BOOK NOTICES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14278, 19 August 1910, Page 2

BOOK NOTICES.

OLD-TIME MAORI WARS

Mr S Percv Smith, ex-Surveyor-, General, who" is well known as a student of the ancient history or the Maori—his book "Hawaiki, the original home of the -Maori," having run into a third edition—has contributed to the literature of the subject a story of the .North Island Maori Wars, preceding the days of colonisation, and this has just readied its second edition, which Messrs Whitcombe and Tombs are publishing hi excellent style. with clear print in neat cloth binding at ss. The author says that it took him many Years to 'collect the material, and especiallv to get at the dates. This remark will be readilv accepted when his dates go back to .I.7l)s,—later than the visit of Tasmau and Cook, it is tine but some Years bei'oro any whites settled in Xew Zealand and began to collect the tales of the Maoris. Mr Smith describes the native "art of war." with the important part played by the tobunga, by blessing or cursing, and for details of particular wars he has reminiscences of some of them related by old warriors in later years, with their frank descriptions of cannibal feasts. One of these stories, by the way, refers to the fate of an otherwise apparently forgotten shipload of intending colonists. A quotation of a book of voyages dated IS'Jo, reads:— "It is said that a Scotch gentleman, who was inflamed with the idea of civilising Now Zealand, embarked in 178:2, with sixty people, and all kinds of iiidospensahk? articles for cultivating the soil ; his project being to establish himself on the banks of the River Thames-, or in Mercury Bay, and to teach the natives the art of cultivation, but no news has ever been heard of him since he sailed." The natives have traditions of the arrival of a ship about that time, "the main facts of which are —that the vessel was wrecked, and all the crew killed and eaten." The scene is laid somewhere on the shores of Cook Strait. To those who take an interest in the Maori people, this book will be welcome, and its price is reasonable enough for an historical work involving so much research, and so well produced.