XXIV. THE ABORIGINES.
[Image of page 91]
XXIV.
THE ABORIGINES.
Discovery of New Zealand--Columbus and Kupe--Original home of Maori-- Records--Moa--Education--Progress--Hongi--Wars--Decay of the race.
THE history of New Zealand and its discovery by the Maori dates from the middle of the fourteenth century, or about a century before Columbus was born. The contrast between the discoverer of America and the discoverer of New Zealand is all on the side of the Maori. Columbus's mariners were a continual source of uneasiness and trouble to him. They fully expected every night that their ships would fall over the edge of the world and tumble them into the midnight of chaos. The Maori fearlessly launched his war canoe in search of a great island in the Southern Ocean, three thousand miles distant from his tropical home. No fears disturbed those savage navigators about their craft falling over the edge of the world. In their case "ignorance was bliss;" in the other it was a curse, and, but for the energy of one man, would have been followed by the most disastrous failure.
The first Maori who braved the dangers of the Southern Ocean, and discovered the unknown land of New Zealand, was the great
[Image of page 92]
chief Kupe. This he accomplished in the canoe Matahourua, in company with his brave warriors and their wives. It is creditable to the discoverer of New Zealand that his thirst for geographical knowledge of the new-found country was more intense than that of the discoverer of America, Columbus erroneously imagined he had discovered the continent of America, and returned to Europe under that belief, yet it was only the island of Guanahani, but the New Zealand discoverer no sooner refreshed his crew, than he circumnavigated the north island, and named its principal rivers, bays, and mountains, which are substantially the names they still bear.
Nine other canoes followed the Matahourua in rapid succession. Each canoe had its chief and a faithful band devoted to his interest. The names of these canoes and their captain chiefs are still carefully preserved in the traditionary records of the tribes, whose progenitors they bore through storm and tempest to the land of the Maori.
There are two questions connected with the early history of New Zealand that are difficult of solution. The one is a philological, the other a nautical question. The concurrent testimony of the natives is that the first ten canoes came from Hawaiki. The only island in the Pacific Ocean that has any resemblance in name to Hawaiki is Hawaii, the largest of the Sandwich Islands. Two difficulties occur here. First, the languages of Hawaii and New Zealand are not similar. To this it may be remarked that an unwritten language would change very much in five hundred years-- even the written language of Scotland five centuries ago is almost unintelligible to many now-a-days. Secondly, the distance of the Sandwich Islands, 3000 miles, is thought to be too great for frail canoes to navigate; but to this objection the answer is--that the canoes of the Polynesians have often encountered great storms successfully; besides, the nearest land the Maori could have come from is twelve hundred miles from New Zealand, and if they navigated the stormiest part of the journey, they would have less difficulty through the trade winds. The other question is, that the Maori must have come from Raratonga, because it is nearer than Hawaii, and the language is a little nearer to Maori than that of the Sandwich Islanders. The advocates for this theory get over
[Image of page 93]
the Maori tradition of their ancestors coming from Hawaiki by saying it is a figurative expression. This supposition is rather gratuitous, for the traditions of the New Zealanders are in general most trustworthy. There is a deeper question than the original home of the Maori--Why did he expect to find a great island in the far south? Here speculation may exhaust herself. There is evidence that a race existed in New Zealand prior to the landing of the Maori, who were contemporaneous with the giant Moa bird, whose head was twelve feet high when standing on the ground.
Maori Records. --The mode by which the New Zealander preserves the records of his tribe is both interesting and instructive; and the systematic and fourfold manner in which it was done, shows most conclusively that the greatest accuracy was sought in recording the history of the past. Some of the tribes possess a genealogical tree, or stick, on which a notch is cut for every generation since they landed on the shores of New Zealand. The custodier of this record was invariably the priest of the tribe. It was the duty of the priesthood to hand to their successors the genealogical stick, and all that had been learned from their predecessors of the history of the tribe --their quarrels, --wars, --and extent of their lands. Further, at certain seasons the tribe was assembled, like the Jews, for historical instruction, when the priest rehearsed the leading events of their history. And lastly, the son of the chief from his infancy was taught the names of his forefathers, and the great incidents of their lives. When he grew up he never left his father's side; in season and out of season, in the house and on the field, in fishing and hunting, the universal theme was the history of the tribe-- the wars they had waged, --the tribes they had conquered, --and, in particular, the unavenged wrongs of his forefathers. No matter how great the interval that had intervened, these proud chieftains taught their children never to forgive, until the family stain had been wiped out by the best blood of their enemies. Another important part of a chief's education was the boundary of his dukedom. For the purpose of riveting the boundaries more firmly in his mind, he was taken to the confines of his country, and made to cultivate a portion of it, that in the event of his title ever being questioned
[Image of page 94]
he could refer to these outside cultivations in proof of ownership. So thorough was the historical training of a young chief, that some of them could recount the history of his tribe for twelve generations back. These facts attest the accuracy of Maori traditions.
Their progress, after landing in their adopted country, seems to have been very great. For centuries they seem to have increased very rapidly, Maori mothers having been known to have ten, and even twelve children; but the zenith of Maori prosperity is long since past. From 1814 to 1840 sixty thousand of the flower of the race perished by the hands of their own countrymen. Up to that time not a single emigrant ship had sailed from Britain for New Zealand, so that the colonists are free from all blame in these exterminating wars, which resulted in great measure from a foolish present of fire-arms made to Hongi, a New Zealand chief, when on a visit to the King of England in 1822. Hongi became the Buonaparte of New Zealand. He carried all before him; like Napoleon, he revelled in victory and bloodshed, until he involved his tribe and nation in hopeless decay--a decay that is irresistible and sure, and which will only terminate with the last New Zealander, not "on the broken arch of London bridge," but in his own untidy, cheerless, and dirty home. The extinction of the Maori is a mere question of time. They feel they are a doomed race, and look forward to it with the resignation of the fatalist. In Canterbury and Otago they never had a dispute with the colonists, and yet there is not a native to be seen where they once roamed in thousands. Wherever you go, there is hardly a native child to be seen, only half-castes, and even these in the second generation are sickly and puny-looking. Whatever may be the cause, it is beyond human control. If it is the judgment of Heaven, it must be in consequence of the fierce and horrible passions of their forefathers being visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. Putting the decay of the Maori in this hypothetical manner may be objectionable to some, but it is most difficult to account for the decadence of the race if you ignore an overruling providence; but the next forty years will speak more decidedly in the direction indicated than anything that can be said
[Image of page 95]
on this most painful subject. That natural causes are at work is readily admitted. For example, I have seen a Maori chief on a warm sunshine day walking about with a red blanket wrapped closely round him, and the perspiration oozing from every pore of his body, and at night lie on the cold damp ground, with nothing more than the red blanket. He catches cold and dies of consumption, or some other irresistible disease. And this state of matters is not mended by building a house for him, or even in providing him with money, food, and clothing. The Maori will live in his own way, mingling civilized and savage habits in the most incongruous and pernicious manner. Every one must be familiar with the ridiculous way in which they are reported to have combined heathenism and Christianity in the North Island during the last native war.
The Maori feels he can no longer cope with the Anglo-Saxon. He sees that he is destitute of his energy and perseverance; that the European prospers where the native would starve; that the white man is not a fighting man, but when he fights he is sure to win; that the prestige of the Maori is gone; that the land which his forefathers wrested from others has been wrested from himself by the gold of a race that will never die. He plainly sees that his countrymen are dwindling away, and that nothing can resuscitate the glory of the past. He has lost all hope, and become a confirmed fatalist, looking on the exterminating future as an invincible foe.
