THE TWO RACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
19 
tubes, and when dry retained their shape, becoming hard 
and buoyant; a light frame in the form of a canoe, with a 
double keel, was made of flax stalks ; the air tubes were 
lashed to the sides of the frame, and the interstices filled 
up with moss, so that the whole was rendered tolerably 
water tight, and so buoyant as to be unable to sink ; in fact it 
was a life boat. 
These tubes were also used as jars or receptacles for water, 
oil, potted birds, &c., for winter use ; in fact, they supplied 
the place of pottery, and were to the poor Moriori, what the 
bamboo is to many of the inhabitants of the tropics.* 
That there has been a portion of the human family in New 
Zealand in remote times, appears to be highly probable, from 
the fact of bones having been discovered in the turbaries of 
the Molineaux River, along with those of the dog and moa ; 
and that deposit has every appearance of being anterior to 
the arrival of the Polynesian race in these islands, conse- 
quently the natural conclusion will be, that such remains 
belong to the black or most ancient inhabitants of the land. 
The black race differs from the lighter, not only by its 
inferiority in the ordinary arts of life, but likewise in religion ; 
theirs was of quite a different character to that of the Poly- 
nesian, and had a greater affinity to the African than to the 
* Similar circumstances seem to have called forth like expedients amongst the 
uncultivated sections of the human race. Hill in his travels in Peru, states, ‘ ‘ that 
the Peruvian canoes consist of inflated cellular masses formed of seal skins, 
distended by twigs, two of them are lashed together, and the paddlers sit on 
a frame between them.” The Africans of Abbeokuta take the calabash ; the 
Hindus use large jars, so also the Chinese ; on the Euphrates and Tigris, 
inflated skins answer the same purpose ; in fact, what was most easily obtained 
was rendered available for their necessities. 
Of this character was the coracle of the ancient Britons, which, from its 
simple construction and lightness, being merely a wicker basket qovered with 
cow’s skin, has proved so serviceable that it still continues to be used. 
The Maori Mold is, perhaps, the simplest of all these enumerated, being 
merely a bundle of raupo or bulrush leaves bound together with flax, in the 
form of a canoe ; it is so buoyant that a person sitting astride it, can easily 
paddle himself across the broadest river ; the writer has been obliged to have 
recourse to it, and found it answered admirably. — (See Isa. xviii. 2.) The 
Catamaran is formed by merely lashing half-a-dozen poles to a couple of cross 
bars. 
