400 Essays. 
aught of the people to whom such bones had belonged ; they also expressed 
no astonishment at them, and always disowned their ever having belonged to 
their tribe, and which, indeed, their conduct showed. Moreover, the very 
great number of their jade (greenstone) war implements and ornaments 
(found by Cook and others, even at the Bay of Islands and the North Cape) 
seem to indieate their antiquity as a race in New Zealand. The great 
number appears the more remarkable when it is considered that they always 
endeavoured to hide them securely in time of war, through which great 
numbers have been lost. Now that stone is only found at one spot in the 
South Island,* difficult of access both by sea and land. It was only obtained 
thence with great difficulty, increased through the superstitious belief that 
it was produced by a “fish” under the guardianship of a “ god,” to propitiate 
whom many ceremonies were observed. Further, there is also the known 
antiquity of many of those prized stone weapons and ornaments which have 
descended as heirlooms through several generations, and the great length of 
time necessarily taken in the making of one of them. Again, there is the 
silent evidence of the mako, or tooth of the long-snouted porpoise, the prized 
ear ornament of the New Zealanders, many of which are also heirlooms of 
great antiquity. How did their ancestors obtain these teeth, seeing the 
animal which produces them inhabits the open ocean? The natives say, by 
occasionally finding the animal driven on shore after a gale. But during the 
writer’s long residence of more .than thirty years, always on the sea coast, 
and his frequent travelling over all the beaches, he has only heard of one of 
those animals having been found, and that was too small for its teeth to be 
of any value. What amount of years, then, may it not reasonably have 
required to obtain all those teeth now left among the natives, exclusive of 
the large number sold and lost. 
(3.) History—From Tasman and Cook we learn that the natives were 
very numerous. Tasman, who came suddenly upon them from the south, 
coasting up the western side of the South Island, and who only remained at 
anchor for a few hours in one of its bays, was visited by eight canoes filled 
with men, who attacked him, and having killed his quartermaster and four 
others, they retreated, bearing off one of the bodies. Tasman “ immediately 
left the scene of this bloody transaction, when twenty-two more boats put off 
from the shore and advanced towards them.” From a drawing given by 
Tasman, we find the * boats" he speaks of to be the ancient double canoe, 
long since out of date. This occurred in 1643, some 280 years, according to 
our ci iors, after the arrival of the first few emigrants in this country. 
Here let it be observed that according to the natives’ own legends those so- 
_ * Found from Dun Mountain to Martin Bay, wherever the serpentine rocks occur.—Ep. 
