MOAS AND MOA HUNTERS.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 911, 9 January 1872, Page 2

MOAS AND MOA HUNTERS.

Dr Tlaast read a paper on Dec. 20, before the Canterbury Philosophical Institute, on the above subject. The following are the propositions the doctor tried to prove by his paper : 1. The different species of the dinornia or moa begau to appear and flourish in the post-pliocene period of New Zealand. 2. They have been extinct for such a long time, that no reliable traditions as to their existence have been handed down to us. 3. A race, of Auchtochtones, probably of Polynesian origin, was contemporaneous with the moa, by whom the wingless birds were hunted and exterminated. 4. A species of wild dog was contemporaneous with them, which was also killed and eaten by the moa hunters. 5. They did not possess a domesticated dog. 6. This branch of the Polynesian race possessed a verv low standard of civilisation, using only rudely chipped stone implements, whilst the Maoris, their direct descendants, had, when the first Europeans arrived in New Zealand, already reached a high state of civilisation in manufacturing fine polished stone implements and wcapous. 7. The moa hunters, who cooked their food in the same manner as the Maoris of the present day do, were not cannibals. 8. The moa hunters had means to reach the Northern Island, whence they procured obsidian. 9. They also travelled far into the interior of this Island to obtain fliut for the manufacture of their primitive stone implements. 10. Thejr did not possess implements of Nephrite (greenstone). 11. The polishing process of stone implements is of considerable age in New Zealand, as more finished tools have been found in such positions that their antiquity cannot be doubted, and which is an additional proof of the long extinction of the moa."