DECREASE OF THE NATIVES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 343, 14 May 1863, Page 4

DECREASE OF THE NATIVES.

[From Old New Zealand : by a Palceba-Maori.]

The natives attribute their decrease in numbers, before the ai'rival of the Europeans, to war and sickness, disease possibly arising from the destruction of food and the forced neglect of cultivation caused by the constant and furious wars which devastated the country for along period before the arrival of the Europeans, in such a manner that the natives at last believed that a constant state of warfare was the natural condition of life, and their sentiments, feelings and maxims became gradually formed on this belief. Nothing was so valuable or respectable as strength and courage, . and to acquire property by war and plunder more honourable and also more desirable than by labour. Cannibalism was glorious. The Island was a panpemonium.

A rugged wight, the worst of brutes, was man; On his own wretched kind he ruthless prey’d. The strongest then the weakest overrau, lii every country mighty robbers sway’d, And guile and ruffian force was all their trade.

Since the arrival of the Europeans the decrease of the natives has also been rapid. In that part of the country . where I have had the means of accurate observation, they have decreased since my arrival inore than one third. I have, however, observed that this decrease has for the last ten years been very considerably cheeked, though I do not believe this improvement is general throughout the country, or even permanent where I have observed it.

The first grand cause of the decrease of the natives since the arrival of the Europeans is tlie musket. The nature of the ancient Maori weapons prompted them to seek out vantage ground, and take up positions on precipitous hill tops, and make those high, dry, airy situations, their regular fixed residences. Their ordinary course of life, when not engaged in warfare, was. regular, and not necess arily unhealthy. . Their labour, though constant in one shape or other, and com pelled by necessity, was not too heavy, lii the morning, but not early, they descended frorii the hill pa to the cultivations in the low ground ; they went in a body, armed like men going to battle, the spear and club in one hand, and the agricultural instrument in the other. The women followed. Long before night (it was counted unlucky to work till dark) they returned to the hill with a reserved order, the women now, and slaves, and lads, bearing fuel and water for the night, in front ; they also bore probably heavy loads of kumera or other provisions. In the time of the year when the crop did not call for their attention, when they were planted and growing, then the whole tribe would remove to some fortified hill at the side of some river, or on the coast, where they would pass months, fishing, making nets, clubs, spears, and implements of various descriptions ; the women, in all spare time, making mats for clothing, Or baskets, to carry the crop of kumera in, when fit to dig There was very little idleness : and to be called “ lazy” was a great reproach. It is to be observed for several months the crops could be left thus unguarded withperfect safety, for the Maori, as a general rule, never destroyed growing crops or attacked their owners in a-regular, manner until the crops were nearly at full perfection, so that they n ight afford subsistence to the invaders, and consequently the end of the summer all over the country was a time of universal preparation for battle, either offensive or defensive, the crops then being nearer maturity.

Now when the natives became generaly armed with the musket, they at. once abandoned the hills, and,. to save themselves the great labour and inconvenience occasioned by the necessity of continually carrying provisions, fuel, and water to these prineipitous hill-castles, — which would be also, as a matter of necessity, at some inconvenient distance from at least some part of the cultivations—descended to the low lands, and there, in the centre of the cultivations, erected a new kind of fortification adapted to the capabilities of the new weapon This was their description. There, in mere swamps, they built their oven-like houses, where the water, even in summer, sprung with the pressure of the foot, and where in winter the houses were often completely Hooded. There, lying on the spongy soil, on the beds of rushes which rotted under them—in little, low dens of houses, or kennels, heated like ovens at night, and. dripping with damp in the

day—full of noxious exhalations from the damp soil, and impossible. to ventilate—they were cut off by disease in a manner' absolutely frightful. No advice would they take ; they could not see the etterny which killed them, and therefore could not believe the Europeans who pointed out the cause of their destruction. T

This, change of residence was universal and everywhere followed by the same consequences, more or less marked ; the strongest men were cut off and but few children were reared. And even now, after the dreadful experience they have had, and all the continual remonstrances of their pakelia friends, they take but very little more precaution in choosing sites for their houses than at first ; and when a native village or a native house happens to be in a dry healthy situation, it is often more the effect of accident than design. Twenty . years ago a hapu, in number just forty persons, removed their kainya from a dry healthy position, to the edge of a raupo swamp. I happened to be at the place a short time after the removal, and with me there was a medical gentleman who was travelling through the country. In creeping into one of the houses (the chiefs) through tlie low door, I was obliged- to put both my hands to the ground ; they both sunk into the swampy soil, making holes which immediately filled with water. The chief and his family were lying on the ground on rushes, and a fire was burning, which made the little den, not in the highest place more than five feet high, feel like an oven. I called the attention of my friend to the state of this place ealled a “ house.” He merely said, “ men cannot live here.” Eight years, from that day the whole hapu were extinct.; but, as I remember, two persons - w;ere shot for bewitching- them and causing their deaths.

Mr. Gladstone.— The Spectator records a very strange idea entertained, it is said, by some leading Greeks, of offering the vacant crown to—Mr. Gladstone! He is an ardent Bhilhellene—-as his visits to the lonian Islands proved-y-and he is » a man of high personal position. But—one day an English Chancellor of the Exchequer, the next a King—ls a very startling transformation ! One day a minister baited by Disraeli’in the House* compiling budgets on foolscap and tying them up with red tape—and the- next a King with royal dignity, calling Queen. Victoria his sister, and talking, of his ‘ dynasty’ and 4 rights !” But then, why not ? 'We have had in all ages plenty’ of parvenu Sovereigns. An English nobleman was once nearly elected Emperor of Germany, arid disputed the title for some time. The unhappy Theodore, King of Corsii a, is perhaps an ill-omened example ; but Napoleon I. supplied the world with plenty of plebeian kings. Bernadotte’s - ‘ dynasty’ is still royal and s cure, Although the founder, almost within the memory • of living men, was a Freiicb sergeant who sued for and did not win the hand of ; a girl in Marseilles who afterwards became laundress to his palace. Murat had been a waiter at a country inn ; yet the King of Naples, the proud old Neapolitan himself, the son of an attorney: The family of Josephine Beauharnais are Imperial and Royal Princes to-day, although the Creole ; girl of Matinique could not have dreamed of such a destiny for her decendarits.

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