ANCIENT MAORI LIFE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 585, 13 August 1909, Page 6

ANCIENT MAORI LIFE.

''LECTUBE' BY ME} HAMILTON.' Last evening, before, a largo , gathering af students of the Teachers' Training College and : their, friends, - Mr. A. Hamilton, Director of.tße Dominion Jjfussum,. delivered a'n intorestinft. leoture entitled "Maori Life, previous to con.taist .withr'European. Influences;" ! ''.'Mr. Hamilton, commenced bjr giving a, short account . of. tho conditions 'which' obtained 1 in New Zealand' during the period' which .dated from .the 'great migration in the middle 6f;the fourteenth century to'/the beginning of _ last century. He pointed out that the more gifted Natives possessed that high conception of tho natural; and; the. beautiful /which ' have-ever been found in the nobler, races of.', mankind. Each of their works of art .was. a separate crea-' tio'n—not '.'ma'de by the gross" as in commercial communities.! As to, other matters, the great principle known. as ,tapu corresponded largely with 'the Europeans" police' department. Although Maori history consisted of reoords of their wars., and intertribal fights; if a true perspective could be taken of any period, it would bo found "that a larger proportion of their time than:was generally credited to them was occupied .in , agricultural operations, which they brought to a state of high perfection. He thought that' those' who described the Maoris as savages did not use tho word in its true meaning, for.the Natives were not human beings in a constant , state 1 of rudonoss, untaught and without cultivation of mind and manners. It; might- not he a pleasant thing for Europeans to- learn, but it was quite true that" the-better class of Maoris in the early days < and to a certain .extent at the prosent timo' regarded the average .white man as one possessing extremely bad manners. , If a. proper record had been taken ' in'the early days of settlement,. of tho• dialects; spoken by the different branches of the Maori race, historians .would have been .better able to ascer- ■ i tain ' wlio ' were the early inhabitants of New Zealand, and whenco tliey came.