THE AUCKLAND ITSTITUTE AND ITS WORK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9082, 16 June 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE AUCKLAND ITSTITUTE AND ITS WORK.

PRESIDENTIAL ADDBESS BY MR. S. PERCY SMITH. Noll POLYNESIA. ' Awe connected with this subject of the foetory of the native raco, the position that Auckland holds with respect to Polynesia, forming as it were the advanced post of civilisation in that direction, the constant and easy communication we now have with many of the islands, should place us on the alert to take advantage of securing every information with respect to the other branches of the Maori race scattered over the innumerable islands of the Pacific. This is part of the programme laid down by the founders of this institute. However great may be our knowledge of the New Zealand Maori, his mythology and language, it must be supplemented by ft certain familiarity with the Fame subjects as believed in and spoken by other branches of the race. Very much, for instance, of the ancient poetry of the New Zealanders is conveyed in words, the meaning of which is lost to the Maori of the present day, but which are still in use in the Pacific islands. It has become possible within the last ten years to greatly increase our knowledge of Maori traditions by a comparison with those of the other islands, mainly through the efforts of a few earnest men who have collected and published songs, traditions, and histories relating to them. The names of Farnander, Wyatt, Gill, and George Turner, not to mention those earlier writers, such as Marriner, Ellis, Calvert, and Williams, will occur to you as those of men who have performed a great and lasting work, and conferred an inestimable boon on students of Polynesian archaeology, by their careful record of the ancient and well-pre-served lore of many of the other island*. But this study of what may be termed comparative Polynesian mythology only incites in those who take it up a strong desire to know more, to be able to fill up blanks, to elucidate obscure parts here and there, and causes us to feel the want of some united effort to bring the disjointed fragments into a comprehensive whole. It is in this direction that I think we—bearing in mind the precepts of our founders — might do good service. Could we extend our membership to some of those residents of long standing in the islands, get them interested in the question, make the Auckland Institute a depository of all that now lies scattered and comparatively useless in many a Pacific island, we should in time have accomplished a work for which posterity will thank us. It may be urged that the subject is one that should be taken up by a society specially organised for the purpose. No doubt this is to a great extent true, and possibly in time this may come to pass, but in the meantime, I would urge on our members that it is their duty to start the thing, to take what opportunities they have offered to them, of forcing the thing forward to gather together in some safe repository every little item of ethnological interest that would otherwise be lost. Until such a separate society is formed, it seems to me to be a part of the natural work of an institute such as ours to form the nucleus out of which branches in this and other directions shall sprout —to emulate somewhat, in fact, and on a much more modest scale, the Institute of France, and act as the parent to young:!)? branches during their earlier years. Look at the results of the operations of the well-known Asiatic Society in this and kindred studies. It had its day of small beginnings, but by perseverance how great have been the results achieved ? WAS THE MAORI THE FIRST IN-

HABITANT OF NEW ZEALAND? There is another branch of this ethnological subject which I think has not had the attention paid to it that it deserves. It is the question as to whether the Maori was the tirst inhabitant of this country or not. There have been some controversies connected with it already, arising out of the theories of the lamented Von Haaat with regard to his discoveries of moa bones and their accompaniments. He maintained that there was strong evidence of such a race of Anticthotces, but the full evidence for or against the theory has never been brought together, and the whole matter has been left in an indefinite and unsatisfactory position. Perhaps it is too early to come to any conclusion, but it is as well to bear in mind that there aro several things which appear to favour Haast's views—sufficient at any rate to render further inquiry desirable. Everyone who has studied the Maoris at all, must acknowledge that there are differences in individual members of the race which appear to be greater than can be accounted for by divergence from one common type. Some present a much darker, more Papuan appearance, than the average fair Polynesian, and these have frequently a more or less woolly hair, and a different cast of countenance, but possibly these differences may be due to a mixing with Papuan races, in other conntries, before the Maori arrived here, a possibility which Fernander seems to favour a good deal. Some light on this subject might be thrown by a careful comparative study of the Maori language with those of other branches of the races from which they have separated. If, for instance, the Maori found another race in occupation of this country on their arrival, and absorbed them, probably some few traces of the language of the absorbed people, not to be recognised in the other branches, may be found yet. It is well known that the West Coast Maoris have traditions of another people having been found by them on their arrival here! but the traditions are disappointingly silent as to any details of them. They give them a name, however—Maero; and I well remember being told by old Maoris that they believed in their existence still, in the mountains of the interior, not so very long ago. Exploration and a complete knowledge"of the interior has, however, failed to find the

