60 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



thousand miles. I much regret my mabihty, authorities differing so 

 greatly iu the origm of this race. 



Although the natives of Australia are surrounded by savage nations 

 using the bow and arrow, Cook did not observe any such weapons among 

 them, only lances and darts, thrown by hand or with a throwing- stick. 



I have sufficiently trespassed upon my hearers' attention, and I must ask 

 to be excused for the length of the paper. It is only by following out the 

 particular customs of savage tribes, and investigating the construction of 

 their language, that the cradle of bu"th of any particular gens can be ascer- 

 tained. I trust Mr. Colenso will, at some future day, favour us with a 

 paper, setting out more minutely than he has even yet done, the manners 

 and customs of the Maoris. A higher civihzation is wiping away the habits 

 of a more barbarous time, yet to the ethnological student, these habits, 

 manners, and customs are deeply Lateresting. 



Note A. 

 I may be allowed to refer briefly to various matters in which the Maori 

 resembles Eastern Polynesians. The shape and carving of the New Zealand 

 war-clubs exactly resembles those in use among numerous Pacific Island 

 tribes. Their custom of taboo is exactly similar. In the mode of burying 

 the dead, some of their customs, especially that of wrapping the body in 

 mats, were similar. Their method of wearing mats, and working ordinary 

 basket-kits, is the same. Their mode of mourning — cutting the hair and 

 gashing the body — is alike. Their traditions all point to a migration, or 

 migrations at different times, from one or other of the South Sea Islands. 

 Their language is alike. Their great god Maui is but the god of the Sand- 

 wich Islands. Their method of house-building is alike. Also painting the 

 body. The custom of tattoo is more severe (the Marquesas excepted) than 

 in any other Pacific Island. The very word tattoo is similar in many islands 

 (it evidently is derived from the Tongese verb ta, to strike.) The use of the 

 waist-cloth is common. Then' adzes are alike, so are their drinking cala- 

 bashes. In the habits of cannibalism they but resemble their ancestry. 

 Their mode of fastening the carved head-work of a canoe to the sides is 

 exactly similar to South Sea practice. The Church Missionary Society's 

 Museum contains models of single and double canoes exactly similar to 

 those found in the Pacific. Carvings, houses, and all their war-pahs were 

 generally erected upon an eminence. Cruise refers to one erected at 

 Wangaroa situated upon an eminence 300 feet high. I have seen exactly 

 similar forts in Fiji. The word pa or pah is the very word used by the 

 people of the Hervey Group, if I remember correctly. The Sandwich 

 Islanders, in Cook's days, were in the habit of saluting visitors by crushing 



