our country. 
But in the museums we visited, the mass of literature published 
by the Dominion government, particularly the Dominion Museum, 
by the New Zealand Institute and other scientific organizations, 
and most of all conversation with Mr. Elsdon Best, Mr. J. Me- 
Donald and many other well informed Colonials, offered abundant 
material from which reliable information regarding the Maoris 
was to be obtained. 
It seems certain that these people are descendants from pure 
Polynesian stock, quite different from that of the Fijians who are 
very largely Melanesian in derivation. The Maoris are stalwart 
people with rather light brown skin and hair which is straight, 
compared with the Fijians. Many of them wear full beards, 
especially the older men, and the shape of the head and general 
physiognomy are strongly Caucasian in appearance. Practically 
all authorities give them a high intellectual rating and the history 
of their dealings with the white men and the official positions 
which some of them occupy, amply confirm this conclusion. They 
represent but a fractional minority of the population of New 
1To Mr. Elsdon Best of the Dominion Museum I am indebted for most of 
the information contained in this chapter. Some of it was gleaned from 
conversations with that eminent ethnologist and some from his writings. The 
mistakes which will doubtless be found are to be attributed exclusively to the 
writer either from faulty recollections of conversation or from misinterpreta- 
tion of published statements. A relatively small proportion of this chapter 
is gleaned from ‘‘Romance of History, New Zealand,’’ by Reginald Horsley, 
published by Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York. This work is writ- 
ten in popular style, and may be an illustration of poetic license and not 
strictly scientific in its accuracy. 
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