Tue Zootocist—NovemBer, 1876. 5151 
Upon the question whether his moa-hunters were cannibals, he 
says (Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 89) :— 
“Bearing in mind what the Hon. W. Mantell states in respect to the 
occurrence of the bones of men, together with those of the Dinornis, dog, 
and seal, in the kitchen-middens of the North Island, I concluded that the 
moa-hunters must have been cannibals; however, the most careful sear ch, 
continued for a number of days, has never brought to light the smallest 
portion of a human bone at the Rakaia. And, although this evidence is 
merely of a negative character, it is strong enough to induce the belief that 
the moa-hunters were not addicted to anthropophagy, as Mr. Mantell’s 
observations might suggest. Had the inhabitants of the Rakaia encamp- 
ment been cannibals, there is no doubt in my mind that, amongst the 
thousand fragments of bones passing through my hands, at least some of 
the human skeleton should have appeared to bear witness. Mr. F. Fuller, 
who lately discovered a moa-hunter encampment in Tumbledown Bay, near: 
Little River, found, close to it amongst some sand-hills, the traces of a 
cannibal feast ; but there was nothing to connect the one with the other.” 
And again (at p. 91):— 
“Mr. Mantell is reported to have stated that there was evidence that 
cannibalism prevailed at the time the moas were used for food, but only in 
the North Island, confirming my observations made at the Rakaia and 
elsewhere, that the moa-hunters in this island were not Anthropophagi. 
However, I still doubt very much whether the inhabitants of the North 
Island, in the same era, were cannibals, as I believe that the same favourable 
localities, formerly selected by the moa-hunters, were also used by the Maoris 
as camping-grounds, by which the mixture of the kitchen-middens of both 
races has been produced. Even were we to admit that the inhabitants of 
each island had belonged to a different race, or that they had not com- 
munication with each other, so that different habits of vital importance had 
become formed in each of them, the discovery of obsidian in the kitchen- 
middens of this island clearly proves that such arguments would be fallacious. 
The pieces of obsidian being of such frequent occurrence, we are obliged to 
assume that regular communication existed between both islands, and it is 
difficult to conceive that, under these circumstances, the one island should 
have been inhabited by cannibals and not the other. Nor could different 
races have inhabited the two islands during the extermination of the moa, 
and the southern race have gone to the North Island to obtain the much- 
coveted obsidian, without fear of being devoured by the more savage tribes 
inhabiting it.” 
_With reference to the word “moa,” as used by the Maoris, 
Dr. Haast (Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 92) says:— 
