Old New Zealand-The Days Before Discovery

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 31, 17 February 1928, Page 16

Old New Zealand-The Days Before Discovery

T he outstanding success of the celebration of the Treaty of Waitangi directs attention to the past history of the Dominion-even before the advent of man. A series of talks on these lines is being given by the Rev. A. B. Chappell, M.A., from 1YA, and we veproduce here the first talk which is particularly appropriate at this juncture,

should never be aecaote ten by those interested in its history, a history full of fascination. This land, though bearing a

name suggestive of youth, is one of the oldest in the world. In the remote days when the earth was cooling and crinkles appeared on its hardening surface, there was, it is thought, a vast ridge, broken here and there, of which these little islands remain to tell the tale. Down the Eastern Hemisphere it ran, by way of the Rockies of North America and the Andes of the South, went across the Antarctic region, where its heights yet challenge investigation, came on to endure in these and other islets lifted bolt above the sea, and so continued across to Asia, where the Himalayas rear their towering heads. That is, in part, conjecture, but without doubt, as matiy geological features show, together with our bird life of very ancient lineage and such rare quadrupeds as the tuatara, these islands are old beyond reckoning. It is not of any natural ‘claims of Jong destent,’? however, that I am to speak, but of the kumau happenings that prefaced the life we New Zealanders here lead. These we can trace with considerable »recision. For long centuries New Zealand, far from the birthplace of man, was unknown to him. Its physical changes, woterfully on beyond his ken, Not written in the remnants of glacial and

voleanic activity, were unobserved. Its clothing with verdure went slowly, until civilisation had passed through ages of varying fortune did he glimpse this land, and what we call its "‘discovery" was to wait until quite modern times, Of that discovery-when voyagers from far-off Europe lighted upen it, in their bold yenturings across the world-we are to think together a fortnight hence. Visitors From the Pacific. CENTURIES before Cook came, before Tasman saw New Zealand’s southern cliffs lift unexpectedly ont of the east, these islands were visited by brown men of the Pacific. These voyagers sprang from the island peoples who had earlier spread eastward from Asia. This Polynesian stock, giving rise to the Maori of New Zealand, was not mankind’s earliest representative in the Pacific. There is some authority for the belief that, about the seventh century B.C., Phoenicians settled in these spacious waters. In Easter Island, where the great stone images and an unknown script cut into wood bear witness to a very ancient civilisation touching it once upon a time, a folk traditionally described as "‘long-eared’"’ were of old in possession. There are legends among many Polynesians of a preceding people, the Manahune, of whom little is recalled beyond their name In Maori lore is a circumstantial story of the finding here of some earlier inhabitants-non-Polynesian, to judge from the description in tle story.

Whatever these things denote-and they cannot be airily dismissed-ot New Zealand’s Maori occupation we have some sure knowledge. The tale begins in a remote corner of the world. In a land far away to the westward, named Uru, the ancestors of the Maori once dwelt, They migrated eastward to a country called Irihia, a hot country to which legend sometimes confusingly gives the name Hawaiki. Is it unimportant that an old Sanscrit name for India corresponds closely to this ancient Irihia? ‘In that land these ancestors met many tribulations, including constant warring with a primitive black-skinned folk; and eventually they sought a new home, eastward still across the ocean, ever making for the rising sun. So they came to Tawhiti-roa, and afterwards Tawhiti-nui. At length six vesselsgreat double canoes or single craft fitted with outriggers, steered by reliance on the heavenly bodies-reached the Pacific isles of Ahu, Maui, and Hawaiki. Great Drift Voyages. A COMPARATIVELY quiet life followed for a while. Then, increase of numbers and consequent quarrels set many of them afloat again after the manner of their forefathers. Some of these adventurings were drift voyages, daringly risked before the sea-roads of the surrounding Pacific became known; and two of these bold drifts led to the finding of -New Zealand. Indeed, there is a tradition of a southward journey, onward from these islands to the region of the Antarctic.

In that region, ever and anon, the de. scendants of those sea-rovers, unable to return, light large fires to acquaint the Maoris of New Zealand of the fact that they survive and-are in weed of help. Less tnaginative, most of us call these plaintive signals the Aurora Australis, Great winds, at all events, are known to have brought hither from Hawaiki, in the Society Group, the first Maoris to see this land. One, a_ westerly sweeping through Melanesia, brought one company directly to the North Island. Another, easterly, brought indirectly the first settlers in the South Island. It is with the names of Kupe and Ngahue and ‘Toi that these earliest arrivals are particularly associated. The first two, in company, made their landfall near the North Cape. A white overhanging cloud was the first sign of land. ‘‘He ao! He ao!’ cried one of the voyagers, wife of Kupe (‘A cloud! A clovd!’). So New Zealand got its first name, Aotea (White Clond), afterwards lengthened to Ao-tea-roa (the Long White Cloud), as its far-streteh-ing shore lines north and south became known. ‘he islands from which these adventures had come were small in comparison with the land on which they had lighted. Others Induced to Come, ‘THEIR explerations led them down " the last Coast of the North Island. They camrped on the shores of what is now Wellington Harbour-nearly 900 years before Cook found it. Exploration continned-across Cook Strait, into Porirua Harbour, and then down to the West Coast of the South Island. At Arahura greenstone was dissvovered in the bed of the river-a discovery that was to prove cf great importance-and thereabouts they fitst kriled a moa.

They did not stay in New Zealand. returning across 2000 miles of ocean to their old home. But the news they tock back was destined to induce others to come and settle. Soon a way. known to many was opened between the far-off Society Group and this inviting land. ‘he day of haphazard roving was passing. There was one more drift voyage, however, of consequence. It was that which brought hither the people called, by the Maori, the Maruiwi, after the name of one of this people’s chiefs, and later known as the Mouriuri ‘They were not Polynesians. Tall, spare, thin-shanked folk, with their noses aud widespread nostrils, and overhanging eyebrows, and some of them with fuzzy hair, they have passed into Maori tradition as 4 people of low culture, indolent, and treecherous. ‘They cannot have been so mean in attainments as they are customarily described. ‘The evidence points to a relationship tc the Melanesian section of the Fijians, and some crafts of non-Polynesian origin among the Maoris doubtless sprang from contact with them. Two hundred years of this partial Mouriuri occupation were followed by the coming of Toi, and then the several organised migrations from Hawaiki. These, which gave origin io the various tribal groups in New Zealand, are the subject of oft-told tales. heir chief points of interest may be left until the story of Maori conflicts comes to be told in this serics. Meanwhile, it is well to recall that these islands, so far remote from Europe, but eventually eecupied by white men and brown, living together in amity and co-operation, were so long ago first visited by yoyagers across the sea. ven in human reckoning, ours is indeed an Old New Zealand.