392 REPOET— 1891. 



convey you to Gisborne. The mail will carry you to the post- 

 office at Tokomaru, and some person will carry you to Damaris 

 and Jane, and to their children. Ladies, I salute you and 

 your children !] 



CoNcriUSiON. 



Even the brief and superficial survey of Maori traditions 

 which is all that could be attempted in a paper of this kind 

 furnishes sufficient evidence to prove that they are something 

 more than mere literary curiosities, and that in proportion as 

 they become better known to ethnologists their value will be 

 more fully realised and understood. 



The fact that they contain myths relating to the origin of 

 all things corresponding in details and in chronological order 

 with those of the Homeric age, must tend to remove doubts 

 as to the possibility of knowledge being transmitted for ages 

 by oral tradition ; for in no other way have the Maoris pre- 

 served those myths which they possess in common with races 

 from whom they have been separated for probably not less 

 than two thousand years, and which were evidently derived 

 from a common source. 



In the poetry and proverbs of this long-isolated people we 

 find the same ideas and the same similes employed that the 

 poets and sages of the Old World used to describe human 

 passions and emotions, and to sum up the thoughts of the 

 wise ; and we find their orators giviiig utterance in their public 

 speeches to lofty ideas, in strange contrast with their sordid 

 surroundings. But, as beseems an antipodean literature, some 

 of the ideas are found to be topsy-turvy. In place of Aphrodite, 

 it is the hero Maui who rises from the foam of the sea ; it is 

 Hinemoa who swims the strait, and not Leander ; and, instead 

 of the angels falling in love wath female beauty, it is the manly 

 beauty of Tawhaki that attracts the celestial fair one from her 

 heavenly home. 



So far from being ignorant savages, we find that a large 

 proportion of the people possessed cultivated minds, and were 

 well instructed in subjects which only highly-educated Euro- 

 peans think of acquiring any exact knowledge about. They 

 were familiar with the flora and fauna of their country, to 

 every object of which they gave distinctive names,''' precise 

 enough to prove that they were keen and intelligent observers 

 of all natural objects. They scanned the stars and named the 

 various constellations, and took such note of their movements 

 as to mark the seasons by them. Their sense of beauty was so 

 correct that, simple as their clothing, and utensils, and weapons 



* See "Forest Flora," by Kirk ; and BuUer's " Birds ; " aud Colenso's 

 papers irx Trans. N.Z. Inst. 



