ORIGIN OF THE MAORI.

Shannon News, 29 December 1926, Page 3

ORIGIN OF THE MAORI.

LINKS WITH INDIA AND , PERU

With the increase in knowledge or the subject, interest in the whence of the Maori is growing apace. Considered at in the not distant past as something in the nature of an anthropological mystery, patient investigators year by year, decipher the faintly traced records of the race’s past .and through the medium of comparative philology have presented to the world a carefully reconstructed history, which, however startling it may appear at first sight, bears the hallmark of truth.

Some thirty years ago Mr. E. Tregear ,of Wellington, who may be said to have blazed the wilderness trail that others, following in his path have transformed into the broad highway of knowledge, in spite of much adverse criticism, boldly declared the Maori and his Polynesian cousin to be Aryans, and therefore blood-brothers of the white man. And science to-day, reinforced by fresh facts supplied by minuter research work in Oceania, is triumphantly vindicating Tregear’s theory as sobeT’ historical fact. The following, supplied by Mr. F. W- Christian, of Palmerston North, recognised as one of the leading authorities on the subject, is illuminating:— ,

"Men sometimes lie .and sometimes make sad mistakes by hastily founding theories on imperfect ■ evidence. But languages cannot. lie. ■ And a lie either but, following an unerring law, faith? fully reproduces the sound-waves recorded on its cylinder. Languages, it is true, being flexible, and not merely mechanical, often change, and vary very wonderfully. Nevertheless,., even in their variations, they remain true to type, and follow a fixed and definite law. If the searcher after truth reckons up together tbe independent testimony of widely-separated dialects, the consensus of native'tradition, the evidence of the ocean currents, the correspondence of place .names and island names, plant names, tree names, bird names and colour names, he cannot but confess that, link by link, has now been put together a fairly complete chain of proof, connecting up both. Maori and Polynesian with thei races of the East Indian Archipelagol and of Western and Southern India 4 Nor is this all.

Connection with Central America. The verification of the whence of the Maori, leads us on to a still more intricate and fascinating jpyoblem outlined in masterly form By Professor Macmillan Brown in his recent work, “The Riddle of the Pacific,’’ for it involves also the solution,, in part at least, of the mystery of the whence of these peoples who built.,the ruined cities of Central America and' the origin of those wonderful builders and metal workers, the Inca and the Chimu of Central and Northern Peru. The evidence, of languages and a closer acquaintance with the course of the ocean currents, now available to students, points to a succession of very extensive migration eastward, some very old, and some comparatively recent, from Indo-China and the East Indian Archipelago right across to the shores of the New World. India Birth-Place of Race.

Let the facts speak for themselves We need not be in the least surprised to learn that many hundreds of familiar Maori'and Oceanic words or like meaning in ancient India; seeing: that for over 2000 years Javh and the neighbouring islands \ of Indonesia were almost as largely Indian as; India herself.

This well-attested historical fact brings ancient Indian and more recent Malay influence, right to the edge of the Pacific Ocean. The passages of Gilolo and St.; Bernadiiio are the two principal spillways for th.© huge effluxion of successive migration currents pouring outwards into the great ocean beyond.

You can trace this Hindu-Malay influence from- language and place names by way of the Pelews, the Marians, the Carolines, and the sunscorched atoll Islands of the Line right up to Hawaii, and thence downwards to Tahiti, Rarotonga and New Zealand, quite as clearly as yon can outline the course of Greek explorers and colonisers in the Islands and along the sea beaches in the; Mediterranean and the Aegean right up to the shores of Asia Minor. The Test of Language. To apply a simple test of language* take such common, familiar Maori, nouns as:—Tangata and takata, man;; wahine, woman, t-ane, a male; whenuai land; whanga, an inlet; moana, the ocean; manu, bird, living creature;; kuri, dog; mara, a garden; kaka„ hair, fibre; rakau, a tree; mana,. power, honour, prestige; and the adjectives, tika, right or correct; pat good; kino, bad; kur-a, red; kere and; kara, black; kakara, fragrant;; mangamanga, forked, branching; roa,. long .tail; hawahawa, dirty; kaka,. red-hot, burning; rengarenga, yellow.. All these, and their close Oceanic; equivalents, belong to the ancient language of India. Any educated and intelligent Hindra from the Indus to the Ganges wouldi understand them, and straightway claim them for his ancient mother tongue, if there is any Taitlf to unplaced in vocabularies written byIndian Civil servants, or in profound Orientalist a s the late Sir M.. Monier Williams, who compiled! the. great Sanskrit Dictionary. Take again a few of our New Zealand plant and tree rmmes:---Taru-taru, grass; ponga or punga, the tree fern; kouka, the palm lily- In India.

