An Old New Zealander

Probably no portion of the globe is so pregnant with the romance of unsolved problem as the Pacific Ocean. For thousands of years before Vasco de Balboa, the friend of Columbus, stood upon the heights of Panama and enriched mankind by his glorious geographical discovery, this great ocean and the islands which its blue waters encircle had remained a world in themselves, undisturbed by the rise and fall of continental kingdoms, unknown even to the semi-civilised peoples who dwelt on the neighbouring continental shores.

But although thus shut out from human ken and wrapt in impenetrable mystery, we are entitled to presume that during all this period of time Nature, both animate and inanimate, had been there fulfilling its allotted part in the Creator's plan, though no pen has fully told, or ever can tell, of the many stupendous changes which were wrought in those far-away centuries either by the will of God or by the hand of man. That vast and far-reaching displacements had been effected before the Spanish adventurer's discovery of 1513 broke this prehistoric silence, there is little room to doubt, for the position and configuration of the island groups are as surely the results of geological revolutions as their occupation by a strangely simple and unlettered people is evidence of some great social upheaval in the older societies of the world. Precisely what those geological changes have been, or what the cause of that social upheaval, it would be imprudent to affirm, but there is always room for speculation, even in the realm of science and history, and there is no unreasonable scepticism in refusing to subscribe to the belief that the Pacific Ocean always has been, geographically speaking, what it is to-day, nor rash credulity in accepting the ruined buildings and monolithic remains which lie scattered from Easter Island to Ponape, as evidences of a people whose empire-if such it can be called-had vanished long before the appearance of the Spaniards in these waters.

But even if the opinion still awaits scientific verification that the islands and atolls which sustain the present population of the Pacific are but the surviving heights of a submerged continent, there is less room to doubt that the dark-skinned inhabitants of those islands can look back upon a long course of racial vicissitude antecedent to the arrival of the Spaniards. What the first and subsequent voyagers found was a people of stalwart frame, strong and lithe of limb, with head and features, and especially the fairness of the skin, suggestive of Caucasian origin.[1] Although of bright and buoyant spirits, they were without letters, and their arts were of the most rudimentary kind. Of pottery they knew nothing, and of all metals they were equally ignorant. For their domestic utensils they were dependent upon the gourd and other vegetable products, and for weapons of war and tools of husbandry upon the flints and jades of the mountains. Their textiles, too, were woven without the aid of the spindle, and in much the same primitive fashion as had been employed by the cave-dwellers of England thousands of years before. In the production of fire they were not a whit less primitive than the semi-savage of ancient Britain. They thus presented the pathetic spectacle of a people lingering away back in the Pal?olithic period of the world's history, while the world around them had marched on through the long centuries involved in the Bronze and Iron Ages.

But though devoid of these mechanical arts, the higher development of which counts for much in national progress, these people were no sluggards. They were expert canoe-builders, and their skill in naval architecture was only equalled by the daring with which they traversed the ocean waste around them. They were bold and adventurous navigators, who studied the flow of the tides and the sweep of the ocean currents. They knew enough of astronomy to steer by the stars, and were able to navigate their rude craft with a wonderful degree of mathematical certainty. Whether their wanderings were in all cases due to design or sometimes to accident, cannot now be definitely affirmed; but there is abundant proof that their voyages had extended from Hawaii in the north to Antarctica in the south, and there was scarcely an island that was not known and named in all their complex archipelagos.

Of literature they, of course, had none, but they revelled in oral traditions and in a mythology rich in imagination and poetry, which accounted for all things, even for the beginning of the world and for the ultimate destiny of the soul. Being deeply religious and as deeply superstitious, they interpreted natural phenomena in a mystic sense, and Pope's lines on the poor Indian would have been equally applicable to the ancient Maori in Polynesia-

"Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind

Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind:

His soul proud science never taught to stray

Far as the Solar Walk or Milky Way.

