ORIGIN OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

Auckland Times, Volume 2, Issue 54, 23 January 1844, Page 4

ORIGIN OF THE NEW ZEA LANDERS.

£Frera ** Diefienbach's Travels in New Zealand."] Before the arrival of the present inhabitant! there Were fto men in the land, and it was covered with forest. Three canoes thm came from a distant land, situated to the eastwards the names of which canoes were Arawa, Kofahi-nui, ahdMatatua, They contained Te-tupuna or Te-kau-mafua (ancestors). In the Arawa were the ancestors of the Hga-pui and of the Barewa, who sat at the head, the Nga-te-wskaua behind thorn, and the Rga-te-roinangi at the stern, It Is a custom to the present day that those engaged in an important enterprise of any kind, whe« aher id pea&e or war* are "iaptj," they can neither smoke nor eat any thing but the food Indigenous to the country, nor can they have connexion with women. If Ihsse srdles are transgressed, they are punished by the gods 9 who frustrate their object, Thus it happened in this case. In the middle of the canoe were the women, and a man whose name was TamateIrapau t this latter was guilty of adultery With the wife of a Nga-poi* The canoe Utoppedj and only pursued its course after ihey ha 4 reconciled the divine anger by an k-r »d by ..the punishment of the offender. This imprecation is stil! preserved* The words * s No te uru ote Arawa koe," meaning you belong to the Arawa—that is, you are a cheat and a liar «~~are proverbial. They arrived at New Zealand i the Nga»pui landed at the Bay of Islands: the RareWa in Oruru, in Lauriston Bay: the Hga4e«wakaua and the Nga*te«?oinangt at Mnketu, in the Bay of Plenty, whence the former settled at Rotu-rua, and the latter went into the interior to the Taupo lake ■: these were the forefathers of their respective tribes. May not the incident above mentioned have sown the seed of the hostilities in which the inhabitants of the north and those of the south have been engaged from time immemorial '£

The second canoe, Koiai-nui, landed on the western coast in K&wta, and its crew were the ancestors of the numerous tribes of the Waikato. A piece of the canoe is asserted to be sstil! preserved; that is to say. it became stone* and is to be seen near the northern head of Kawia Harbour, It is a large piece of lime-stone rock, cropping out upright from the sandy downs which surround it* Lime-stone rock occurs in that harbour, but on the other side; and it is not impossible that the mass of stone was actually put here by them as & memorial of their arrival. The third canoe, Mafatua, brought the Nga-te-awa, who landed in] Wakatana, an the eastern coast, and m ths course of time a branch of them want to Tarauaki. Thus we are lad fto consider the numerous tribes in tjbe island as in the first instance derived flora five. When they •pread farther, the founder of a new tribe gave his name to it, and it was called Nga (the genitive case plural of the article), adding te-tangata, the men of this or that chief.

Tradition says that these canoes came from the eastward, from the Island of Hawaiki. The taso and the dogs were the only things they brought with them which were not before known en tha island, It is expressly stated that the Kotahi-nui, which had to go to the western coast, doubled the North Cape. According to another tale, the natives of Hswaki had four eyes, but nothing ste* regarding ikeatlias b««a preserved.

JL have noticco alreaov that at a. i quen*. he kumera Wan brought to by & Pant from the Island of'Tawai. B Tiki, he~ husband, was a at the New Zealand«rs, ahhongh. oi same colour and language. We cannot «fail to ? in the names Hawaikt and TaWai, the Sandwich Islands, Hawaii and Taai. One of Ihe differences between the dialect of New Zealand and that of the Sandwich Islands is, that in the latter, as well as i'o the dialect of Tahiti, fewer consonants are used i ihe Arii oi I dwieh Islands becomes Ariks in New Zealand j Ranaktra becomes Hang&tira 1 Tanata becomes Tangata; and in the ssune mantier Hawaii has become Hawaiks. The p, and w are in ali Polynesian languages of en equal val.ie, the pronounciation being a sound intermediate between both, awd there is no difference therefore in sound between Tani and Tawi. But vstill belter evidence for the assertion that, the Sandwich Islander- 3 regarded as the last stock from which the New Zealanders have sprung. There are traditions which lead us back to stil! more ancient times, when Maui and his brothers fished up the Island of New Zealand, Maui is not a god, although tradition gives him supernatural powers, he is distinctly stated to be a man, There were four brothers—Maui roua, Maui roto, Maui waho, Maui tiki tiki o te Rang*; which literally means—Mani (Who was) formerly, Maui (/who is) within, Maui (who is) without, Maul tiki tiki* from Heaven. Their parents are not known, nor tht land whence they came. Maui mua is the T&ukana, or elder brother. He went out one day with the youngest of his bro« there, Maui tiki tiki o te Rang?, or Kotiki to fish; and as bait was wanting, the brother olfered his ear, and both together they hauled up New Zealand. There is a mountain near the east coast 1 Hifca rangi (liiifatly, Heaven's tail), which h «&*d to fee tl* *ioak of Maui, &ad tl I ittd itself wsß ihe '* begotten of Maui/'' •• Te Ahi na Maul/' whicli name m sen] :-.iand, although fery' little known "amongst the natives themselves, . This myth, Which is perhaps a geological tradition, is very si.milar to one related regarding the Tonga or Friendly Islands, but the personages are named differently. At a time when nothing existed, says the narrative, bnt heaven and water, and the seat of the gods, the island of-Bolutu, the god Tangaloa, So whom belong all inventions, and whose priests are aiways carpenters on the island of Tonga, went out fishing on a certaia day, and threw his line and hook from the sky into the water. Suddenly he felt resistance. Thinking thst a great fish had taken the bait, he put forth bis whole strength, and, behold I rocks appear above the water* which increase in number and extent as he draws in his line* His hook had seized on the rocky bottom of the tea, and had almost reached the surface of the water, when unfortunately his Sine broke, and the Tonga Isiand;i alone remained above the ocean. The rock which came first out of the depth is still shown in the Island Hunga, with the hole in it which was made by the fish hook of Tangaloa. The rocky island was soon covered with herbs and grasses, which were the same as in the habitation of the gods, Bolutu, only or an inferior Kind, and given to decay %nd death.

