Newman. — On Causes leading to the Extinction of the Maori. 465 



To gain a clear view of the effects of the different causes leading to the 

 extinction of the race it will be well to study very briefly the Maoris in their 

 former wild and their present civilized conditions. Before we came to these 

 islands the natives were dotted in clusters all over the islands, but more 

 thickly in the northern one. These clusters were generally on small or 

 lofty hills, with a wood near and a river at the base. As they were divided 

 into many tribes, which were always ready to fight for their own protection, 

 each small tribe, or parts of bigger tribes, entrenched themselves on the 

 spurs of a mountain or the brow of a hill. One side of the hill was usually 

 a steep ascent, and the other sides frequently defended by a ditch and ram- 

 part. In these highly-placed forts they slept, descending by daylight to 

 the damper lowlands or the swamps and rivers for fishing. Any food they 

 got was irregular in supply, and nearly always hardly earned, almost always 

 was bulky, but very innutrient. Their clothing was very scanty, and put on 

 or off without any regard to so-called decency. They intermarried largely. 

 Their lives were always harassed by actual warfare or a dread of assaults. 

 They had few diseases, and as communication with different parts of the 

 islands was rare, epidemics did not do much damage. The Maoris enjoyed 

 an immunity from very many diseases which have long affected us, e.g., 

 smallpox, syphilis, measles, scarlet fever, whooping-cough, typhus, and 

 probably typhoid. But though they had few diseases, those few were 

 deadly. Consumption in its various forms killed old and middle-aged and 

 young. They suffered from a malarious fever, from diarrhoea, from bron- 

 chitis and pneumonia, and many from rheumatism. Eheumatism was a 

 frequent scourge. Scrofula thinned the children's ranks. Epilepsy and 

 dropsy were not infrequent. A species of leprosy {iigerengere) was preva- 

 lent. In addition to these and other diseases, cannibahsm was the cause of 

 death to many. Infanticide, especially female infanticide, was very com- 

 mon. Old people, both men and women, chiefly the latter, were allowed to 

 die of neglect or starvation. They sometimes died from eating unhealthy 

 eels or from a surfeit of lampreys. Suicide was exceedingly common, but 

 is now rare. Murders were numerous. In the olden times, if a husband 

 died the woman nearly always killed herself. Under the painful operation 

 of tattooing some died ; and lives were lost by the old warriors' dislike of 

 dying in bed, for when they felt death approaching they used to arm them- 

 selves to the teeth, and then at night, gathering their remaining energies 

 for one last struggle, would rush headlong into one of the enemies' camps, 

 generally killing men, women, and childi'en, before they themselves sank 

 covered with wounds. 



Numbers died because they were makuhied: were bewitched, died through 

 sheer fright, after infringement of the tapu. Slaves were known to die 



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