rE RR iI gk oy 
yi de Rae aK iatet mets, Aaah sr tee Dre Se Lage em get heed ae leat ie ee dct tg ee bE IE So AR > Ge 
Pee eahas Vathmieraan memes ough ie : Peg ces us Es 
sah ee eee é 
MISCELLANEOUS.—(Continued.) 
Ant. LXXV.—A Study of the Causes leading to the Extinction of the Maori. 
By Aurrep K. Newman, M.B., M.R.C.P. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 22nd January, 1882). 
Tae increase or decrease of a race living in our midst must necessarily be 
a subject of vital interest to each of us, and a study of the causes leading to 
such change is, I think, worthy of investigation. That the Maoris as a 
whole are very rapidly decreasing, needs but little proof. Everyone who 
has lived long in the colony must admit the fact. The early statistics are 
of course very loose ; but the number of the observers and their general 
unanimity of stated forms a mass of evidence which there is no deny- 
ing. According to tradition, the Maoris came hither in thirteen canoes 
from Hawaiki, about five centuries ago. There is no evidence whatever to 
show that they found any race inhabiting these islands, and no faith can be 
Placed in the vague tradition that these lands were inhabited by a dark race, 
the Neatimamoe.’ The crews of these canoes were the first human beings 
who obtained a footing here. Finding a suitable climate and abundance of 
food, the race began to multiply and spread first over the northern half of 
the North Island, then gradually moving south, crossing over Cook Strait — 
and overrunning the South Island and thence to Stewart's Island. Later on 
&number found their way to the Chatham Islands, forming a 
the Morioris. Various remains in the shape of old axes, and of ruins 
of old hill-forts, showed that these islanders were constantly engaged in 
intertribal wars, and that they were cannibals. The evidences of their hay- 
ing existed everywhere in these lands in what we may call pre-pakeha times, 
are very abundant. It is also abundantly proved that their advent to these 
islands was not above several centuries back. By the term “‘ pre- Bcd 
« 
i.e socio cade 
