CoLENSO. — On the Vegetable Food of the Ancient Netv Zealanders. 5 



it to have been so, from what Httle they have seen around them during the 

 modern transition period of the Maoris, and from their own English ideas. 

 The old, intelligent, thoughtful, industrious Maoris of the North Island 

 have always denied it. What they said, was (I) they had not such good 

 natural gifts — fruits, roots, vegetables, cereals, etc. — as the Europeans ; and 

 (2) they had vastly more labour in obtaining and preparing for food what 

 they really had around them, particularly in the matter of vegetables. 



The ancient New Zealander had great plenty of good and wholesome 

 food, both animal and vegetable, but all such with them was only to be ob- 

 tained by labour, in one shape or the other, almost unremitting. To them 

 Nature has not been over-indulgent as she had been to their relatives in the 

 more Eastern and tropical Isles of the South Pacific — where the bread-fruit 

 and the banana, the cocoanut and the plantain grew spontaneously, and 

 yielded, without toil, their delightful fruits to man ! But all such constant 

 labour and industry was doubtless in their favour, helping to " the survival 

 of the fittest," and causing the development of a finer race, both physically 

 and intellectually. The old Maoris were great fishers and fowlers — and 

 hunters too, in their diligent snaring of their prized, fat, frugivorous forest 

 rat ; but, for the present, I shall omit all reference to their animal food, con- 

 fining myself to their being industrious and successful agriculturalists and 

 cultivators of the soil. 



And this one chief and noble industry duly considered shows how far, 

 how very far, they were in advance of the mere hunter, or fisher ; the true 

 savage man of both ancient and modern times, — whether we look for him 

 (his remains) in Europe, among pre-historic cave relics of days long gone 

 by, or among the modern inhabitants of Patagonia and Magellan Straits, 

 or those nearer neighbours of South Australia and Tasmania. 



Indeed, their being great cultivators, and that fi'om very ancient times, 

 places them high in the true scale of civilization and real advance. Far 

 even beyond that state to which our own forefathers the Britons, and also 

 the Germans, had advanced when Csesar first led his victorious Eoman 

 legions among them.* I know of no ancient people who, vsdthout the 

 knowledge or use of metals, had advanced so far in this direction. In this 

 respect they serve to remind me of the Peruvians under then* Incas, though 



To this I reply : — 1. They were not pinched for food in winter. 2. The winter 

 months were ?ioi so named. 3. Their " onJi/ food in times of scarcity " was not merely 

 fern-root and shell-fish. 4. Those mounds are jiot " records of by-gone scarcity " — rather 

 of plenty ! The shell-fish were collected in bushels, or cart-loads, in the summer, in 

 their proper season, and cooked, and the flesh dried and often strung on long threads of 

 New Zealand flax, and carried off in baskets to their homes for stores. 



* Tacitus, Germania, c. 26 ; and Ctesar, Bell. GaU., VI. 21, etc, 



