On the Probable Origin of the Maoris Or Native Inhabitants of New Zealand Author(S): W

On the Probable Origin of the Maoris or Native Inhabitants of New Zealand Author(s): W. S. W. Vaux Source: The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 5 (1876), pp. 451-458 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2841116 . Accessed: 15/06/2014 04:09

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JANUARY 11TII, 1876. A. W. FRANKS, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-Preside)nt,in the COair. The minutesof the previousmeeting were confirmed. The Director announced the following new elections:- W. R. CoRNisi, Esq., 5, Sunderland Terrace, Bayswater; ISIDORE B. LYONS,Esq., 9, FinsburyPlace, E.C.; H. AUBREY HUSBAND, Esq., M.D., of Brentwood House, Stroud Green Road, FinsburyPark, N.; and EDMUND CROGGAN, Esq., Beau- fortHouse, BeaufortRoad, Clifton. The list of presentswas read, ancdthanks were voted to the respectivedonors, viz. :

FoR THE LIBRARY. Fromthe AUTHOIR.-The Mythologyand Traditionsof the Maori in New Zealand. By Rev. J. F. H. Wohlers. Fromthe AUToR.-Kashmir and Kashghar. By H. W. Bellew, Esq., C.S.I. Fromthe " ACADEMY."-Bulletinde la AcademieRoyale de Copen- hagen. No. 3, 1874; No. 1, 1875. Fromthe SoCIETY.-Proceedings of the Royal Society. Vol. XXIV. No. 164. Fromthe EDIToR.-Revue Scientifique. Nos. 25-28, 1875. Fromthe SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES OF BATAVIA.-Tijdsch- riftxxi. afl.5, 6; do. xxii. afl.4, 5, 6-xxiii. afi.1. Notulen xii. No. 4, 1874. xiii. Nos. 1, 2, 1875. Verhandelingen, xxxvii. xxxviii. FromF. W. RUDLER, Esq.-The Marriageof Near Kin. By A. H. Huth,Esq. From the AssoCIATIoN.-Proceedingsof the Geologists'Associa- tion. Vol. IV. No. 5. Fromthe SOCIETY.-Journal of the Royal AsiaticSociety of Great Britainanid Ireland. Vol. VIII. Part I. Fromthe EDITOR.-Nature (to date).

The followingpaper was read by the author: 0On the PROBABLE ORIGIN of tle MAORIS OP NATIVE INHABI- TANTS qf NEW ZEALAND. By W. S. W. VAUX, M.A., F.R.S. IT has been long a problem,and, I may acdd,one not yet satis- factorilysolved, whether the Maoris are autocthonous,and if not, what was the country whence they originally came ? MIuch speculation has arisen on this subject, not, perhaps, always of the wisest kind, and many theories have been ad- vancedwhich, on morecareful investigation, cannot be sustained,

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As I have been inducedby myfriend, Dr. Hector,to take much interestin this question,and to look into it with some minute- ness, especiallyfrom the language point of view, he has asked ine to accompanyhis remarkson the stone implementshe has broughtfromNew Zealand witha shortpreface, stating the judg- mentmny researches have led me to formon the " whence" of the Maoris. I propose,however, that this brief paper shall be, in the strictestsense, a prefaceto what is to followfrom him, as to go intodetails on so wide a subject would requireeven more thanone long evening. Moreover,the Society would, I feel sure, preferhearing, from Dr. Hector's own lips, his account of the stoneimplements he has to show,with the views of their relativedates aniduses, which appear to him, fromhis lolngand practicalexperience of the habits of the existingpopuLlation, to be the mostlikely. I shall not,therefore, now discuss these remains,and shall merelyadd the oneremark, that I doubt the possibilityof de- ducing any conclusionas to the remoteor recentorigin of the IlMaorisfrom any such monuments,the more so, that both of the two great classes,the rude as well as the highlypolished, are mnet with,at least occasionally,side by side,under the same conditions,in the same old native camping-groundsor settlements, this fact,as it seemsto me, clearlyshowing that they must have been in use, synchronously,by one and the same people. That theywere used forvery different purposes is equally certainfrom theirvholly different character alnd conformation. I shall,therefore,confine myself to some other points which are, perhaps, rather more in my province,and shall, thus,be less likely to anticipatewhat Dr. Hector may presentlyhave to say. Now, it seems to me that there are three sources from which we mighthope to gain some informatiolnas to the origin of the Maoris, viz.:- 1. Their traditions. 2. Their ethnologyalnd customs. 3. Their language. To take, first,the Native T'caditionis. On this head it is enoughfor me to statehere, that, among these,there is a very general and remarkableuniformity, pointing to this definite conclusion,that, according to theirbeliefs, their ancestors came from the N. and N.E., and but few at a time, the names of even some of the canoes in whichthey arrived having been preserved. It is, further,a curiouLsfact that there are still existing familiesin the islands who put forwarda claim, not conitradictedby the others,that they are lineal descendantsof the first-comers. The most commonniame they give their primevalhome is Hawaiki, a naiiie foulndivariously mnodifiedl in