Yet simple Nature to his hope has given

Behind the cloud-capt hill an humbler heaven;

Some safer world in depths of woods embraced,

Some happier island in the watery waste,

Where slaves once more their native land behold,

No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold."[2]

The cradle of the Polynesian race was undoubtedly Asia; and to arrive at a clear understanding as to how it became transported from a continental home into this island world it will be necessary to carry the mind back probably more than 200,000 years. At that time the dominating section of the human family was the Caucasian-fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and revelling in the glory of long, wavy hair. Their civilisation, however, like their weapons of chipped stone, was of the most primitive character; but they had advanced sufficiently in the ascending scale of human progress to show that they valued life by paying pious respect to their dead. They preserved the memory of the departed by erecting over their burial-places huge blocks of stone, many of which monuments stand to-day to mark the course of their migrations. And, except possibly a flint axe-head or a rude ornament found deep in some ancient gravel-bed, these megalithic monuments are amongst the most convincing evidence we have of the wide diffusion of the human race in prehistoric times. From the most westerly point in Ireland, across the European and Asiatic continents, they stretch by the shores of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in the former, and the plains of Siberia in the latter, until they reach the waters of the Pacific. Even this wide expanse of ocean proved no insuperable barrier to the onward march of wandering man; for it is by the presence of his stone-building habit in so many of the Pacific Islands that we are able to construct a probable hypothesis of the process by which Polynesia first became inhabited.

In the light of modern knowledge, the theory which finds most ready acceptance is that in Pal?olithic times the Caucasian race, being more or less a maritime people, had obtained possession of the coastal districts of Europe. As they multiplied and spread, they followed the ocean's edge to the northward, and, as the Arctic regions were then enjoying a temperate climate, there was a plenteous and pleasant home for them even in the most northerly part of Siberia. But later a drastic climatic change began to take place. The great ice-sheet, which is known to have twice covered northern Europe and Asia, began to creep down upon the land, driving man and beast before it. Impelled by this relentless force, there began a momentous migration of Pal?olithic man, who swept in hordes southward and eastward in search of a more hospitable home. In course of time a section of these fugitives, travelling across the Siberian plains, reached the Pacific coast, and here their old maritime spirit reasserted itself. With the pressure of climate behind them, and in their breasts the love of adventure, the sea soon became as much their domain as the land.

At first their canoes were of the frailest character; but experience and unlimited opportunity soon taught them the art of constructing safe sea-going craft, which could carry considerable numbers on a course of discovery. The tales of new lands found, and their warm and genial climate, no doubt stimulated the spirit of exploration, so that gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the tide of migration which was flowing from the centre of the continent was drawn across the sea to the region of eternal summer.

From somewhere in the vicinity of the Japanese archipelago, fleets of canoes set off at various times carrying with them a freight of humanity destined to found a new people in a new land. But, in order to account for the transportation of large numbers of women and children on vessels which, at the best, must have been mainly constructed of reeds, we must assume smaller intervals of ocean than exist now. There are evidences of other kinds that startling geological changes have occurred in this portion of the globe; and this assumption would help to explain feats of travel otherwise apparently impracticable to a rude and poorly equipped people.

For how many centuries this stream of venturesome humanity flowed southward no one can tell; but it is safe to assume that great numbers must have taken the plunge into the unknown, some resting by the way, others pushing on to a point beyond the furthest preceding colony, until the main groups of islands were occupied, and outpost after outpost was firmly established. With them these people carried their simple mode of life, their primitive arts and customs, not the least of which was their stone-building habit, which, as already shown, had originated in their desire to perpetuate the memory and preserve the bones of their dead. Hence arose in their new home those strange structures of uncemented stone which astonished the early discoverers, and which stand to-day, broken and decrepit relics, like ghostly wraiths from a long-forgotten past.

