Bansrow.— Stray Thoughts on Malori and Maori Migrations. 241 
Ngatimaru, now living at the Thames—but then at the north, and the place 
where he was killed was near the Ngaere, opposite the Cavalli Islands. 
I have told you this legend, not on account of the incident of can- 
nibalism, but as accidentally showing that Ngapuhi believed themselves to 
have been the only inhabitants of the island ; and that, therefore, if all the 
seven canoes reached its shores from Savaii, their canoe should have been 
the first to arrive, or at any rate to start; that they had no knowledge of 
any prior migration likely to have landed in New Zealand ; and yet, as Nga- 
puhi did not lose the **s," they ought to have been the latest arrivals here. 
My views are, that though Savaii and Hawai are radically the same 
name, and have been applied respectively to islands so far apart as the 
Samoan and Sandwich groups, yet it is not in the least proved that either 
one place was settled from the other; that, more probably some former 
Hawai, or Savaii had its name transferred to each of these places, and that 
we have yet to discover the source from which these islanders sprang. 
Looking again to the fact that some of the old pahs in this island have, 
standing on their embankments, or in their trenches, trees of at least two 
centuries growth, trees which the garrison of the pah certainly would not 
have allowed to grow in such positions (though they might have had trees 
within the pah itself,) for fear of loosening the palisadings as the wind 
rocked these trees; the areas of these pahs ; the depth of their trenches, 
and height of embankments,* proving, when we consider the insufficiency of 
their tools, that large numbérs of people were employed in their construc- 
tion; the vast piles of pipi shells heaped up outside such pahs, even 
when situated some miles from the sea, and on elevated sites, incontestibly 
indicating a long period of occupancy : we have evidence to prove that 
many large pahs have been deserted for, say, two centuries; had been 
occupied for a great length of time ; had required a large population already 
existing at the time of their construction. Pahs of this class, too, are 
thickly dotted over large districts. 
Is it not a reasonable deduction that some centuries back New Zealand 
had already a large number of inhabitants? Look at Tasman's and Cook's 
accounts of the people at the time of their visits. 
If we must believe that the progenitors of such multitudes came in 
seven canoes, how indefinitely we must put back the date of their arrival, 
and add to the fixed number of generations assigned by the Maoris as 
having existed since that time. 
May not the New Zealand immigration have been simultaneous with, 
* Cook mentions a ditch and bank at Mercury Bay, 22 feet inside, 14 feet outside ; 
and another 24 feet deep. 
El 