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:09:43 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions oP NdtiVCLdiabitalts ofNeQtY ,Zealaind. 4o3 more than one of the islands of the Polynesian group,* the natural inferencefrom this fact being that it belongs to some remoteplace, possibly that of theirearliest origin, and has, thus, been handed on fromisland to island. I mayadd that,according to a persistenttradition, resting, as in the similar case of Owhyhee,on the genealogiesof the families of known chiefs, the Maoris would niotseem to have occupiedthese islands much morethan 500 years; and, further,that there is no evidence whateverfor the idea, propoundedby Mir.Colenso and othersin the Transactionsof the New Zealand Institute,that any other race occupied these islands before their arrival here. No remainshave been found,during the ample investigationsof recent years, giving any colour to this lnotion,nior have the closest observers detected the prevalence of any custom, whichmight have servedto distinguishthe Mlaoriof 500 years ago from those of the present day, still less, either of these peoples,from the earlierbut hypotheticalrace who,if theyhad lived in NewvZealand, need not, forthis reason,have been the ancestorsof the presentMaoris. I cannot,of course,in so elementarya paper as the present, presumeto offerany lroofs of what I myselffirmly hold, -viz. the almostcertaini truth of the Maori traditions,the more so that, in the lecturewhich is to follow,Dr. Hectorwill no doubt referto them,and with an authorityto whichI have no claim. I may, however,state that,so faras I have been able to examine into them,I thinkthe evidence in theirfavour conclusive. I pass, therefore,on to the secondportion of this paper,

The Ethnology aCnd CuStOsts of the Jaoris. And, here,I am bouncdto admit that,at firstsight, there is a considerabledifficulty, if we are compelled to hold that the colourof skin,the outlineof features,or the natureof the hair are, in themselves,enough to constitutea well definedvariety of the genushomo, for, unquestionably, in externalappearance, there is among the Maoris the widest diversityof features,some of

* It seemsworth while to note the curiousmaodifications of formunder which this name is found. Thus in Cook, 1 Voy. iii. p. 69, we find it called Heawige, evidentlyan errorof English origini. In the islands themselvesthe following forms occur:-1. Netv Zealand-Havaiki; 2. Rarotonga and Maugarwan- Avaiki; Tahiti, Havaii; Sandwich,Hawaii (the native name of the island we call " Owhyhee"); Marquesas (like the New Zealand Havaiki); Samoan,Savaii. It is quite clear that each and all these formsare dialectical variations of some one original,but what that originalwas we do not know, perhaps never shall ascertain. It is a curious fact that in many of these islands the word simplymeans "below," correspondingwith the infernoof other countries,the idea of the people clearlybeiig, as is expressed in several of the legends,that theirchief god fishedthem up from the bottom of the ocean and thus made theirhomes drty land.

