The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1919, Page 13

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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A :

Bask

when we must remedy the conditions under which

we are laboring in this’ promising field with its
thousands of Negroes. :

We leave it to you. You know the commission
of your Savior. And you have now been acquainted
with the needs. What are you going to do about it?

W. G. Scweny.

>>

The Settlement of New Zealand by the
Maoris.

As already pointed out, New Zealand was not

‘settled by the Maoris at one certain period, but

the settlement covered a period of some seven or
eight hundred years. The original inhabitants, who
arrived some centuries before those adventurous
voyagers from whom the Maoris trace their descent,
were called the T'a-nga-ta-Whenua. They seem to
haye settled on the North Island, and, as far as
I can find out, only little is now known of them.
The Turehu—the fairy people — dwelt in the
misty mountains or in the deep recesses of the forest,
The tribes living on the Bay of Plenty were generally
known by the name of ‘Te Tini-o-Toi (= the multi-

~ tude of Toi). ‘Toi was the name oftheir head chief.
~~ ‘They were a very numerous tribe, “with large vil-

,

dages and many strongly trenched and walled hill-

forts.” The people who came in the canoe called
Mataatua intermarried with them (about the four-
teenth century) and with the other tribes lying in
their neighborhood. Another important and numer-
ous section of the Ta-nga-ta-Whenua were the Tini-
o-Te-Ma-ra-nga-ra-nga, who occupied the valley of

the Rangitaiki and the adjacent country, and who

were conquered — that means killed, eaten, or made
slaves — by the descendants of the Hawaiikian im-
migrants. ‘There were other tribes, but these seem
to have been the most important ones.

When, in the fourteenth century, the immigrants
from the Pacific Isles arrived, canoe-load after
canoe-load, they immediately conquered or inter-
married with the original inhabitants, and all traces
have now been lost of them, except a few imperfect
and doubtful legends and the urukehu, or fair-

haired strain, in the Maori race.

Having disposed of the original owners and
being filled with the spirit of adventure, the Maoris
began to spread over the whole of the North Island.

, “Soon feuds and quarrels started among the different

tribes, and the fair land became a land of bloodshed,

cruelty, and cannibalism. ’
The ‘greatest of the Maori explorers was, no

The Lutheran Pioneer.

~

doubt, Ngatoro-i-rangi, the high priest (tohunga)
of the Arawa, so called after the canoe in which
this tribe arrived. His deeds have been handed
down in the traditions, and in the lapse of time
have been clothed with a mist of the supernatural
and miraculous.

_ Thus we are told that N gatoro-i-rangi set out
with a number of companions from Maketu south-
wards to view the land. After having passed Lakes
Rotorua and Tarawera, he reached the desolate
Kaingaroa Plainsy a great pumiceous plateau
“clothed chiefly with tussock grass and the manoas

The Old Maori Man.

shrub, and dotted with ti-palins, or cabbage-trees.
The middle of the plateau is practically waterless,
owing to the nature of the ground, but near the
northeastern border of the Kaingaroa Plain is
a Spring, famous among the Maoris, known as
Te Wai-puna-i-takahia-a-N. gatoro-i-rangi, 7. ¢., The
Fountain Caused by Negatoro’s Stamping. Its or-
igim was as follows: N gatoro-i-rangi, when crossing
this part of the country from Tarawera, became -
thirsty and could discover no water far and near.
So he took his staff, struck the ground with it, and
stamped upon it, invoking his gods, and immediately -
a beautiful spring gushed forth. Tt mysteriously
disappears a short distance away. If you drink
of it, you must be careful, say the Maoris, to first