Newman. — On Causes leading to the Extinction of the Maori. 46S 



from Singapore to Madagascar, perhaps to South Africa, and west to Java, 

 the Marquesas, the Sandwich Islands to Otaheite, over most of the Pacific 

 Isles to Easter Island and New Zealand. Through all this vast range of 

 land we find a decaying race. 



De Quatrefages, in his work on "The Human Species," writes: — 

 Captain Cook, just a century ago, estimated the Kanakas in the Sandwich 

 Islands at 300,000. In 1861 there were 67,084— about 22 per cent, of the 

 original number. From another source I find that the Kanakas in 1832 

 were 130,817, and in 1872, 56,897. In the Marquesas, Porter guessed the 

 population in 1813 at 19,000 warriors, giving a population of 70,000 

 or 80,000. In 1858 M. Jouan found 2,500 or 3,000 warriors, and about 

 11,000 other people. Cook and Forster estimated the population of Tahiti 

 at upwards of 240,000. In 1857 the official census gave only 7,212, that is 

 to say, a little more than 3 per cent, of the original population. De Qua- 

 trefages also adds that this decrease of population extends to all the islands 

 of Polynesia, and instances Bass Island, where Davis counted 2,000 people 

 in the beginning of the century, and where Moerenhaut found only 300 in 

 1874. I believe it is the same with the Papuan race in Fiji and other islands. 

 In the "Malay Archipelago" Wallace tells us that the Dyaks and other 

 branches are dying out, owing to the frequency of deaths and the infertility 

 of the race. The large stone ruins of Easter Island tell of a bygone dense 

 population, where now but a beggarly remnant exists. 



It would be mere waste of time to go on accumulating further evidence ; 

 everywhere the evidence is clear and abundant that not only in New Zealand 

 but aE over the broad Pacific the race is steadily dying out. This steady 

 diminution of the race is not a peculiarity of the Maoris ; it is common to 

 the Malay family generally. Certain writers please to call the Maoris a 

 "provisional race," but the phrase though learned means little. The 

 Maori is becoming extinct, like many other races, from almost identical 

 causes. All over the world we see some races progressive, some stationary, 

 others decaying ; . others recently extinct, a few fossil. The Anglo-Saxon 

 race is rapidly progressing ; the French seem nearly stationary ; the North 

 American Indians are fast vanishing ; so are the Bosjesmen. Soon will 

 vanish the Ainos, the Eskimos, the Australian aborigines, the Kamskat- 

 dales, the Makalolos and the Morioris. Lately extinct are the TasmanianS; 

 the Charruas, the blacks of California. Long extmct are the race found as 

 mummies in the caves of Madefra, the Cro-Magnon race ; the people whose 

 remains are found in the caves of the Pyrenees and the Perigord : still 

 more anciently extinct is the race to whom belonged the fossil man of 

 Neanderthal. 



