INHABITANTS OF NEW ZEALAND. 441 



The Maori, that is, the " Line," or " Descendance," in the sense of " Indige- 

 nous," are unquestionably a branch of the eastern Polynesian race. Their legends, 

 full of precise details, are unanimous in recording their migration to the archi- 

 pelago, and even give some approximate idea of the epoch when this event took 

 place. The children were carefully instructed in all these oral traditions, and 

 taught the history and genealogy of the national heroes, as well as the succession 

 of events and ages by means of inscribed tablets. These sources of information, 

 collected by Grey and other ethnologists, relate how some four or five centuries 

 ago the chief Te Kupe first landed on Aotea-roa, the North Island, and that, 

 astonished at his discovery, he returned to his native land of Havaiki for his 

 fellow-countrymen. He then returned with a flotilla of seven war-canoes, each 

 containing about a hundred warriors, priests, stone idols, and sacred weapons, as 

 well as native plants and animals. To this tradition of the first immigration the 

 descendants of the Maori add legends of marvellous deeds, the severance of Aotea- 

 roa into two islands, the emergence of islets, rocks, and reefs, the appearance of 

 springs and of flames bursting from the ground. But, according to Huxley, 

 Quatrefages, and other authorities, skulls presenting all the characteristics of the 

 Papuan type would seem to indicate the previous existence of an aboriginal 

 race apparently exterminated or partly absorbed by the Maori intruders. 



This island of Havaiki, whence came Te Kupe and his followers, cannot now 

 be clearly determined. The resemblance of names suggests the island of Savaii in 

 the Samoan Archipelago, and the same island of Savaii is also supposed to have 

 sent out other kindred tribes to colonise Havaii in the Sandwich Group. The 

 marked analogy between the peoples, languages, customs, and legends of New 

 Zealand and Polynesia certainly leaves no doubt that migrations have taken place 

 from some region of equatorial Polynesia towards the more remote archipelagoes. 

 Nevertheless, there is nothing beyond a vague resemblance of names to identify 

 the Samoan Savaii with the legendary cradle of the Maori people. It even seems 

 more probable that the}^ came from Tonga, that is, the group of islands lying 

 nearest to New Zealand. The distance between the two archipelagoes is not more 

 than 1,200 miles, and here the marine current sets in the direction of New Zea- 

 land. So great is the affinity of the Tonga and Maori languages that the natives 

 of both regions soon understand each other, and the very word tonga is of frequent 

 occurrence in the Maori dialect, as well as in the geographical nomenclature of the 

 archipelago. 



The Mori-ori inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, now reduced to a few family 

 groups and Maori half-castes, are certainly Polynesians of the same origin, who, 

 according to their traditions, arrived from the north about the fifteenth century. 

 They are of smaller stature, but more robust and stronger than the Maori, with 

 very marked features and the aquiline Jewish nose. This little song- and myth- 

 loving community lived happily in their island home of Warekauri when a Maori 

 sailor of Taranaki, serving on board an English vessel, happened to visit one of 

 their villages either in 1832 or 1835, On his return he spoke to his friends about 

 these islanders, "peaceful and good to eat," and his report was soon followed by a 



