THE MAORI RACE.

Hokitika Guardian, 17 September 1925, Page 4

THE MAORI RACE.

I*llol* KS,SOI? BROWN'S INVKSI It LA I ioXS ALCIm-AXI). Sept. Id. Il he ero —the Pm on many more i oties Pi ne-sor Macniilhin Brown, ( !ianccll,ir of Idle New Zealand Liiivcrsity. will Is- almost as. well known athe Niagara herself. Like the liuiu ii, Kipling- poem "'lee Old Trail.” el cry lillle the slimmer U.IIK'S | lie p|'oiess.il leels r .mpeiled to pull out hi; t I ”1 he out Had. ! lie old iin il, the trail tt,tit t- always new," and follow the nil. Many years ago he iotitid mil that reading at night by m rdirial light wa.s fatal to Hie eyes. and. a-

lie prole • o mil -t lead, in* iiii on tile expedient of following the ,-uu for tho hemtil of the long daylight hour-. Incidentally. he goes poking into all -onol odd places lor traces of Maoris and other poll tiesian-. and lie seen Is eat anything that seem- to indicate, no lnalter how remotely, that ii will help in tinrnvo|ling that la-cinating puzzle, ‘Where was their original home."

Professor Brown came hark yesterday l.v l!ii' Ninpnra from I Imiululii. u here lie speiil iplite Ini of lime iinalysitiji l In' vorabidary of the Ainu \\ liii-li lias supposed In lie tin' original ul Japanese, i omparinn it with modern Japanese, Polynesian ami Indo-Kuropean. While lie* tliil nut I>y any means liuish tin* task lie sot himself lII' uas very plea-ed with tho result nt Ids investigations. It ininlit lie asked what un earth the .Vinn lunyuape hail in tin with the tvlteaie nt tile .Maori nr Polynesian. 'i he a.n.siver i-, ipiiu- simple. It aliinities of a common urij'in, for it must he | !c.it.'inhered that too central and eastern I'aciiie were isolated and ini'l keen is dated for a very lur.n period el' time, ant! had had no communication with that part of the Pacific I'nnn

which t!:c A inn huienaye came. ".My tnv.n impression.” said Professor Broun, "is that aliniu four-tilths of the roots in Ainu are the same as in Polynesia, and from 111) to ,30 per cent of nurds are very much the .same in Ainu and Polynesia. In Japanese there is a -niall proportion of words, that have i nine through Ainu words, that resemble works in Polynesian. For | iiistanees. there is tlie .Maori, word ■pot'lki." ivhii h means little child. The word in Ainu is 'pu.' Cnllocpnally it is -ho.' Take the Ainu word 'mi.' ivhieh means the under world. In Maori it i- ‘rcinjia.’ The author of the vocabulary that 1 was stiidyinp: lliiuks Ainu is an liido-Kuro[:ean lanmiaye. and I have reached the same i onehisioii. In my opinion il ramo to the Pai-ilie thousands id years

non. Professor Brown went on to say that he was of opinion that the Polynesians left their Indo-Kuropean home at a very early staoe in their development ; in fact, before they had learned to count tip to more than two. The