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:09:43 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 454 W. S. W. VAUX.-Pro'li0ltbeOn igin qf {he iWa(toris thembeilng almost Europealn in theirphysiogniomiy, while others, again, have the high foreheadand Itoman nose of the North AmericanIndian. There is also an almost equal diversityof colour fromthe darkest swarthinessto the fairtypes of the European. All and each of these poinits may be well seen in some photographsDr. Hector has collected,in illustrationiof part of his lecture. Hence it is not strange that Dr. TH6ch- stetterand others should have called the existinignatives a mixedrace, ancdshould have stronglyurged the probabilitythat therehas been, at someperiod or other,a considerableinfusion of Melanesian blood. To this vies, however, I venture to think that the perfectuniity of the Miaorilanguage is aln adequate reply; forthough, as might have beelnaniticipated, there are many dialectical differencesbetween the speech of the various tribes dwelling from the lnorthto the south promontories(over a distance of some 13 degrees of latitude), the commobnlanguage of the Maoris, which is better knownand has been more carefullystudied, thani that of any otherof the PacificIslanders, with the possible exceptionof the Hawaiian, is perfectlyhomogeneous, with scarcely any words (and these chieflythe import of commerce)assignable to any other tongue. Mr. Thomson has, I think, detected only about 100 words,Malay or of MIalayorigin, out of the 6,000 to be found in the latest New Zealand dictionary,a dictionary,however, which,it is no injusticeto its compilersto state,is far enough frombeing a thesaurusof the language. Judgingby the examples I have seen,there is not nearlyas much differencebetween these local dialects as we find,at the present moment,between the speech of a Yorkshire or a Somersetshireman. Now it would seem scarcelypossible, certainly not probable,that, sup.- posing the MIaoristhe mnixedrace theyhave been asserted by some to be, not one single word of any other people, except the few Malay words I have referredto, should be founidin their currentspoken language. Few instances occur of the intermixingof two or more wvhollyutnlettered populations, whetherby conquestor otherwise,without m-any words having been preservedbelonging, respectively, to the conqueredor the conqueringpeoples. With regardto theircustom9, I thinkit may be stated that, with-the exceptionof the cava-drinking,of which we read so much in Mariner's " Tonga Islands," those of the Maoris differ but littlefrom what we findprevailing in the otherPolynesian groups-such as the Navigator's,Friendly, Society, Marquesas, and Sandwich Islands-the naturalconclusion being, that the inhabitantsof New Zealand and the islands I have just men- tionedwere, at sometime or other,much more directly connected

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t}hanthey are at present; anid this conclusion,it will be ob- served, is wholly in unison with the traditionof the Maori immigrationfrom the N.E. Again, in all, or nearlyall ofthese islands we findthe recognitionof one or more superiorbeings, not withoutsome resemblanceto the deifiedheroes of classical antiquity, togetherwith the prevalence,at least formerly,of human sacrifices,infanticide, and cannibalism,the practice of tattoo, and the institutionof tabu. In some of the islands, and markedlyin New Zealand, there is a total absence of images and of any edificethat could be called a temple,and in mostof them,with the exceptionof New Zealand, their Para- dise is supposedto be in a remoteisland to the N.W. I learn from Dr. Hector that the Maoris excel greatly in the practice of weaving,that their practice in this art is exceedingly ingenious and peculiar, that they show much taste and skill in the patternsof the clothsthey produce; and that the art of carvingin wood,for which these islanders are justly famed,is confinedto a certain class, and handed down fromfather to son. I learn, too, that it is usual, when any peculiarlygood workis required,to send fromone end of the island to anotherto securethe servicesof some of the tohungas or skilled artificers,who are themselves, individually, well known. It would be of great interestcould we trace on thecontinent of Asia, or in the adjacent islands, any manufacturedwork nearlyresembling that of New Zealand, and for this purposeI studied,so far as I wvasable, the interestingcollection lnowin the India Museum at South Kensington. I regret, however, possiblyfrom my own negligence or defectof eyesight,that I did not detectany specimensfrom India or the Indian Archi- pelago exhibitingan accurate resemblanceto the workwe are entitledto attributeto the native inhabitantsef New Zealand. It is, however,extremely difficult to feel sure about the prove- nanceof individualobjects, and I am, therefore,quite prepared to learn that I passed over,from ignorance, some objectsabout whichI ought to have had no doubt. There is, however,one customcommon to many of the otherislanders which we do not find amonigthe Maoris, and this is the use of bows and arrows. In New Zealand bows and arrows are not used as weapons of offenceand defence,or employed for war purposes,though, as we know from recent fatal examples, they are common enough to the N.W. among the Melanesian and Micronesian populations. In the third portion of this paper, the Language of the iaoris,and, on the amountof affinityit has been said by manv writers to have with the dialects of other islands in the VOL. V. I I

