184 ORIGIN, AS TRACED BY THE LANGUAGE. 
thing else ; they naturally applied that word to it, and called it 
huka. It has generally been supposed that the Malay is the 
grand progenitor of the Maori; but I do not see on what 
grounds, beyond the resemblance of a very few words. The 
affinity between the Maori and Sanscrit is much closer, as well 
as their customs; the widow sacrificing her life at the husband s 
death is a remarkable agreement. The figures sculptured on 
the caves of Elora and Salsette bear a singular resemblance to 
the Maori hei tiki in their form. 
The New Zealanders are decidedly a mixed race ; some 
have woolly hair, others brown or flaxen ; some are many 
shades darker than others.'* The peculiar features of the 
Tartar are also very common ; the oblique eye, the yellow 
countenance, the remarkable depression of the space between 
the eyes, so that there is no rise in the nose, seem clearly to 
indicate that some portion at least of the race is of Chinese or 
Japanese descent; and this supposition is strongly supported 
by a similarity of custom in chiefs tying up their hair in a top 
knot. The natives now copy us, as being a more highly civilized 
race than themselves. r T his would naturally have been the 
same, had any number of the Chinese or Japanese airived 
amongst them. Hence the chiefs adopted the top knot as a 
sign of higher rank. This resemblance seems to have struck 
Tasman most forcibly ; in describing them, he says, “ They 
were of a color between brown and yellow, their hair long 
and almost as thick as that of the Japanese, combed up and 
fixed with a quill, or some such thing, in the very same manner 
as the Japanese fastened their hair behind their heads." About 
the year 1839, one of the members of the Church Mission, 
when paying a visit to the district of Wangaree, found a party 
of natives sitting round a fire, where they were cooking 
potatoes in an old-fashioned bell. Being much struck with 
the singularity of the circumstance, as well as the peculiar 
appearance of the bell, he inquired into the way they became 
* go dark are some of these natives, that they are joked by others as being 
Pokerekahu, which is a name for a very black kind of kumara; in fact, they 
have many terms of reproach amongst themselves for these dark persons, 
such as kiwakiwa, pangopango, signifying black. 