If We further inquire whether we may trust to what the tradition fells us, that the New Zealaoders in the last instance have come trom the island of Hawaii, and whether there is a natural possibility or probability for suUi a derivation, we" encounter difficulties which it is probable will never be surmounted. All that we can do .'u the obscure history of tbr migrations of these races is to group the different islands according to the relationship that exists between their inhabitant* in regard to language and customs, and to see whether there in auy thing in the traditions of the people to confirm these signs of relationship. There is such affinity between the dialeots of the natives of Hawaii and those of New Zealand, and to a far greater extent than that'eommon tie which unites all Polyneand trees of the same genus, although of different species, bear the same names in New Zealand and in the Saadwi;

laads ; the kawa, (made from the Piper j mylhisticum) is not drunk in 1 land, but. in the latter eour Pipe* I exefcisum bears th, and rati are ■ in - -itsd* : ! i is a !>rstea*rm, or rather Cordyliue, j the physical feat urea of th B is also the character of their sculpture, manufactures, tve, Ac-1 cording to the Ufa -,t in New Zealand, their forefaifet 1 • voy age from the eastward before they arrived at that Island. Can we trace in the natives of Easier Island (who, according to those Navigators that have visited them, are more like New Zealaoders than any other Polynesians) the connecting Sink between the group offHawati and Ahi na Maui,;or Ne* Zealand? Easter Island is at the limits .of the south-east trade wind, and emigrants from Hawaii raigh.t arrive there without.difficulty : the present inhabitants of this isle, a spot almost lost in the infinity of the ocean, seems to have relrogaded in civilization; at least the high statues, cut out of a soft volcanic rock, which were seen there by Cook and La Peyrouse, were not ascribed to the then existing generation, but to their ancestors j and the strange shape of these sculptures reminds us mote than any thing else of the grotesque wood-carvings of the natives of New Zealand. Is it not probable that the ancestors of both people, now so remote from each other, were the same? We have, unfortunately, no means of co«npariog the dialect of Easter Island with that of New Zealand; and the outrages committed in modern times, by thos® who miscall themselves christians, on the natives of that interesting spot, do not leave ua much hope that our acquaintance will soon become more intimate. The native name of Easter Island is Waihu, and the same word is found as the native name of Coromandcl Hat hour, on the eastern coast of New Zealand., The Sandwich Islands, it is true, are, of all the Polynesian Islands, the most distant from New Zealand, being situated in 24 d.eg. north fat. and 161 d<eg. 45 min. west 10ng.,, w!-- most northern'point of New Zealand is in 34 deg. 27 mm. south la*, and 173 deg* 4 min. east long., thus embracing almost the extreme limits of the Polynesian Ocean, or of that part. of it which is occupied by the true race of Oceanians. The reader, knowing how studded with islands is the intermediate space, many of them' uninhabited, but producing fruits sufficient to serve as food for man, will perhaps say, *' Is it not more likely that the Sandwich Islanders, if leaving purposely or by chance their former home, should have fallen in with one of those islands, and settled where the climate was milt! and genial, instead of going where it is aiways variable, and often rigorous ?" I have no answer to this objection, and it is in vain to attempt to account for that endless mixture and separation, not only of different races, but of different divisions of one and the same race, which we find in the islands of the great ocean. The mere proximity of the islands, or prevailing winds explab nothing. In the Chatham Islands, for instance, which are nearly 300 miles to the south-east of New Zealand, live the remains of an aboriginal race, who in a short time will have disappeared before the intruding New Zealanders, and who, although Polynesians, have nothing in common with the latter. The New Zea» landers knew nothing of tha*island before they came there in European ships.