The Origin of the Maori.

Maori Record : a journal devoted to the advancement of the Maori people, Volume I, Issue 12, 1 June 1906, Page 8

The Origin of the Maori.

CHAPTER YU. THE INDONESIANS AND THE MALAY MUDDLE. Speaking of the Siamese also Keane says : let they appear to have been here preceded by the Caucasus Khemers (Cambojans), whose advent is referred, in the national chronicles, to the year 543 8.C., and who, according to the Hindu records, were expelled about 443 A.D. It was through these Khemers, and not directly from India, that the “Sayamas” received their Hindu culture. And it is mentioned that in the Javanese annals the invaders were called “Cambojans.” I have been quoting from accounts of the “Southern "Mongols.” If we turn from this to the chapter on “Asiatic Mongols” we shall find that a chief outlet of the Caucasic people lias been Formosa; indeed it would appear that that i viand has not only dispatched many peoples to Oceanica hut received many in return. Says Keane, p. 259 ; That in the aborigines of Formosa, are represented both Mongol (proto-Malayan) and Indonesian (proto-Caucasic) elements, may now bo accepted as an acknowledged fact. The long-standing reports of "Negritos also, like the Philippine Acta®, have never been confirmed, and may be dismissed from the present consideration Probably five-sixths of the whole population are Chinese immigrants. . . . They occupy all the. cultivated western lands, lowlands, which from the ethnological standpoint may he regarded as a seaward outpost of the Chinese mainland. The rest of the island, that is, the central is highlands and precipitous eastern slopes, may similarly lie looked on as a. northeastern outpost of "Malaysia, being almost exclusively held by Indonesian and Malayan aborigines from Malaysia (especially the Philippines), with possibly some early in-' traders both from Polynesia and from the north (Japan). Having seen from whence come the best the Asiatic continent hod to give to Indonesia and Polynesia, it will he as well to investigate in respect to the whence from which probably came

the worst, those who. brought with them the head hunting and cannibalism, who are the stock from which came the Orang-Benua, the OrangLaut, the wretched leaven which poisoned the Caucasic blood in Dyak and Battak, and pos sibly supplied the element of savagery. I identify these with the- Annamese. Says Keane, p. 210: Within the Mongolia division it would be difficult to imagine any more striking contrast than that presented by the gentle kindly, and on the. whole not ill-favoured Siamese, and their hard-featured, hardhearted and grasping Annamese neighbours. Let anyone -who. may fancy there is little or nothing hr blood pass rapidly from the bright, genialif somewhat listless, and corrupt—social life of Bangkok to the dry, uncongenial moral atmosphere of Ha-noi or Saigon, and he. will be apt to modify his views on that point. Few observers have a good word to say for the Tongkingese, the Cochin-Chinese, or any other branch of theAnnamese family, and some, even of the least prejudiced, are go outspoken that we must needs infer there is good ground for their severe strictures, on these strange uncouth materialist®. . . , The Giao-shi (Kiao-.shi), the name of the aborigines, said to mean “Bifurcated” or “Cross-toes,” in reference to the very wide space between the great toes and the next, occurs in the legendary Chinese records as far back as 2285 8.G., since which period The two countries are. supposed to have maintained almost uninterrupted relations, whether friendly or hostile, down to the present day. . . . Amid all this troublesome, political nomenclature, the dominant Annaimes© nation lias faithfully preserved its homogenous character, spreading like the Siamese Shans, steadily southwards, and gradually absorbing the whole of the Champa domain, to the. southern extremity of the peninsula, as well as a large part of the ancient kingdom of Camboja about the Mehkong delta. They thus form the almost exclusive ethnical element throughout all the lowland and cultivated parts of Tanking, upper and lower Cochin-China, and south Gamhoja, with a total population in 1898 of about twenty millions. The Annamese are described in a semi-official report as characterised by a high broad forehead, high cheek hones', small crushed nose, rather thick lips, black hair, a 'Scant heard, mean height, coppery complexion, deceitful (rasee) expression, and rude or insolent bearing. . . . The Abbe Gagelin, who lived years in their midst, frankly declare® that they are at, once arrogant and dishonest, and dead to all the finer feelings of human nature, so that after years of absence the. nearest akin will meet, -without any outward sign of pleasure or affection. Others go further, and Air J. G. Scott summed it all up by declaring that, “the fewer Annamese there are the less taint there is on the human lace.” I don’t think there is much of it in the Maori. for evidently a little of it goes a very long way. The Malays are a. much later proposition, and

will be dealt with later on. But it appears quite evident to me that the Maori-Polynesians had contact with a proto-Malayan people in the Nias Islanders during the time they occupied Sumatra. Professor Keane thus draws attention to the Mongol stock of the Nias Islanders: — The survival of an Indonesian group (MaoriPolynesians of Mentawei Island), on the western verge of Malaysia, is all the more remarkable since the Nias Islanders, a little further north, are of Mongol stock, like most of the inhabitants of the Sumatran mainland. Professor Keane identifies these with the Malays of Central Sumatra, hut I think that the traditions of the Maori-Polynesians prove that the Nias Islands were occupied by a Malayan people long before any Malay put foot on the soil of Sumatra It appears to me that the most remarkable coincidence of a tribe being so permeated with albinos a® to cause the fact to be handed down by tradition, and that at the. present day Investigators who never heard of the tradition are sturck with the immense proportion of albinos, cannot be ignored as a proof of the ancient occupancy by a Malayan people of the Nias Islands. As to the extent of our information in respect to the. Malayan people, the following L> from the Encyclopaedia, Brit., Yol. XXX., p. 496 (1902) The only facts which we ar© able to- adduce in the present state of our knowledge, of the subject may be. summed up as follows • (a) That the Malay ethnologic-ally belong to a distinct race; (b) that the theory that the Sakai, Orang-Benua, Orang-Laut, and other similar races, of the peninsula and archipelago belonged to the. Malayan stock, cannot be maintained, since revelations tend to identify them with the Mon-A imam family of races; (c) that the Malays are, comparative I speaking, new comers in the lands they now inhabit; (cl) that it is almost certain the emigration took place from the south ; (e) and that, at some period of their history, they came into close contact with the Polynesian race, probably before its dispersion over the extensive area which it now occupies. I think that this probably means that at some remote, period a Malayan people separated itself from the. Mongol cradle in the Thibetan tablelands, migrated to Ooeanioa, and developed itself into a distinct race; that, that race came into contact with the Maori-Polynesians in neolithic times, and that the legend of the Patu-pai-a-Rehe suggests that the contact took place on the coast of Sumatra with a tribe, of which the Nias Islanders are the descendants. That is what I venture to suggest I think that it will he allowed that the -Polynesians effected a complete fusion with those Indonesians it found, or met afterwards in Sumatra, with, the exception of the last-comers, the Battak, who I take it were of Indonesian .stock with a, rank stain of Mongol blood. (To be Continued.)