Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/9

 have been applied to this peninsula from some fancied resemblance in its appearance, when first sighted from the north, to the well-known mountain near the ancient home of the Ngatikahunu tribes.

Whether the Peninsula was ever inhabited by people of another race it is impossible to say, owing to the absence of conclusive evidence either one way or the other. My friend Dr. Von Haast rather inclines to the opinion that it was, being led to the conclusion by some discoveries he made in the moa bone cave near Sumner. But there is nothing to be found in the existing traditions relating to the locality, which can be relied upon as affording any evidence that the Maoris knew that the country was occupied before they came here. The demigods of whom they speak as having been the first discoverers and explorers of these islands, cannot be regarded as the representatives of an aboriginal people, because the stories relating to them are common to all sections of the Polynesian race, and evidently belong to persons and events connected with Maori history in distant ages, long before the migration from Hawaiki.

There is reason to believe that Banks Peninsula has been occupied by the Maori for a period of four hundred years, though the existing historical traditions of the people only reach back for half that period. The absence of the earlier traditions is, however, easily accounted for by the fact that two successive waves of conquest swept over the entire South Island after it was first peopled, the conquering tribe in each case being careful to obliterate as far as possible all traces of the former inhabitants, in order to render its own title to possession more secure.

The Waitaha, who came originally from Hawaiki to Maketu, in the canoe Arawa, were the first Maori inhabitants of these parts. They gradually made their way from the Bay of Plenty to the South Island