THE EVOLUTION OF THE TRIBES

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE EVOLUTION OF THE TRIBES

The process of evolution, which developed the little colony planted by the Hawaikian fleet in 1350 into a nation of many 'ribes, numbering in all about 100,000 souls, at the time of Cook's visit in 1776. may be briefly indicated as affording an idea of Maori polity. Landing in different, localities, according to the landfall made by the respective canoes, the colony of the great fleet was separated from the very beginning of their life- in their neAv home. Nob only that, but as various parties were landed according to individual choice from some of the canoes, these respective

crews were again «plit up into numerous oroups. As these increased by niter- i marriage with former Hawaikian immi- | grants, and with the aboriginals of Tangata Whenua, that process began by which the original tribes formed offshoots or 'hapu, each hapu consisting of families, and all the hapus belonged to and owned allegiance to the parental "iwi, J " or bones of the tribe. In giving his list of the eighteen principal divisions of the Maori people in 1859 Thompson denominates these divisions as "nations '—tribe appears to me to convey the truer idea. In describing their place and territory the following list will be found sufficient: Rarewa occupied the northern extremity of the North Island, their principal : pa then being Kaitaia. Rarewa had Pbout the beginning of the eighteenth century, enslaved a numerous aboriginal tribe called the Auipori, whose territorial rights adjoined their own. Ngapuhi occupied the country next to Rarewa, and being naturally an active and turbulent people, they became much more so from the fact that ihey were the hrst among the tribes to acquire firearms. Cultivating intercourse with the Pakeha, the Ngapuhi rapidly acquired such knowledge as enabled them to prove an incessant scourge to their tribal enemies between the years 1810 and 1840. The Waikato and Ngatimaniopgto tribes were the fortunate possessors of a strip of country rich in fat land, tinrivalled for cultivation, and threaded by the waterway afforded by the Waikato, one of the finest rivers in the- North Island. The Ngati-whatua, an upright and courageous tribe, had their territorial rights between the lands of the Ngapuhi— those undesirable neighbours— and the Waikato tribes. Ngati-paoa and Ngati-maru tribes occupied that ideal position which embraced the lovely islands, bays, and inlets of the Hauraki Gulf, extending along the banks ot the grsat waterway which Cook christened The Thames. Ngati-awa occupied a portion of the sea coast along the Bay of Plenty, along the banks of the Waitara in Taranaki, and were also scattered along both sides of Cook Strait. A bold and adven-

turous spirit always actuated this people, and caused tW to maintain many of the marked characteristics of their ancestors, the Brown Sea-Rovers of the canoe Mataatua In 18C8 a number of the Ngati-awa chartered an English trader to convey them from Wellington tv the Chatham Islands, whose inhabitants they conquered and enslaved. -,-, t Ngati-whakane spread from Maketu on the Bay ot Plenty where they probably landed from the cano- Arawa, to the' shores of Lakes Rotorua, Tarawera, etc. This tnba was in its early intercourse with the Pakeha, remarkab.c tof

their fine cast of features. The Whakatohea, really a tribe of Maui Maoris with whom the of an earlier Hawaikian immigrant canoe intermarried, and became incorporated, lived at Opotiki, on the Bay of Plenty. Ngati-foru, a tribe celebrated for their mat- weaving, settled about the Easr. Cape. Ngvti-kahungu occupied the East Coast from Poverty Bay to Cape Palliser, and in recent times, at the conclusion of native troubles, took up the pursuit of sheep farming. Ngati-tu-wharetoa lived on the shores of Lake Taupo, and kept up the weaving of coarse bed and floor mats, as well as the finer flax-weaving, in order to maintain a system of barter for dried fish with the natives of the coast.