But, whatever its duration may have been, two causes operated to bring this period of migration to a close. The first of these influences was the dispersion of the Mongolian race from Central Asia; the second, the subsidence of the land along the Asiatic coast. Either of these events would have been in itself sufficient to cut off the supply of emigrants to the islands. The descent of the more warlike Mongols from their high plateau would effectually close the inland route across the north of Asia to the gentle Caucasians; while the sinking of the land-bridge, along which they had been wont to pick their way, would so increase the hazard of the journey that none would care to risk a voyage across the greater stretch of sea. Thus the first stratum of the Polynesian race was laid by an invasion of European people embarking from Asia; and these light-skinned, fair-haired Vikings, who were driven out of their ancient home by the descent of the giant glaciers, plunged into the abyss of uncertainty, little dreaming that from their stock would arise a people whose life-story would be, as it still is to some extent, one of the world's unsolved problems.

Amongst the many features which have seemed to intensify the shroud of mystery enveloping these people is the combination of a dark skin with tall and stalwart frames and a head-form usually belonging to fair races. Also the strange stratification of their customs discloses a social condition so contradictory as to amount almost to a paradox. Why a dark-skinned race should possess features which find their counterpart in the whites of to-day, or why the most primitive method of obtaining fire-by friction-should be found side by side with highly scientific methods of warfare, especially displayed in the art of fortification, seemed difficult of explanation, until the idea of a second invasion, comprised of dark-blooded people, had been conceived and had taken root.[3]

The theory of a grafting of a dark race on to the Caucasian stem which had already been planted in Polynesia explains much. It would account for the olive-coloured skin of the present-day natives, and it would provide the reasonable supposition that, being later comers, they would import with them newer ideas and more modern customs, some of which would be adopted in their entirety, others in a modified form. With the advantage of many centuries of contact with neighbouring peoples, they had necessarily learned much of the art of war, which had been quite unknown to the islanders in their isolation. These dark invaders were therefore able to come in the spirit of conquerors; and consequently the masculine arts, such as the making of weapons and the building of forts and canoes, received an impulse which placed them considerably in advance of anything of which the original people had ever dreamed. But the domestic arts would be but little changed, for the reason that the invasion, being one of warlike intent, would be comprised largely of males, the women who were taken to wife after their lords had been vanquished being allowed to retain their old modes of life. Hence the methods of twisting threads of fibre, of weaving mats, and of making fire, would remain the same as had been practised by them from time immemorial, while there would be a distinct advance in those arts which came more exclusively within the domain of the males. In two respects, however, these newcomers did not better the condition or raise the standard of art amongst the people with whom they were about to mingle their blood. They introduced neither pottery nor the use of metals. It is therefore clear that the section of the human family to which they belonged had not advanced beyond the Stone Age when their invasion took place; and this fact helps us to some extent in our inferences as to the period when this second migration commenced and when it terminated.

For the direction whence these dark-skinned invaders came we have to rely on a careful comparison of the traditions and genealogies of the present-day people, who have preserved in a remarkable way certain leading facts, which serve as landmarks by which their journeys can still be traced. By the aid of these, the thread of their history has been followed back to a time at least several centuries before the birth of Christ, when a dark-skinned people dwelt upon the banks of the river Ganges. Here, by contact with other races, probably the Egyptian and Semitic, they acquired that smattering of mythology which, as preserved by the ancient Maori, resembled so closely the beliefs still prevalent in many parts of the Old World. But although versed in the mysterious philosophy, if such it can be styled, of their time, they were entirely ignorant of the principles of the Buddhist religion; and from this circumstance it is fair to deduce that they had left India before Gautama, who died in 477 b.c., had commenced his teaching of "Nirvana and the Law."

