202 
It may be owing to the temperate climate of New Zealand, its 
extensive area in comparison with the other islands, to the mani- 
fold features of its soil, and above all to the indispensability of 
labour in a country ill adapted by nature for a life of ease and 
idyllic pleasure, that the qualities of the great gipsy-race of the 
South Sea, the Polynesians, upon New Zealand have been deve- 
loped to the highest degree they can attain. 
The New Zealanders style themselves Maoris, and consider all 
'the other oceanic races as far beneath them. Whether the word 
maori may be derived from the root uri , dark , or considered syno- 
nymous with moor (negro) I leave to others to determine. With 
the natives, maori simply signifies indigenous or peculiar to New 
Zealand. 1 Tangata maori is the native in contradistinction to 
Tangata pakeha, the stranger; wai maori signifies common or fresh 
water, and wai pakeha the spirituous beverages of the Europeans. 
The origin of the Maoris is shrouded in profound obscurity. 
Mysterious legends and traditions seem to convey vague historical 
reminiscences. The history of the creation of New Zealand is given 
in the form of a fisherman’s legend , corresponding well with the 
notions of a people, whose abode is surrounded by the sea, and 
whose chief occupation was fishing. The natives call the Northern 
Island “Te Ika a Maui”, the fish of Maui . 2 Maui according to their 
1 The same word occurs in the language of the natives of other Polynesian 
Islands. Upon Manga rewa and Hawaii maoi signifies native, indigenous, and upon 
Tahiti vai mauri means fresh water. C. Schirren (die Wandersagen der Neusee- 
lander p. 48) has justly proposed applying the word as comprising all the Polyne- 
sian tribes. At all events all the other Polynesian tribes belong to one and the same 
race with the Maoris of New Zealand, which, therefore, may be properly named after 
the most populous and most important tribe, the Maori race. 
1 The Maori name for South Island is “Ie Wahi Punamu”. It owes this 119 me 
to a mineral found there, to the Nephrite, or Jade of the mineralogists; by the 
colonists called “green-stone’ 1 , by the natives “punamu”. This stone is greatly prized 
by the natives, who make ear-rings, neck-laces and battle-axes (Mart) of it, and 
numerous varieties of it are distinguished by hardness, colour and transparency. It 
is found on the West Coast of South Island among the boulders of the sea shore and 
the shingle of the rivers. The natives used to make expeditions to South Island for 
the purpose of gathering punamu, and hence the name “tewahi punamu”, literally 
signifying the place or the land of green-stone, may have been used to denote the 
the whole of South Island. The usual, but incorrect, way of spelling the word is 
