﻿Stack. — Notes on " Moas and Moa Hunters.'''' 107 



5th. They did not possess a domesticated dog. 



6th. This branch of the Polynesian race possessed a very low standard of 

 civilisation, using only rudely chipped stone implements, whilst the Maoris, 

 their direct descendants, had, when the first Europeans arrived in New 

 Zealand, already reached a high state of civilization in manufacturing fine 

 polished stone implements and weapons. 



7th. The moa-hunters, who cooked their food in the same manner as the 

 Maoris of the present day do, were not cannibals. 



8th. The moa-hunters had means to reach the Northern Island, whence 

 they prociired obsidian. 



9th. They also travelled far into the interior of this island to obtain flint 

 for the manufacture of their primitive stone implements. 



10th. They did not possess implements of Nephrite (greenstone). 



11th. The polishing process of stone implements is of considerable age in 

 New Zealand, as more finished tools have been found in such positions that 

 their great antiquity cannot be doubted, and which is an additional proof of 

 the lonsf extinction of the Moa. 



Akt. V. — Some ohservations on the Annual Address of the President of the 

 Philosophiccd Institute of Canterbury, delivered on the \st March, 1871. 

 By the E,ev. J. W. Stack. 



[Read before the Philosophical Listitute of Canterbury, 5th April, 1871.] 



In his very interesting paper on " Moas and Moa-hunters," our President 

 spoke of the absence of any reliable traditions, amongst the Maoris generally, 

 regarding the causes that led to the extinction of the Moa. He concludes from 

 this, and other evidence, that the extinction of the Moa was long antecedent 

 to the settlement of these islands by the Maori race. There is very strong- 

 presumptive evidence in support of his view, that the Maoris were not the 

 moa-hunters. But that the Dinornis was hunted, and became extinct ages 

 before the advent of the Maori, is a conclusion hardly deducible from the facts 

 upon which the theoi-y is based. The present Maori inhabitants — Ngai Tahu 

 — ^have occupied this island for about ten generations. Allowing twenty-five 

 years for a generation, their occupation dates back 250 years. In none of the 

 traditions relating to this period, though numerous and detailed, are there any 

 allusions to the Moa. We may safely conclude, then, that, for that period at 

 least, the Moa has been extinct. The Ngai Tahu found this island in the posses- 

 sion of the Ngati-mamoe, another Maori tribe, whom they exterminated or 

 absorbed. The Ngati-mamoe having previously succeeded Waitaha, a tribe 