there are no less than six different trees bearing exactly, the same name as our karaka. Totara is certainly the deodar or “divinely-given” tree of India, a name applied also to various species of hardwood trees much used in Southern India for shipbuilding, and karamu, a sacred shrub of our Maori, is evidently the same as kadamb and karram, two Indian trees likewise used in ceremonial rites. Aa long ago as 1898, I had the pleasure of pointing out to New Zealand scientists that the Maori and the wide-spread oceanic name for the sweet potato, “kumara and kumala, evidently came from ancient India, where the blue, white and red varieties of the edible lotus were called kumad and kumal. In the Central Carolines the sweet potato is known as kamal, and in peru and Ecuador the name of the white potato is cumar and kumar. I have no hesitation at all in asserting that there is abundant evidence now in hand to prove that bbth Maori and Polynesian were intimately connected in time past with two, or possibly three, Caucasian people of Asia who understood the use of metals. Rino, the Maori word for “iron,” and auri and kauri, the Eastern Polynesian names for “iron” are the Sanskrit “drin” and “gauri,” the iatter metal-name being applied to gold, copper and iron alike. The \widespread Maori and Oceanic verb “ketu,” to dig, is a survival of the ancient Indian root-word khet, which underlies the words for plough, ploughing and arable land. The Maori names for wheel and circle point clearly to connection with a people who used some form of wheeled traffic.

Maoris had Name for Writing. ■And both Maori and Oceanic words for writing and carving are 1 ppre Hindu-Malay ,and prove certainly that these people were once acquainted with a written script, probably akin to the five varieties anciently in use in the East Indian Archipelago.

Kupenga, the Maori word for “net,” which none of our New , Zealand scientists have hitherto traced to its' source, belongs likewise to the language of ancient India, in which we find the root kup, “to weave,” and kupin “a net.” ' , One might, if space permitted, pile such evidence as this heaps upon heaps, but enough words have surely now been put into the witness box to set forth a united testimony definite enough to convince the most sceptical of cross-examiners. Our great Maori scholar, }Vlr. Elsdon Best, in stating his opinion lipOn a 1 recent fanciful theory professing to localise the Maoris’ ancestral homes, gives us a piece of additional evidence that appears to be conclusive. He quotes an. ancient Maori tradition that their ancestors' came from a country of vast plains and mighty mountains,, and lays emphasis on the fact that the Maori and the Rarotongan have preserved two woi’ds for a certain grata or seed .formerly an article of diet, with their forefathers many generations ago. When an Indian bishop recently visited the Dominion. Mr. Best asked him if he .recognised these words, “ari” and “vari,” and . his answer was that they were obsolete Indian terms for ‘‘rice.” ; . I would suggest also that two other words in common use to-day amongst our Maoris, viz., “kakano,” “kano,” grain, seed, pip,' and “koraiiora,”’ “a mote,” fragment, tiny particle, answer respectively to the old Indian “kan,” “grain,” whilst “kora’ is the common Indian • word for millet.! throughout the whole country. The Maori use of the word argues a traditional knowledge by this p’eople of a small grain of the millet type. Wananga, the Maori name for esoteric scientific knowledge and ancient tradition taught in the, old whare-kura, or “red houses, the tribal training colleges for chief s sons, is pure Sanskrit “vanana. In the distant Marquesas vanana means “ancient wisdom,” “sacred tradition. I submit that. I have now made out a very strong case for the northwestern origin of our Maoris and their Oceanic neighbours, based not on flimsy fancies, but upon a foundation of solid facts, the fruit of deliberate and minute inquiry amongst these primitive peoples, whom to know intimately is to heartily, admire them for their wonderful mentality, and to esteem them for their many kindly simple virtues.