ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF NEW ZEALAND.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 545, 21 August 1869, Page 2

ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF NEW ZEALAND.

The London correspondent of the Melbourne Arc/us, writes, last week it was my good fortuuo to be present at a meeting of the Ethnological Society, at which Sir George Grey read an admirable paper on " The Social life of the Ancient Inhabitants of New Zealand." lie traced and illustrated the resemblance which appear to him to exist between the social life of the ancient New Zealandcrs and the ancient Britons. Sir George Grey's papers left the conviction upon the audience that the Maoris had attained to a much higher state of civilization than was generally supposed. He read, as a specimen of their literature, an ancient Zealand legend about a chief named Power, which kept his hearers hovering between tears and laughter. He narrated an anecdote of a New Zealand chief who complained to him that the English Press misrepresented his people, judging them all from two or three individuals, and adding that he believed if a fellow Maori, blind in one eye, should go to England, the papers there would immediately say that all New Zeaianders had only one eye. The Bishop of "Wellington also addressed the Society on the ethnology of New Zealand, and interspersed his remarks with anecdotes. He told how a New Zealander had defended cannibalism to to him, saying, " The food of birds is bird-food, the food of beasts is beastfood, &c., and, therefore, the food of man is man-food." He also related that, Queen Victoria some time ago asking Bishop Selwyn if the Maori women were pretty, he replied, "I will answer your Majesty as Captain Cook did your illustrious grandsire in respect to the Tahiti women—they are quite pretty enough for the men."