Taranaki tribei clustered to the westward of Mount Egmont, the beautiful Antipodean sister of Insi-y&ma, and being a rowardly tribe, were continually raided by Ngapuhi and Waikato chiefs, who made slaves of the Taranakis, using them for "hewers of wood and drawers of water." Ngati-rua-nui, said to be> worm or earth-eaters, inhabited the country between Cape Egmont and the mouth of the Wanganui River. This tribe always opposed to land-selling, and always hostile to Pakeha innovation, was courageous, dignified, and independent. Ngati-hau, afterwards known by the Pakeha as Wanganui, dwelt on the banks of the Wanganui, from its source at the base of Tongariro to its mouth. Ngati-raukawa occupied the coast between the Wanganui and the island of Kapiti, hereafter to be made famous as the home of the celebrated chief Te Ruaparaha. Ngati-toa, a singularly brave and actively intelligent tribe, made their homes in the sheltered sounds and bays on either side of Cook Strait, and though numerically ?mall, maintained their tribal importance by their intermarriage and blood ties with other tribes. These people, like all the seacoast tribes, preserved the fiery tempera^ ment and active habits of their ancestors 1 , the Brown Sear-Rovers 1 , in a much greater degree than the inland tribes, who, leading more peaceful lives amid luxuriant and

enervating surroundings, forgot in a great measure the strenuous life of earlier generations— always excepting the hardy dwellers of Tuhoe Land. Of the Maori occupation of the South Island th-3 first records do not begin until about lbso, and start, as usual, with myths. Tiie myth of the Kahui Tipua was followed by such legends as that of the "Scaly Ogre of the Molyneux in Otago, and the arrival of the canoe Arai-te-uru, which, coming from Hawaiki, capsized off Moeraki, mid-way on the coast between Dunedin and Oamaru. Strewn along the beach to this day may be seen the calabashes and eel-basket of the slave Puke-tapu— though we, indeed, call them merely •'Moeraki Boulders.' Te Raupu-wai was the name oi tne pioneer Maori tribe which settled in the South Island and the Rev. Mr Stack, who closely considered the subject, inclined to the idea that Te Rapu-wai was merely the vanguard of Waitaha, which arrived lattr Traces of the Ra-pu-wai were found in the numerous shell heaps and cooking places scattered along the coast. Tradition has it that in the time of Rapu-wai the country round Invercargill was submerged, great fires destroyed the forests of Otago and Canterbury, and the moa was exterminated. Or, as is just as likely, Rapu-wai and Waitaha may have been separate but contemporary tribes, one coming from the East and the other from the West Coast of the Noith Island. This period of the Waitaha occupation may be roughly stated to have been from 1477 to 1577, and the founder of the tribe was the Chief Waitaha, who was one of the Arawa immigrants from Hawaiki, and first settled in the Taupo district. Protected from tribal persecutions, by the stormy waters of Raukawa (Cook Strait), the Waitaha increased and multiplied in their new home until, as the old natives declared, "they covered the land like ants." Near Cust, in the Canterbury province, the ruins of an old walled pa, extending for three miles, were known to the first European settlers, and they heard from old Maoris then living that the pa, with its great enbankments pierced by gate spaces, had been a Waitaha pa, built and occupied before the invasion of the Ngati-mamoe. A century of peace and plenty in "the food-abounding island" would seem to have emasculated the Waitaha, for despite their numbers they were pitilessly and completely I destroyed by the Ngati-mamoe, only a few of them being ' spared to act as slaves and husbandmen to their conquerors. ! The occupation of the South Island by the Ngati-mamoe 1 lasted from about 1577 to 1677, and their history repeated itself with terrible fidelity in the incursion of the stronger and more warlike Ngai-tahu. Ngati-mamoe had obliterated Waitaha — sweeping away all but the merest tradition 1 of them into the oblivion of silence, — so now Ngai-tahu obliterated Ngati-mamoe. These successive waves of tribal annihilation no doubt account for the absence of all Maori tradition concerning the visit of Abel Tasman in 1642. From 1677 to 1827 Ngai-tahu remained masters of the South Island, and the consecutive history of their tribal welfare or otherwise may be clearly traced from 1650.