But when we come to inquire into the causes which operated to inspire this migration, we get little information beyond the explanation commonly given as the root of all Polynesian movements, that "great wars prevailed." If this be the true reason why a whole nation should move en masse, then it is not unreasonable to suppose that the future Polynesians were the defeated people, and were forced by irresistible waves of invasion to abandon their home in India. Slowly they were pushed southward and eastward by the more warlike tribes who came down from the north; and as they made their way along the coasts of the Malayan Peninsula, circumstances, climate, and assimilation with other peoples continued the process of racial modification which had commenced before they abandoned the valley of the Ganges. For three hundred years or more they drifted from point to point. We know little more, for there occurs a comparative blank in the story of their journeyings as they moved along the coast of Sumatra and down the Straits of Malacca.

In the year 65 b.c., however, we again get a glimpse of them on the island of Java. From this point, although their movements are often vague and shadowy, they are never entirely lost to sight. Tradition, at this period, speaks of a renowned personage named Te Kura-a-moo, who "went to the east, to the rising sun, and remained there." To precisely what spot in the east he journeyed is uncertain, but his objective is generally supposed to have been the island of Java, which was then known as Avaiki-te-Varinga. This is the first suggestion of migration which we have in Polynesian tradition; and as it corresponds in date with other large ethnic movements which are known to have occurred in the Malayan archipelago, it is more than probable that pressure from other invaders compelled the occupation of Java, which thus became the parent Hawaiki, towards which the Maori stands in much the same relationship as does his brother pakeha to the Garden of Eden.

But the same cause which drove these wandering Asiatics into Java, at a latter period led to its evacuation. And still the movement was in an eastward direction, towards the islands of Indonesia, the people as they moved becoming more and more expert in the art of navigation and sea-craft. In view of the scattered nature of the archipelago in which they now found themselves, their voyages became gradually longer, requiring larger canoes and more daring seamanship. They were beginning to leave the beaten path which hitherto had been the common course of the human race-the mountain, the river, and the plain. With them the sea was gradually becoming the broad highway which had to be traversed in order to find fresh resting-places, or to maintain communication with established outposts in more advanced situations. The spirit of the sea-gipsy, which led them to do and dare, was rapidly developing within them, and the knowledge thus born of courage and experience was shortly to prove invaluable to them in carrying to a successful issue their own great policy of conquest.

Wars and rumours of wars are again heard of, and are given as the underlying cause of the next movement southward from Indonesia, the date of which is so uncertain that it cannot safely be defined more strictly than as between the first and fourth centuries. It is unfortunate that we are driven to this loose estimate of time for so important a national event, because it was this final migration which led to the actual entry into Polynesia of these dark-blooded wanderers, and if our first hypothesis be correct, to their ultimate fusion with the fair-skinned, stone-building people who had preceded them by many centuries.

They had obviously come into contact with strange people and strange animals, for the existence of the former has been preserved in their traditions and the memory of the latter in their fantastic carvings. Not the least interesting of their stories is the finding of a fair-complexioned people, whom their fancy has elevated into the realm of fairies, and from whom they claim to have learned the art of net-making. Whether these mysterious people, who are said to have laboured only at night and to have vanished when the sun rose, were the original Caucasians who, we have supposed, set out from the eastern coast of Asia, and who were about to be absorbed by the more virile emigrants from India, or whether they were, as some suggest, a few wandering Greeks or Ph?nicians on the coast of Sumatra, we cannot pretend to decide. But, in all its vagueness and fanciful setting, the tradition is interesting, as indicating the existence on their route of a people fairer than themselves, and the fact that they must have come into close personal contact with them. A careful reflection upon the probable circumstances attending the story of how Kahu-kura captured one of the fairy's nets inclines us to the opinion that it is the first evidence we have of the contact of the Indian branch of the Polynesian race with their whiter predecessors. These they would meet in island after island as they moved down the Pacific towards Fiji, which group they are believed to have occupied about A.D. 450.

