90 • -The -N.Zii Journal of Science and Technology. [April 
One of my infGrmar#s referred to the fight at Waiharakeke (Lillburn, 
Waiau River), where a raiding party fell on an unsuspecting settlement of 
Waitaha and Kati-MalinW Ip^^ple, killing the chief (Whetuki by name) 
and others, and taking prisoiMr&L'^Two warriors, Pane-te-kaka and Makata- 
whio, escaped into the west^tii A-b^ests and were never seen again, pre¬ 
sumably forming part and parcel of the wild natives of their day. 
Te Maiharoa, who died in 1885, used to say he considered there were 
perhaps forty natives in the Fiords district from Milford Sound to Dusky 
Sound, and that, as far as he knew, they were of Kati-Mamoe lineage, or 
allied to that tribe. 
It will be noticed that the Southland Maoris in 1842 and 1852 called the 
wild natives “ Hawea.” Who were the Hawea people ? 
A very well-informed Maori assures me that the Hawea were the first 
race to inhabit the South Island. They were not Maoris, he says, but an 
extremely dark-skinned race, with thick lips, strong white teeth, and curly 
hair. They were displaced by the Rapuwai, who were not so dark as the 
Hawea, but were nevertheless an ill-favpured lot, being ugly to look at, 
and clumsy and awkward in their movements. The next race to inhabit 
the South Island were the Waitaha, and they were the first proper Maoris 
to arrive in New Zealand, so he said, and they were followed by the Kati- 
Mamoe and Kai-Tahu peoples. The Hawea did not come from Hawaiki, 
but from a different land altogether. 
This information is interesting, but it seems to the writer that it is not 
the Hawea described above who are the Hawea of Fiordland. Nor would 
he ascribe the origin of the title “ Hawea ” as applied to the wild natives 
to the fact that some of the refugees apparently fled from Lake Hawea, 
although such a theory was promulgated by one Maori. Hawea is also a 
name for an influential sub-tribe of Kati-Mamoe, and it was some of these 
people who are said to have fought at Te Whara, and to have remained 
round on the west coast after that event, while another portion of Kati- 
Hawea remained at Otago Heads. This is the origin of the name “ Hawea ” 
applied in this case, as far as the writer can ascertain. 
To survey the whole evidence so far available, it seems most probable 
that the denizens of the wild west region of Otago were not driven there by 
any one event at any one given time, but were rather the refugees of 
various occurrences at widely separated points and periods. Some would 
be the survivors of the fight in Preservation Inlet, some the fugitives from 
Waiharakeke and Te Anau fights, some had fled from the Wanaka-Hawea 
district, and others were perhaps driven down from Westland warfare. They 
would probably be in small bands—one about Martin’s Bay and Milford 
Sound, another about Dusky and Breaksea Sounds, another about Lakes 
Te Anau and Manapouri, and yet another, probably, in the bush region west 
of the Waiau River. They appear to have been timid, inoffensive wanderers, 
and it is likely that if in bands, as suggested, they would flee at one 
another’s approach. There is no tradition of their having killed any one 
since they fled to the sanctuary of the wilds. 
It seems scarcely probable that any of these shy, harmless creatures 
can survive to this day. Canon Stack in 1898 wrote, “It is just possible 
that a small remnant may still remain secreted in the recesses of that 
inaccessible region.” At one time it was thought the moa would be found 
there, but that dream has vanished, and so must also the dream of finding 
a Stone Age people in New Zealand. But what is to prevent the discovery 
sooner or later of their places of shelter, of their mouldering mats and 
baskets, and of their rude tools ? 
