Vaux.—On the Probable Origin of the Maori Races. Soe 
truth at all at the bottom of the system recorded, or that the natives did 
not really believe in a Chief God or Creator, Tanyaroa or Tane, with so 
much of religion, as consists in the recognition of the dependency of the 
human mind on some presumed higher or more powerful Being.* 
I have mentioned the traditions current with respect to the first arrival 
of the Maoris; but they have also others scarcely less important : for in- 
stance, the tribes state, universally, that they were once one people, a state- 
ment apparently well confirmed by what can even now be seen ; moreover, 
language, in this instance, may be trusted as a faithful witness. The 
speech of these Islanders is clearly one and the same; and, though some 
differences of dialect occur (Mr. Colenso makes ten such varieties; Mr. 
Shortland six), it is certain the differences between the dialects of the 
North and South Island are not so great as between Yorkshire and 
Somersetshire at the present time. Nor, does there seem to me, the 
slightest ground for supposing them autochthones ; the more so, that the 
only plants they originally cultivated are exotics and their only domestic 
animal not indigenous. ‘These, therefore, if as we suppose, they found 
these Islands uninhabited, they must have brought with them whence- 
soever they came. Another argument in favour of the great antiquity in 
New Zealand of the present people has been urged on the ground of the 
presumed long time it must have taken the Maoris to manufacture their 
most valuable ornaments, hatchets, adzes, spear-heads, etc., in Jade, or 
other hard and costly materials: and, in this argument there certainly 
would have been some force, were it certain that either these instruments, 
themselves, or the substances of which they are made, are found only in 
New Zealand: on the contrary, however, it is now certain that plenty 
of highly wrought ornaments of a similar character may be met with in 
other islands of the Pacific; the presumption being, as well as the strong 
and natural probability, that if the execution of such works be as 
difficult, or of the ancient date pretended, the Maoris brought them 
with them when they first settled in New Zealand. I believe, however, 
as a matter of fact that these implements do not require for their 
manufacture, anything like the time suggested by Mr. Colenso. Again, 
deacon Maunsell has further shown that, in Maori, this practice is, as it were, reduced 
to asystem. ‘In answering a question,” he says, “ the answer will always be regulated 
is - way in which the question is put, ic. ‘Kahore i pai? de.’ ‘Was he not 
? Yes,’—i.e. ‘Yes. He was not willing.’ If the answer was intended to be 
sdlstansive, the speaker would have said, ‘ I pai ano.’” (Maunsell, N.Z. Gr. p. 167 
* For interesting details on these matters, see Rev. J. F. H. Wohler’s Mythology and 
Traditions of the Maoris, “Trans., N.Z. Inst.,” Vol. VIL, pp. 3—53. 