Maero in the flesh, and he may be, like the Taniwha, a recollection of distant lands, which in process of time has received a local habitation. No doubt the question is one surrounded with great difficulties, and proof or disproof a thing not yet to be fully arrived at; but I call attention to ib with a view to inciting a spirit of inquiry amongst us, so that no trifling evidence may be lost. THE STARTLING DISCOVERY MADE IN COB URG-STREET. We all remember Mr. Goodall's manuka stump, found under the volcanic ash-beds in the excavation of Coburg-street, and the very evident signs it presented of having been cut by some blunt instrument, such as a stone tomahawk. Its position under the nshes precluded the idea that it was the work of the Maori, unless we assign to him a residence here much longer than is usually done and believe that he witnessed the hills on this isthmus in volcanic activity. It is well known that many people doubt the fact of the cutting in this case, attributing it to natural causes. I do not offer any opinion, as I never saw the stump, but if further evidence of a similar character were forthcoming, we should begin to believe in the cutting of the stump, or that the Maori had been a resident here much longer than we aupposo, a conclusion somewhat difficult of belief in face of the precision given to the enumeration of his genealogies. It is from sources such as these that we may expect to find additional evidence of a race prior to the Maori. The geologist must, in fact, supplement the work of the ethnologist and philologist. How long is it since the existence of Paleolithic man has become an

article of scientific belief? It was only by a careful preservation of accurate observations of isolated facts that the probability of his existence at one time has become the certainty of to-day, and it seems to me that it would be well if our members would follow suit and record all of a similar nature which may come under their notice. We may perhaps then in time come to a definite conclusion as to the existence of the Maero in pre-Maori times. THE PAPUAN RACE. Nor is it alone to the preservation of the oral records of the Polynesian Maori that our attention should be devoted. There is the Papuan raco which inhabits the Western Pacific or Melanesia, a race which has for us perhaps a lesser interest, as it has not probably the same Aryan origin as the other, or the same kindred with ourselves. But it is subject to the same influences tending to its disappearance before the white races, and though less of its history and traditions are known, no doubt there is much that i.s worth preserving and recording. Let us remember that it was from Auckland the lirKb systematic effort to civilise this people was made, that it was from tins harbour the great Geo. Augustus Selwyn sailed away in his little yacht to bear to them the message of peace, that from amongst, us his noble successor departed to lo.se his life in the same cause, and that Auckland is still intimately connected with these people by the annual visit of the members of the Melanesian Mission. With these associations we should not, I contend, lose the position that nature seems to have pointed out for Auckland, as the repository of all that relates to these island races. ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH. There is again another large field open for the exercise of archaeological research in the Pacific islands, in the remains of cyclopean architecture scattered over many of the islands from Easter Island in the southcast to the Carolines in the northwest. No one has yet given to the world a proper description of these remains of a race evidently much older than the Polynesians, and who dwelt on these islands probably before the Polynesians left their Asiatic home. Sterndale has told us of immense ruins, of houses, temples, canals, etc., buried in the tropical vegetation of the equatorial islands, of which the present inhabitants can give no account whatsoever. Maybe the people who built them occupied those countries when the submerged continent which Wallace and Dana had imagined had an existence, and of which the present innumerable islands are but the fragments, the mountain-tops, in fact.