The Maori: A History of the Earliest Inhabitants of New Zealand

465 Pages·2010·14.016 MB·English

by  Domenico Felice Vaggioli, John Crockett, David Simmons

THE MAORI
A History of the Earliest Inhabitants
of New Zealand
Domenico Felice Vaggioli
Translated from the Italian, with an Introduction by
John Crockett
With a Foreword by
David Simmons
The Edwin Mellen Press
LewistoneQueenstoneLampeter
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vaggioli, Felice, 1845-1921.
[Storia della Nuova Zelanda e dci suoi abiatori. Vol. 1, section 2. English]
The Maori : a history of the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand / Domenico Felice
Vaggioli ; translated from the Italian, with an introduction by John Cedric Crockett ; with
a foreword by David Simmons.
p. cm.
Second section of the first volume of Storia della Nuova Zelanda e dei suoi abiatori
presented as a stand-alone text in English translation; the two volumes were originally
published by Fiaccadori Press, Parma, Italy in 1891 and 1896 respectively.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7734-3905-4
ISBN-10: 0-7734-3905-6
I. Maori (New Zealand people)--History. 2. Maori (New Zealand people)--Social life
and customs. 3. New Zealand--History. 4. New Zealand--Social life and customs. 1.
Crockett, John C. II. Title. III. Title: History of the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand.
DU423.A1V34 2009
993.01--dc22
2009036299
hors serie.
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
Front cover design: Mona Panorama by artist Peter Ireland, 1994
Copyright © 2010 John Crockett
All rights reserved. For information contact
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The Edwin Mellen Press The Edwin Mellen Press
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Box 450 Box 67
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Lewiston, New York Queenston, Ontario
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USA 14092-0450 CANADA LOS ILO
The Edwin Mellen Press, Ltd.
Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales
UNITED KINGDOM SA48 8LT
Printed in the United States of America
DEDICATION
Tram) t'ho qui con ingegno e con uric,
to too piacere °mai prendi per duce,
film. se 'de l'erte vie, fitor se 'de 1'w-ie.'
I led you here with skill and intellect,
from here on, let your pleasure be your guide:
the narrow ways, the steep are far below.
This work of translation is dedicated to David Simmons, Ethnologist,
and Bernadette Luciano, Associate Professor of European Studies
and Italian, University of Auckland, my two learned, inspiring and
supportive companions on this journey.
I. Dante. The Divine Comedy. Purgatory. Canto XXVII: 130-132.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Illustrations(cid:9) viii
Foreword by David Simmons(cid:9) ix
Acknowledgements(cid:9) xi
introduction(cid:9) 1
Chapter 1(cid:9) The human family.(cid:9) 7
Chapter 2(cid:9) The Oceanic-American Family.(cid:9) 23
Chapter 3(cid:9) I-low and by whom New Zealand was settled.(cid:9) 45
Chapter 4(cid:9) The Maori individual.(cid:9) 65
Chapter 5(cid:9) Tattooing.(cid:9) 81
Chapter 6(cid:9) The Maori Language.(cid:9) 93
Chapter 7(cid:9) The New Zealanders' clothing.(cid:9) 105
Chapter 8(cid:9) The Maori hut.(cid:9) 117
Chapter 9(cid:9) Marriage among the Maori.(cid:9) 131
Chapter 10 The New Zealanders' offspring.(cid:9) 143
Chapter 11 Routine of the Maori in peacetime.(cid:9) 157
Chapter 12 The food of the Maori.(cid:9) 177
Chapter 13 Maori Society.(cid:9) 195
Chapter 14 Muru and Tapu of the Maori.(cid:9) 237
Chapter 15 Maori villages.(cid:9) 259
Chapter 16 Religious beliefs and superstitions of the Maori.(cid:9) 279
Chapter 17 The New Zealanders' crafts, arts and sciences.(cid:9) 315
Chapter 18 Maori Warfare and their system.(cid:9) 359
Chapter 19 The New Zealanders' cannibalism.(cid:9) 379
Chapter 20 Funerals and funeral services of the Maori.(cid:9) 393
Bibliography(cid:9) 421

