318 
NATURE 
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| [ Feb. 2, 1882 
We can now understand the vestiges in Egypt of a popular 
belief that the Pleiades are in some way connected with the 
Great Pyramid, the existence of which was observed with a very 
_natural feeling of surprise by Prof. Piazzi Smyth. 
I am convinced that the evidence will be regarded as conclu- 
sive that the widespread identities which exist as to the year of 
the Pleiades and its traditions cannot, as Dr. Tylor assumes 
apparently, have grown up everywhere from the peculiar shape 
or position of these stars, but that they must be a heritage, if 
not from a common ancestor, at least from a common source. 
Tangier, January 25 R. G. HALIBURTON 
ON THE VEGETABLE FOOD OF THE NEW 
ZEALANDERS IN PREHISTORIC TIMES 
WE are indebted to the now venerable Colenso for a 
deeply instructive and interesting treatise on the 
vegetable food of the Maoris in the days before Captain 
Cook’s visit. After a residence of almost half a century 
among these people, during which he has most assiduously 
studied their ways, manners, and literature, none could write 
on any subject touching their history with more assurance. 
Two gross errors have largely and repeatedly been in- 
dustriously published concerning these Maori—that they 
were ignorant of all art, and that they suffered from want 
of food ; and from these assumed facts the deduction has 
been made that therefore they were when first discovered 
in a savage and starving state, out of which they have 
been raised by their -intercourse with Europeans. As to 
the want of food, Mr. Colenso asserts that the natives 
of the North Island had at this time attained to even a 
high system of agriculture, and that they were passionately 
fond of cultivating their grounds. 
The ancient New Zealander had plenty of good food, 
but only such as was to be obtained by labour. For them 
nature had no lavish gifts—no bread-fruit, no cocoa-nuts, 
no plantains or bananas— fruits from trees growing almost 
spontaneously and yielding without toil their:delights to 
mankind. But, on the contrary, the Maoris got their 
vegetable food by constant industry and hard labour, and 
this was doubtless in favour of the development of the 
race, helping the “survival of the fittest.’’ And not only 
were they great cultivators of the soil, but when first 
known they were in a state of civilisation far beyond that 
in which our own forefathers were when Cesar first led 
his victorious army among them ; indeed Colenso doubts 
if any ancient people had ever—wanting the knowledge of 
the metals—advanced so far; and he in a very pleasant 
manner reminds us that, as Xenophon remarked, “ Agri- 
culture is the nursing mother of the arts,’ and that the 
agriculturist is bound to the soil; it becomes sacred to 
him; he is compelled to build houses ; unlike the nomad 
shepherd. Hence comes the town, and then the fortified 
places of strength, all of which the Maoris had, and none 
of which their neighbours the Australians and Tas- 
manians ever dreamt of. 
One of the oldest legends of the Maoris treats of their 
favourite and beneficent hero Maui as catching and bind- 
ing the sun to prevent his travelling so fast, so that man 
might have longer daylight to work in. (mn their planta- 
tions al] worked alike—the chief, his wife, his slave. It 
was a pleasing sight to see the evenness of their tillage, 
the regularity of their planting and sowing. In planting 
the Aumara and the ¢aro the plants were generally set 
about two feet apart in true quincunx order, with no 
deviation from a straight line when viewed in any direc- 
tion ; weeds were most rigorously kept down. One pecu- 
liarity Colenso calls special attention to, one in which 
they seemed to differ from all other agricultural races— 
they never used any kind of manure or fertiliser, unless 
indeed under the latter denomination might come the fresh 
annual layers of dry gravel which they spread over their 
kumara plantations. Their whole inner man seemed to 
revolt against the idea of employing decaying substances, 
and when the early missionaries first used such substances 
in their kitchen gardens, it was brought against them as 
a charge of high opprobrium; and even in later days, 
when they saw the beneficial effects arising from the 
use of manure on potato-growing, they could not get 
over their prejudices, but chose rather to prepare fresh 
ground every year, doing this generally by felling and 
burning the timber on the outskirts of the forest, and 
with all the extra labour of fencing against pigs. 
Their, in every respect, most important food-plant was 
the Kumara (a variety of the sweet potatoe); the use 
of it would seem to date from prehistorical times, as 
their many legends evidently show. In good seasons and 
soils its yield was plentiful, and it is interesting to remark 
a fact in connection with this crop, that may bring to the 
readers mind the memory of the same thing being done 
in Ireland with the potatoes. Long before the tubers of 
the Kumara are of a full size, these are laid under contri- 
butions, each plant being visited in turn, and the largest 
tubers are excavated by means of a small sharp-pointed 
spade, after which the plant is “earthed’’ up; these 
stolen tubers are greatly esteemed. The general digging- 
up occurs in Jate autumn, but always before there is any 
expectancy of frost, and the tubers are carefully sorted. 
Colenso especially noted the number of well-marked 
varieties of Kumara, several of which were of great 
antiquity, and permanent. Over thirty varieties are 
distinguished, and some old sorts are known to be 
lost. All the sorts came true, and never varied except as 
to size. As all of these came down from the cultivation 
of the tubers, the question at once arises, How were they 
at first derived? The oldest Maoris never heard of the 
Kumara flowering, nor did they remember of the intro- 
duction of a new sort, but always said they had them of 
old from their forefathers. In the striking story of the 
murder of Rangiwhakaoma, translated by Colenso, “a 
lad, son of Te Aotata, is asked, ‘ Whither art thou 
going?’ and he replies, ‘To look at the Kumara in thy 
store ;’ but he is persuaded to descend into the unseen 
world, in order to see the beautiful Kumara there, which, 
when he saw the great heaps of, and was lost in admiring 
them, lo ! the whole piled-up stack of Kumara was made 
to fall suddenly upon him, so that he was immediately 
killed ;”’ and here the translator adds a practical note to 
the effect that, in order to let the air in and keep the 
tubers from mould, they were always packed in great 
loose heaps, and under cover. Thereis little doubt that, if 
the growers of potatoes had adopted some such method 
of storing their crops as these Maori did with their sweet 
potatoes, the loss from the potato disease would not have 
been so great as it very notoriously has been among the 
stored crop. 
The second plant most generally cultivated by the 
Maori was the ¢avo—this was propagated by off-sets ; 
but, from its being a perennial, and always in season, 
its tubers were not stored, but dug up when wanted. 
Of this plant over twenty varieties were known, which, 
like the Kumara, differed greatly in size, quality, and in 
the colour of the flesh. ‘This tuber played a very impor- 
tant part in many of the higher ceremonial observances 
—as at the naming of a newly-born child of a chief; ac 
the death of a chief ; at the exhumation, which in due 
time always followed; and also at the visits of welcome 
strangers. 
The third food-plant greatly cultivated was a gourd 
called Aue. This noble and highly useful plant was 
annually raised from seed, and was the only food-plant 
so propagated by the Maoris, and yet curiously enough 
of this plant, though yielding seed in great plenty, there 
is only one species and there are no varieties. As an 
article of food the fruit was only used when young, and 
always baked, like the Amara and fare, in a common 
earth oven, and it was eaten like these both hot and cold. 
It came into use in the summer, before the Awmara 
. 
