Travers.—On the Traditions and Customs of the Mori-oris. 15 
more than throwing together this short notice of a district, upon the wonders 
and pieturesque beauties of which a volume might be written ; and I can 
only express a hope that the time is not far distant when the means of 
reaching it will be more easy, for although there are many scenes in which 
the active forces of nature may be observed under grander aspects, there are 
few more calculated to excite our interest than those which are contained 
within the Lake District of Auckland. 
Art. IL.— Notes of the Traditions and Manners and Customs of the Mori-oris. 
By W. T. O. Travers, F.L.8S.. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 28th October, 1876.) 
Tuere are few subjects which excite greater interest amongst those who 
are engaged in inquiries into the origin and progress of civilization, than 
authentic accounts of the habits and customs of the lower races of men, 
especially before these have become modified by contact with civilized 
peoples; and as it is notorious that modifications resulting from such contact 
are very rapidly effected, it is important that those who may have oppor- 
tunities of intercourse with the lower races should make and record their 
observations at the earliest possible moment. Such inquiries assume a 
still greater degree of interest when they relate to an uncivilized people 
which has long occupied an isolated position, remote from chances of inter- 
course; for if its relationship to any known race, and the period of its 
separation from the parent stock, can afterwards be established, a com- 
parison of their several existing conditions will be of the highest value in 
connection with inquiries of the nature alluded to. It is necessary, how- 
ever, to the correct determination of many of the most important points 
involved in such inquiries, to note, not merely the habits and customs of the 
lower types of mankind, but also the physical conditions under which they 
live ; for these conditions must, manifestly, exercise a considerable influence 
in determining the nature of those habits and customs. This point has not, 
as I conceive, been sufficiently borne in mind by writers on the history and 
progress of civilization, when discussing the condition of inferior peoples in 
their relation to the contemporary state of more advanced branches of the 
same race. But it is one which cannot be ignored without the certainty of 
error in the deductions arrived at. I will take an instance: It is more 
than probable that the Mori-oris, at the time of the invasion of the Chatham 
Islands by the Ngatitama, in 1835 or 1836, were a mixed race, having a 
large proportion of Maori blood in their veins. This may, I think, be fairly 
deduced from what appears in the sequel of this paper, although we have 