Like all other dates connected with Polynesian migrations, this one can only be approximate, for the people were without any mode of reckoning time, except by reference to ancestral lines. But there is traditional authority for supposing that their descent upon Fiji was made in considerable numbers, and that for a time these islands constituted one of their principal colonising centres. Whether Tonga and Samoa were settled from this point seems doubtful; but it is certain from the marvellous stories which find credence in the traditions of this period that an era of extensive voyaging had set in, and that the newcomers began to spread themselves with considerable rapidity from atoll to island and from island to archipelago. These excursions into new realms naturally gave promise of an attractive home amongst the palm-covered islands; and, simultaneously with their policy of conquest and colonisation, they began the absorption and assimilation of the resident people. As the defending warriors were driven out or annihilated, the women of the vanquished were taken possession of by the victors, and their domestic arts were taken with them. This blending necessarily, in the course of many centuries, worked appreciable modifications in the physique and customs of both races, and gave to the world the Polynesian people as we know them to-day.

A race of stalwarts, long-headed, straight-haired, and brown-skinned, warriors from birth, full of courage, and ardent for adventure, they were not altogether devoid of those higher ideals which make for the elevation of man. They were deeply imbued with a love of poetry, which enabled them to appreciate in a rude way the beautiful in life and to preserve in quaint song and fantastic tradition the story of their wanderings and the prowess of their heroes. They were even enterprising enough to attempt the solution of the marvellous natural phenomena everywhere presented to them, which, to their simple minds, could have no origin except in the intervention of the gods.

With a continuous stream of fresh immigrants flowing in from the north to reinforce the southern outposts, the conquest and colonisation of the islands was now only a matter of time. Before we come to the period directly connected with our story, some seven hundred years had elapsed, during which every trace and even the memory of the original people had been effaced, and but for their stone monuments, which have withstood alike the shock of invasion and the ravages of time, their very existence would have remained as one of the problems of a forgotten past. But long before this period had been reached, some great ethnic or geographical event had occurred to terminate the further inflow of these invaders from the north. Either the movements of the nations upon the Asiatic continent supervened to make continued migration unnecessary, or geographical changes in the distribution of land and sea operated to make it more difficult, if not impossible. Certain it is that the supply of warriors was effectually cut off, and that at a time before the parent people had learned the use of metals. From this period, down through the ages until the day of their discovery by the Spaniards, the gulf which separated them from the rest of the human family remained unbridged, and the Polynesians were suffered to evolve their own racial peculiarities and develop their own national spirit, untrammelled by exterior influences. Isolated from the rest of the world, they lived in total ignorance of the progress with which other peoples were advancing towards a higher type of human development and loftier ideals of national life. They knew nothing of the growth of science or of art, and they derived no benefit from the stimulating effect of competition, or from the bracing conditions of a strenuous life. Nature was bountiful to them in the ease and abundance with which their simple wants were supplied, for it required neither labour nor ingenuity to provide for their daily needs. Hence there was little incentive to depart from traditional customs, or to seek more advanced methods than their fathers had learned and applied in that far-off time when they lived on the banks of the Ganges. Had it been otherwise, the Polynesians would not have been found still clinging to their stone clubs and flint axes, while the continental peoples surrounding them had acquired a written language, the use of metals, and the arts of husbandry, pottery, and weaving. The complete absence of these primary evidences of civilisation amongst the islanders gives us the right to assume that they came into the South Seas before man had acquired any knowledge of the metallic arts, and that their migration ceased before pottery and the weaving spindle were known.

Polynesia must, therefore, have been occupied during the Pal?olithic and Neolithic periods of the world's history. From that time down to the Spanish era all communication with the surrounding nations was completely cut off, and the Polynesians were allowed to sleep the sleep of centuries and to work out their own destiny in the midst of their tragic isolation. As the evolution of the race progressed, there was gradually developed a rude system of tribal government, administered by acknowledged chieftains, who claimed and obtained unquestioned obedience. So, too, victory or defeat became gradually the chief factor in determining the home of each tribe. These tribal boundaries were, however, by no means arbitrary lines of exclusion, and, in fact, there were frequent visits of friendship between the different sections of the race. These voyages necessarily led to a wide knowledge of the Southern seas and their archipelagos, and often contributed surprising results. While the sea-captains navigated their canoes with wonderful accuracy, unaided as they were by chart or compass, their vessels were not always under absolute control, and in stress of sudden storm, or influenced by some unexpected current, they were frequently carried far out of their intended course.

