Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/231

Rh liking it. Doubtless, the contrast, in the matter of food, with his own prolific isles, was not to his taste. The probable date of Ti-wakawaka is the year A.D. 850. It is quite likely it was first colonised in the times of Ui-te-rangi-ora, who flourished in Fiji, circa A.D. 650, and in whose time the Pacific was nearly all explored by him, his contemporaries, and immediate descendants.

It is from the chiefs of the canoes that formed the fleet of 1350 that Maori aristocracy loves to trace descent; the descent from the old tangata-whenua, or previous migrations, is with many tribes ignored or made little of. There is plenty of evidence that this last migration was composed of people more advanced in ideas and of far greater warlike powers than the original inhabitants; and it is clear that within a few generations they had practically conquered and absorbed the others, often enslaving them; for it is stated in Hamiora Pio's MSS. that the tangata-whenua were a peaceful people, not like the ferocious cannibals of the fleet. Indeed, it is probable that these latter people brought cannibalism with them. In the mountainous country of the Ure-wera, tribes are to be seen the purest descendants of the older inhabitants, who, although very much mixed with the later migration, still show some difference in appearance that approximates them more to the Morioris of the Chatham Islands, who are no doubt the same people.

These ancient people were, however, the same Polynesian race; there is no sign of any previous Papuan or Melanesian people ever having inhabited New Zealand, or indeed any part of the Pacific now occupied by the Polynesians. The few slight indications that some writers have fancied indicated a previous race are all referable to contact of the Polynesians with Papuans or Melanesians in their migrations to the Fiji and other Melanesian Islands.