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:09:43 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 456 W. S. W. VAUx.-ProbableOrigin of the Jfaoris Pacific,I am able to speakwith considerable certainty, having devotedall thetime I couldspare, during the last six months, to thestudy of theleading languages of Polynesia,the Maori, Tonga,Tahiti, and Hawaii, with reference,when I had the opportunity,to the works of William v. Humboldt,Buschmann, Moerenhout,and othertravellers. In thisinquiry it is rightthat I shouldmention that Mr. Thomson,of Otago,to whomI havealready referred, has, three or fouryears since, instituted many interesting and successful comparisonsbetween the Maori, Malagasi, Tongan, and Malay, respectively,and has publishedthe resultsat which he has arrivedin an able paperin thesixth volume of the " Transac- tionsof theNew ZealandInstitute, 1873." Thegeneral conclusion I have formed from these studies (and it is obviouslynot possible for me to give on this occasioneither proofsor details) is that all the languagesof Polynesia,with theexception of the Tongan and theFiji (or Viti,as it is more correctlycalled), are closelyconnected, both in structureand vocabulary;and, further, that the differences exhibited by the Tonganand Viti,due in each case, I suspect,to Melanesian influences,are, nevertheless, not such, as to excludethem from beingbond fide Polynesian. And secondly,that there is, in each of them,a certainconnection with the Malay and Javanese groupsof languages,but by no meansso intimatea connection as manyable philologistshave asserted. I think,therefore, that thereis no doubtbut thereonce was a distinctPoly- nesian language,and that this language,in the courseof things,and, after the lapse ofa periodof timewe haveno data whateverfor calculating,has been brokenup and leftas we findit nowin thedifferent groups of thePacific Islands which I havementioned. It willbe observedthat, if thistheory be true,the question as to the " whence" of theMaoris is largelywidened out; for, in theface of the close resemblances,any student of compara- tivemanners or of comparativephilology will find in eachand all ofthese islands, it is, practicallyimpossible to produceany satisfactoryevidence, to show that what is prehistoricin one of themis not equally so in all the rest.* In fact,the questionreally becomes this, What is theorigin of the Poly- nesians? It is clearthat we cannotisolate Hawaiian, Tahitian, * It has, I am aware, been a favouriteview of several writers that the respectiveantiquity of the differentgroups on the islands they now inhabit can be showlnfrom the characterof their present alphabets, and it has been suLpposed that, as those to the N.E. and extreme E. of the Pacific-the (wellers,for instance, in the SandwichIslands or Easter Island-have fewercon- sonantsin theirlanguage-than the Samoalnsor the Maoris to the W., the eastern peoplc must,on the theoryof the wholc of the Polynesianshaving immigrated

