Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/218

194 After a short conversation with his friend the Maori passed on, and then Frank learned that he belonged to one of the families of chiefs, and could therefore be considered as belonging to the aristocratic branch of the race.

"There are about forty thousand, or perhaps forty-five thousand, Maoris in New Zealand at present," said the gentleman. "Two or three thousand of them live on South Island, and all the rest upon North Island. The families of the chiefs are readily distinguished by their superior grace and dignity, just as the aristocratic part of a race is distinguished in any other part of the world. When Captain Cook came here the Maoris were savages and cannibals, though they had a patriarchal form of government, and in several ways had made an approach to civilization."

"They practised tattooing, did they not?" one of the youths asked.

"Certainly," was the reply; "and some of them still do so, though the habit is dying out. In another generation it will hardly be heard of any more. The Maoris are becoming assimilated to the European population around them. Many of them own houses and farms, have large herds and flocks, and there are several Maori merchants and ship-owners. Many of them are employed by the English settlers and merchants, and you will find them on the railways and in the coasting steamers, where they make good sailors and are generally liked by their employers."

Frank asked whence they were supposed to have come, and how long it probably was since they settled in New Zealand.

"They are of Malay origin," said the gentleman, "and according to their traditions, which are unusually clear, they came here from either the Sandwich or the Samoan islands, four or five centuries ago, in a fleet of thirteen large canoes, which were followed by others. The names of their canoes, the chiefs that commanded them, and the places where they landed are carefully preserved in their traditions. They say that they came from an island called Hawaiki, in the Pacific Ocean, and this is thought to be either Savaii, in the Samoan group, or Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands. Their language is so nearly like that of the Sandwich Islanders that the two people can understand each other after a little practice.

"They had no written language until one was made for them by the missionaries, and the nearest approach to it was a knotted stick, by which the wise men transmitted the names of successive chiefs. They had a great many songs of love, war, religion, and other things,