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Fig. 1(cid:9) Harakeke or flax plant (Formium tenor).
Fig. 2(cid:9) Tribal chief and his young wife.
Fig. 3(cid:9) Tattooed chief taking food with a stick.
Fig. 4(cid:9) Maori and their ancient way of dressing.
Fig. 5(cid:9) Present day Maori at Rotorua.
Fig. 6(cid:9) 1. Man's tattooed head. 2. Woman's tattooed chin.
3. Clubs. — I. Maori, 2. Australian, 3. Ancient Egyptian.
Fig. 7(cid:9) I. Tribal chief's hut. 2. Genealogical stave or stick.
Fig. 8(cid:9) Door and porch ornamentation of huts.
Fig. 9(cid:9) 1. Taiaha, or chief's stave. 2. Maori caskets and boxes.
3. Papa, or food bowl. 4. Heru, or hair comb.
Fig. 10(cid:9) 1. Snow sandals. 2. Maori spade.
3. Basket with wooden figures.
Fig. 11(cid:9) Maori village with common canoes, and fortress in the distance.
Fig. 12(cid:9) 1. Interior of a fortress, with a Maori beating the wooden gong.
2. Vata, or food storehouse.
Fig. 13(cid:9) Reed raft.
Fig. 14(cid:9) 1. Prow of a war canoe. 2. Spade to bail out water from canoes.
Fig. 15(cid:9) Stern of a war canoes and its chief.
Fig. 16(cid:9) 1. Musical instrument made from whale tooth. 2. War trumpets.
Fig. 17(cid:9) I. Wangaroa harbour and canoe under sail.
2. Beached war canoe, and Maori paddles.
Fig. 18 War canoes, warriors and sailors at Mercury Bay.
Fig. 19 1. Wooden weapons. 2. Ancient bone weapons.
3. Stone weapons. 4. An elegant stone weapon.
Fig. 20 Maori war dance.
Fig. 21(cid:9) Maori stretcher for the sick and wounded.
Fig. 22 Friends' visit and tangi in front of the but of the deceased.
Fig. 23 Wooden carving over a tomb.
Fig. 24(cid:9) 1. Tiki, or funeral monument. 2. Clothed burial statue.
Fig. 25 Cemetery and tombs at Atene, on the Wanganui river.

FOREWORD
Father Felice Vaggioli was a missionary priest for the Catholic Church in New
Zealand in the late nineteenth century. He was a priest of the Benedictine order, a
monk who later went on to become an abbot of a Benedictine monastery, hence his
title Dom Felice. His two volume experiences and observations were published in
Italian in the years 1891-1896. He was in New Zealand between 1879 and 1887. In
1880 he served at Gisborne on the East Coast, leaving there to return to Auckland.
In 1884 he went to Coromandel on the north-east coast, where he stayed until 1887.
His main contact with Maori occurred in these two places. In Gisborne he is known
and remembered by some of the high born Maori families whom he sometimes aided
by writing letters in French, Italian or Latin. Some of those families are members
of the Catholic religion.
This was when the modem disciplines of Ethnology and later Anthropology were
only ,j ust starting. The Kent's Cavern excavations and positive indications that human
remains in England existed before the Biblical Flood were hot topics at the time.
Into the mix Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species by Means of Natural
Selection published in 1859 and The Descent of illun published in 1871 were regarded
by many theological and scientific scholars as the final indignity. The common view
was that Darwin considered that man was descended from monkeys. Darwin actually
theorized that monkeys, apes and man had a common ancestor.
The dilemma faced by thinking people of the time is nicely portrayed by a Maori
meeting house carved about 1880 by Hone Ngatoto of the Ngati Porou tribe on Te
Rahui marae at Tikitiki which is less than a hundred kilometers north of Gisborne
on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. There Hone Ngatoto carved
the house Rongomaianiwaaniwa which represents the ancestress, the house being
her body with backbone (ridgepole) and her welcoming arms as the barge boards at
the front. On these barge boards Ngatoto carved the dogs of Rongomaianiwaaniwa,
though in this case he borrowed ideas from the Bible, depicting a lion, dog, wolf and
a monkey. His people accepted the other animals but questioned the inclusion of the