It is probable that in some such way the first canoes reached New Zealand, for it is known that individual vessels had visited these shores long before the historic migration known as "the fleet" left Rarotonga in or about the year 1350 a.d. The stories brought back by these pioneering mariners excited the cupidity and fired the imagination of the islanders, and when a fleet of several great canoes arrived at Rarotonga, and found that group already fully occupied, they decided to set out in search of the strange land which had been dragged from the depths of the sea by the miracle-working Maui, and discovered by the great sea-captain Kupe.[4] Here they hoped to capture the giant bird, the flesh of which Ngahue had preserved and brought back with him, but more than all they were eager to enrich themselves by the possession of the toka-matie, or much prized greenstone, the beauty of which they had heard so much extolled.

The story of this migration is recorded amongst the classic traditions of the New Zealanders: how the Arawa canoe came perilously near being lost in a tempest, and descended into the mysterious depths of the whirlpool, Te Parata; how the crew of the Taki-tumu suffered the pangs of starvation; how the Kura-haupo suffered wreck; and how, on landing, the crew of the Arawa practised the deceit upon the sleeping Tainui of placing the cable of their canoe under that of the latter, in order that they might, with some hope of success, set up a claim to first arrival. One by one the canoes reached these shores, the major part of them making land in the vicinity of East Cape, thence sailing to the north or to the south, as the whim of the captain or the divination of the tohunga decided their course. In this way they spread to almost every part of the North Island, which they found already peopled with the remnants of prior migrations, who were living in peaceable possession. With these the warlike Vikings from the Pacific fought and contended until they gained undoubted supremacy, thus giving a starting-point to New Zealand history by establishing ancestral lines from which all Maoris love to trace their descent. These tribes soon became the dominant power in the land. The weaker tangata whenua[5] were subdued and absorbed. Their traditions, arts, and customs disappeared, except in so far as they may have unconsciously influenced those of their conquerors. The latter grew in strength and numbers, extending their influence far and wide, as they marched towards the development of their national existence and their final consolidation into the Maori race.

Unto these people was born, about the year 1768, a little brown babe who was destined to become the great Te Rauparaha, chief of the Ngati-Toa tribe.

[1] "The distinguishing characteristic of the Marquesan Islanders, and that which at once strikes you, is the European cast of their features-a peculiarity seldom observable among other uncivilised peoples. Many of their faces present a profile classically beautiful, and I saw several who were in every respect models of beauty" (Melville).

[2] "I found that the Natives had not formed the slightest idea of there being a state of future punishment. They refuse to believe that the Good Spirit intends to make them miserable after their decease. They imagine all the actions of this life are punished here, and that every one when dead, good or bad, bondsman or free, is assembled on an island situated near the North Cape, where both the necessaries and comforts of life will be found in the greatest abundance, and all will enjoy a state of uninterrupted happiness" (Earle).

[3] "It is most certain that the whites are the aborigines. Their colour is, generally speaking, like that of the people of Southern Europe, and I saw several who had red hair. There were some who were as white as our sailors, and we often saw on our ships a tall young man, 5 feet 11 inches in height, who, by his colour and features, might easily have passed for a European" (Crozet's Description of the Maoris at the Bay of Islands).

[4] The knowledge which the Polynesians possessed of the Southern sea, and their skill as navigators, was such that when "the fleet" set out from Rarotonga, they did not go to discover New Zealand, but they went with the absolute certainty of finding it.

[5] "Man of the land, native, aboriginal." Probably these people were a mixture of the Melanesian and Polynesian types.