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:09:43 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions or Native Inhabitantsof New Zealand. 457 or Maori, though it is probable that the modificationthese dialectshave undergone,and possibly,too, the markedvarieties now noticeablein theirphysical features, suggest the interven- tion of a verylong periodof time since the ancestors(whoever theywere) commonto all these peoples dwelttogether side by side. Now, we know that the Polynesians belong, wholly,to that divisionof mankindwho are termedthe " yellow men," as dis- tinguishedfrom the " white," or so-calledCaucasian races, and the " black," or Negro and Melanesian; moreover,that, physi- cally,they are evidentlyfar superiorto either Melanesian or Micronesian. Their prevailingtint is light to dusky brown, with a tinge of yellow,though, as I have said, manyof the New Zealanders,and a large proportionof the Sandwich Islanders, are verydark. Still thereis scarcelyfound among themthe woolly or crisp hair universallyassociated with the negro,nor, except rarely,the long, lank hair,theprevailing type of the Malay populations. I ought to add that one of the leading characteristicsof all true Polynesians (and in this theystand in markedcontrast to the black races) is theirlove of wanderingand of navigating. Many well known and recent instances can be adduced of canoes foundin the open sea more than 1,500 miles fromthe islands whence they had started,and, yet, the occupants of these canoes werenot starving,nor, apparently,in any distress. Now, the leading races of yellow men in Asia are the Tura- nian Mongols,and I confess,therefore, I thinkthe view I have just sketchedout fairlypoints to a descent of the island populations we now call Polynesian,at some remoteperiod, from the great plains of CentralAsia, where still dwell greatnumbers of a similartype of people. It is quite reasonableto supposethat the necessitiesof an over-population,or some other agency we cannotnow trace,which, in prehistorictimes, urged the same people westwardsto overrunsome of the fairestlands of Eastern Europe,may have inducedothers of them,either before or afterwards,to force theirway to the eastern shores of the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, forsuch a descent,Nature has herselfprovided the way; forwhat bettercourse could be foundfor the onward march of nationsthan such great streams,as the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy,the riversof Siam and Canton,and more than all, the mightyYang-tze and Hoangho ? The greaterof these fromAsia, have been the firstto arrivewhere they are now, and must,therefore, be the oldestinhabitants of Polynesia. Now, thoughit is quite true that many dialecticalforms still survivingin the W. are not foundin the E., and also that the mythologyof theW. is comparativelysimple and spiritual,while that of the E. is debased and cruel,I cannotsay thatI am preparedat present to accept eitherof these views as conclusiveas the relative antiquity of the different islanders.

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.203 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:09:43 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 468 JAMES HECTOR.-Early Formsof StoneImnplements streamsascend into the heart of Asia to the veryhomes and centresof the Mongolianpopulation, while the lands along muchof theircourse is knownto be richlyfertile. If we con- ceive,what w-as probably the case, a seriesof wavesof emigra- tion,at considlerableintervals of timeand by differentrivers, thereis no difficultyin supposing that, when the different groups of emigrantsmet again a longperiod afterwards, after having traversedthousands of miles of ocean from their original homes, theywould not recognise one another as familieswho had been onceakin. Unletteredpopulations would not draw the inferences as to originsand ancestries,which are easilydiscerned by the comparativephilologists of Europe. I believe,therefore, that some such theory as thisis sufficient to accountfor the substantialunity of all the Polynesian dialects,and to accountalso forthe proportion of Malaywords and formsdetected in someof them. I cannotadmit that these languagesare derivedfrom the Malay,but it is, on the other hand, not im-probablethat the tribeswe now call Malays, descending,originally, also, from Central Asia, did followthe S.E. line of the Brabmaputra,Irrawaddy, &c., while the largerbodies of the Polynesians followed the course of Chinese rivers, at a period long anteriorto the Malay descent, graduallycrossing the Pacificby the stepping-stonesof the innumerableislands to be foundbetween the 20th and 20'th parallelsof N. latitude. Nearerthan this I fearwe have little chanceof getting.

On CERTAIN EARLY FORMS of STONE IMPLEMENTS in use among the INEABITANTS of NEW ZEALAND. By JAMES HECTOR, M.D., C.M.G., F.R.S. DR. HECTOR,before describing the collection of New Zealand and ChathamIsland Stone Implements,which he exhibited,referred to some pointsin the ethnographyof the IMlaorirace not men- tionedin the foregoingpaper. He dismissedas untenablethe theory that some persons advanced, of the Maoris being autochthones,or a remnantof a formerrace now representedby isolated groups,through the submergenceof a great continental area, and expressedhis acquiescencewith Mr. Vaux respecting the origin of the Maoris as migrantsin common with other Polynesians,but thoughtthat thisgeneral way of dealing with the subject ratheravoided than settled the issue of greatest interestto the New Zealand student,which is the period of the firstsettlement of the islands by Maoris,and whetherthe whole Maori populationhad a commonorigin from one migration.

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