MAORI. puna, a spring purakau, old man, old legend pie, to call pihe, a song over the slain pine and pipine, close together porohe, to gather in loops pononga, a slave reti, to ensnare rau, a leaf rawhi, to seize rawe, to snatch reke-reke, the heel rupe, to shake raven, a greedy bird (Gr.) lax, the heel (Gael.) rub, (W.) rhwbio, to rub, grind (A.S.) hræcan, to vomit, (Ice.) (Gr.) rheo, to flow as a torrent (O. Slav.) rabo, a servant (Gr.) detha, often (Gr.) delos, apparent, manifest (Gr.) den, a long time (Gr.) dike, just, right (Gr.) dine, a whirlpool, eddy (Gr.) dolops, one who lies in wait (Gr.) doulos, a slave, (Celt.) dru- (Scan.) troll, a goblin }(Gr.) daio, to divide (Lat.) dor (root of dormio), to sleep; cf. dorsum, the back takakau, the forearm (comp. of (Gr.) daktulon, the finger 66 COW and "finger") tamau, to fasten tamoe, to repress ura, brown, (from pura, fire) ((Goth.) tamjan, to tame (Gr.) damao, to tame, subdue (Gr.) deido, to fear But it is to our own language that Maori shows some of the strangest resemblances. The Teutonic roots of the English speech have close approximation to Maori. Here are some of the most curious. The (M.) tokari, to cut off, or notch, is our word, dock, to cut short, (W.) tociaw, to cut short. The (M.) rara, to roar, is roar. The (M.) patu, to beat, and patu a weapon, is (Eng.) beat, (root A.S. bat) and bat, as a cricket bat. (M.) toi, the toe, is toe. (M.) poka, to thrust, is (Eng.) poke. (M.) karapiti, to grapple, is grapple. (M.) taka, a thread, is (Eng.) to tack with a thread; (M.) taka, to turn, to veer, is (Eng.) tack, to go about; (M.) takai, to wind round and round, is (Eng.) tangle; (M.) tangai, the bark, is (Eng.) tan, (for dyeing,) and tannin. (M.) huu, to chop, is (Eng.) hew. (M.) hopuhopu, to catch frequently, is (Eng.) hobble, a leg-fastening. (M.) hiteki, to hop, is (Eng.) hitch, to move by jerks. (M.) hoanga, a whetstone, is (Eng.) hone. (M.) hoto, a spade, is (Eng.) hoe. (M.) hape, bent, is (Eng.) hoop. (M.) hake, crooked, bent, is the (Eng.) hook. (M.) hakui, an old woman, (Eng.) hag. (M.) hae, to hate, is (Fr.) hair, and (Eng.) hate. (M.) hoko, to sell, is (Eng.) hawker, one who sells. (M.) hoe, to row, (Eng.) hoy, a boat. (M.) hua, to call, (Eng.) hue and cry. (M.) tae, to dye, is dye. (M.) kiri, the hide, is (Eng.) curry, to dress hides. (M.) tope, to cut off, is (Eng.) to top, as to top shoots of plants. (M.) koripi, to cut, is (Eng.) clip. (M.) tapahi, chapped or chopped, is (Eng.) chapped or chopped-the (M.) tapa-tapahi, cut in pieces, is only chop-choppy. The (M.) kuri, the dog (once a cattle-dog), is the Scotch cooley or collie, the cattle-dog. I only cease from fear of too utterly wearying you with examples, but hundreds of words, in both European and Asiatic Aryan languages, have similar brotherhood with Maori, and have been collected by me. These Maori words are not Anglo-Maori, they are to be found embalmed in old songs and legends which have come down to us from days which date centuries before a European keel divided the Pacific. Although, as I said in my introduction, I shall trespass on the ground of the geologist in the briefest manner, it would be wrong not to notice the evidence forced upon us by discoveries in New Zealand. Dr. Von Haast, F.R.S., says, in an article on the Moa-hunters, in which he judges from the polished stone implements found in the caves with the broken Moa bones, that the men who hunted the Moa lived ages ago: "Of course it is impossible to calculate this time by even hundreds of years, but as polished stone implements have been found in New Zealand buried in littoral beds, 15 feet below the surface, in undisturbed ground over which extensive forests are growing, containing trees of enormous size, there is no doubt that the use of polished stone implements dates far back in pre-historic times; I mean to say, to a period to which even the most obscure traditions of the aborigines do not reach." Mr. McKay, of the Geological Department, writing on the same subject, says: "Thus we are led to suppose that a people, prior to the advent of the present stock, were the exterminators of the Moa, always accepting as incontrovertible that the immigration alluded to did not take place 1,000 years earlier than stated in the said traditions on the subject. But in the meantime, accepting the 350 years, and treating 1,350 as a wild notion which the science of the subject has never yet dreamed of, let us see if the 350 years will be sufficient for the accomplishment of all that of necessity must be performed by these immigrants and their descendants." Another branch of science, Philology, will not, I feel assured, treat the early advent of the Maori as a "wild notion"; the trouble has been occasioned by the too great credence given by Maori scholars to the value of oral genealogies, &c. Sir George Grey has kindly allowed me to quote his authority for the following statement. He for years has believed that the Maoris must have inhabited New Zealand much longer than has been stated, the 350 years giving no possible space of time in which the enormous fortifications, &c., could have been erected, and the country populated densely in the North Island-in many cases, huge trees requiring centuries to gain their present bulk having grown out of the deserted defences. On leaving New Zealand for Africa, he took his Polynesian experiences of legend, &c., and compared them with those of other primitive races, such as the Kaffirs, Hottentots, &c., and came to the conclusion that the human memory did not retain legendary personality beyond the teuth or twelfth generation-that after the grandfather, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth ancestor, the Man was getting very shadowy, that back to the twelfth they were into myth, the Man had gone; in myth-land they could remember and sail away grandly, and even make no mistakes, in comparison with mythical personages of other tribes. Speaking of skeletons. found in the Moa caves, &c., Dr. Von Haast notices that they were all buried in a crouching position. It will be interesting to read a few instances of comparison with the Maori usages (known to us all) that occur in the work "Early Man in Britain," describing the Neolithic men. "The dead were buried in these tombs as they died, in a contracted or crouching posture. The For purposes of defence, they constructed camps, with wellengineered ramparts either of stone or earth, and fosses, sometimes as many as three or four ramparts being formed one above the other. The ramparts probably bore palisades. intercourse between the Neolithic tribes was greatly facilitated by the use of canoes, formed of the trunks of large trees, hollowed partly by the action of fire, and partly by the axe, and propelled by means of a broad paddle. A flint arrowhead two inches long, and a 'wooden sword' have also been met with in the peat close by. This kind of traffic is proved to have extended over enormous distances in the Neolithic age by the distribution of the axes made of nephrite or jade, a material as yet unknown in its native state in Britain or the Continent." With these quotations, I conclude. So many matters of interest grow up as one proceeds, so many paths are seen along which one would like to tread, that my great difficulty, in this article, has been to compress without leaving some important matter unnoticed. Many offers of kindly help are being made to me, and I feel sure that, before many years have passed, we shall, by study of this subject, have added to the scientific information of mankind, and written an interesting chapter in the history of the Colony. ART. II.-On the Stone Weapons of the Moriori and the Maori. FOR Some time past I have been waiting in vain for some one more conversant with the history of the Morioris, those ancient inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, to describe fully their habits and customs, to note down their folk-lore, going back many generations, but chiefly to delineate the remains of their ancient handicraft preserved to us in burial places and spots where their dwellings were formerly situated. I was particularly anxious to have some account of those curious stone implements, known to us under the name of "patu." |