WHENCE CAME THE MAORIS?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17347, 30 September 1924, Page 10

WHENCE CAME THE MAORIS?

SEARCHING NORTH AMERICA.

PROFESSOR MACMILLAN BROWN'S TOUR. (Special to the “ Star.”) WELLINGTON, September 29. Dr Macmillan Brown, Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, was a passenger by the Tahiti, which arrived from San Francisco to-day. For some twenty years past Professor Brown has been studying the Pacific Ocean and its peoples, and especially the problem how it has been peopled. In pursuance of that research work he has just completed several months’ visit to the north-west coast of America. “ I have visited nearly all the other groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean, also the coasts of China and Japan, and I have gone ail through South and Central America.” said Dr Brown. “ I have made these visits with a view of seeing what could be made out of these lands as to the peopling of the Pacific Ocean. This trip to the north-west coast of America was to see whether there was any warrant for thinking that there is an affinity between those peoples and Polynesians. The voyagers Cook, Vancouver, Portlock and Mears seemed all to report a likeness between the culture of these north-west coastal Indians and Polynesians and also indicated that they -were, when their faces were washed, white or almost white. MONGOLOID ELEMENT. “ I went to see them personally, and was disappointed to find that they were almost as Mongoloid as the Indians of the interior, broad and high cheekbones and black, lank hair. These were especially marked in the Haidas and Queen Charlotte group (of Prince Rupert, British Columbia). 1 made two visits to them, and the natives undoubtedly have much more of a European look in their faces than those to the north in Alaska. The Thlinkeets extend all along the coast of United States Alaska. Then again there are on Vancouver island another section, commonly called Novtkas, although that was a mere mistake of Cook in calling them Nootkas. They are intermediate between the Haidas and Thlinkeets in their features, But there is a reason for all these coastal Indians being Mongoloid. Defeated tribes from the interior broke through frequently to the coast. It was a great refuge of defeated tribes, hence there are an immense number of dialects and languages amongst the coastal peoples.

SOME CUSTOMS LIKE THOSE OF MAORIS.

“ Secondly there was a custom of slave traffic from south to north. Those in Vancouver Island and on the adjoining coast, after defeating the less warlike Indians inland, sold their captives in the north-west to the Haidas and Thlinkeets. It would, of course, be tho chiefs that would get captive women into their households, hence there would be a Mongolising of the posterity of those chiefs- I found a great deal of culture very much akin to Polynesian culture. As voyagers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries pointed out, there were ‘ pas ’ or villages all along the coast, generally on precipices and in defensible situations, hence there is one island called ‘Hippah’ and early voyagers noted that it was like the New 7 Zealand ‘pas’ on the coast. I saw a good many weapons and implements that were very like the Maori. One especially, a club of bone, -was quite the same shape as a Maori mereThere was one curious phenomenon all along the coast. Whenever I brought my camera to bear the natives hid their faces or went off. Two experts in Alaska, the Rev Mr Corse, in Wrangell, and Father Kashevaroff, a Russian born in Alaska, and now curato; of -Juneau museum, held that tin’s timidity towards the camera was due to fear of being laughed at or an expectation of money. T offered them money, yet they refused to stand to the camera, and 1 do not think they were specially sensitive to criticism or laughter. My explanation is that tho shadow 7 , like the name, is considered part of life, and that by taking of photographs you take the shadow from them. This is confirmed by a, sentence in ‘ Kane’s Discoveries.’ He ivas along that coast in the last century, and savs: ’ I took a portrait of a chief and offered him a plug of tobacco. He said, “Is this all you give me for risk, ing my life.” ’ “1 generally held my camera behind me and brought it forward,” said Professor Brown. “ It was exactly as if I had taken a revolver from my hippocket. The result is that T have not very many photographs of natives. The best I took were snapshots during a ceremony in Mootke Sound, on the rorth-west coast of Vancouver Island. The Lieutenant-Governor and a judge were unveiling a memorial to Cook and Vancouver in commemoration of their striking the north-west coast there more than a century ago. Whilst the chief, Napoleon Buonaparte Maquinah, was replying to the LieutenantGovernor and having his speech translated by a missionary. T held my camera above a group of listeners and , snapshotted him with some success. If ho had been conscious of it he doubtless would have taken drastic action.”