LITERATURE OF NEW ZEALAND

Southland Times, Issue 23502, 7 May 1938, Page 14

LITERATURE OF NEW ZEALAND

A New Bibliography By A. H. JOHNSTONE VII New Zealand’s First War, another of Buick’s books, tells the history of the Rebellion of Hone Heke. Buick began this work when requested to provide facts concerning the 96th Regiment for inclusion in the history of the Manchester Regiment. The Great War breaking out at this time, the author’s manuscript was either lost or forgotten. When further details were discovered, this volume was the result. The 96th is given much credit for the success of the campaign; but other regiments are not forgotten in what is one of the most complete histories of Hone Heke’s war yet written. The fourth and last book of Buick’s to be mentioned is The Treaty of Waitangi. This new edition was published in 1933, when Lord and Lady Bledisloe presented the Waitangi Estate to the Dominion. It traces the history of the negotiations and the signing of the Treaty by Captain Hobson, R.N., and the Maori chiefs on the banks of the Waitangi river. The first edition of this book was published in 1914; but the present one supersedes the earlier, as it brings the history right up to date. (15/-.) James Cowan is another New Zealander who has done good work in writing on historical subjects. Chief of his books is his New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period, in two volumes. In the course of writing this it was necessary to examine a very large amount of material in book form, in official documents, and in newspaper files. It was necessary also to explore battlefields and sites of fortifications throughout the North Island. Veterans of the wars, European and Maori, were sought out and questioned. Field notes made on the scenes of engagements and sieges were often enhanced in value by the discovery of soldiers, settlers, or natives who had fought there and who were able to describe the actions. Cowan was brought up on a far-away farm in the King Country, where he learnt the foundation of the history he writes about. He took great pains to be sure that the illustrations were authentic. The first volume spans the period from the outbreak of Heke’s war in 1845 to the end of the Kingite wars in Taranaki, Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, 1864. The second is devoted to the Hauhau campaigns, 186472. The Government printer published the set, which is still in print (£2 2/-.) S. Percy Smith, who wrote a great deal for the Polynesian Society, holds the honour of being the author of the first volume to be published by that society. This book is the History and Traditions of the Maoris of the West Coast, North Island. Fifteen years were spent in collecting the material and a further year in writing and collating the vast numbdrof notes. There are 52 closely-printed pages besides many illustrations and maps. The book traces the history of the Maori occupation of Taranaki from the earliest times, before 1150. This volume is very rare and is rapidly rising in value. (£2 10/-.) In 1910 appeared the second edition of Smith’s Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century. The narrative describes the struggle of the Northern against the Southern tribes, before the colonization of New Zealand in 1840. The author took many years to gather his notes and was particular in trying to fix the right dates.

He begins with the wars of the Border-land and records the wars from then to the coming of the white men in 1840. A number of illustrations add to the interest of the history. This volume has lately gone out of print. (17/6.) The third and fourth volumes of the Polynesian Society are together entitled The Lore of the Wharewananga; or The Teachings of the Maori College. They describe the migrations of the Maoris as traditionally (recorded in the College of Learning. The records are very ancient, some of the transactions taking place some centuries before Christ. They were written down by two young Maoris, H. T. Whatahoro and Aporo Te Kumeroa, who had been educated at the Mission schools. The matter in these two volumes was copied by Smith from the original documents deposited in the Dominion Museum by Whatahoro. It is only in recent times that the tribe has allowed a European to see these papers, as they have always been considered too sacred to be disclosed. These two volumes are the scarcest of the Memoirs. (£5.) An interesting narrative on the eighties is contained in Andreas Reischek’s Yesterdays in Maoriland. Reischek was an associate of Haast, Hector, Buller, and others. For 12 years he explored the country from north to south. His is a delightful record of experience in the mountain and the bush. The author was the first white man to be allowed by King Tawhiao to enter the King Country after the Maori Wars. A cheap edition has lately been issued.

A young New Zealander, Raymond Firth, published in 1929 a brilliant account of the social and economic organization of the Maori people before it was transformed by contact with Western civilization. The title of this work is Primitive Economics of the New Zealand Maori. To quote from the preface by R. H. Tawney: “His book is charming and illuminating, even to one who is unversed in the controversies discussed. It is a picture of a society which, within the boundaries drawn by natural resources and its own inherent limitations, had achieved a kind of natural equilibrium—a culture

primitive, indeed, but not wholly immature, not wholly incompatible with a widespread sense of personal dignity and of collective satisfaction. What are called primitive peoples are not necessarily, it appears, uncivilized. Some of them, of whom the Maori were one, are merely peoples with a different civilization.” This volume is one of the most important published in late years. It is still in print. (£1 17/6.) There are many more New Zealand books that could be mentioned; but space will not permit. If these brief notes cause a little interest in the literature relating to our country they will not be wasted.