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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 7 (December 1, 1930)

The Long-Lost Tribe

The Long-Lost Tribe.

Every now and again down South some romance-loving individual sets going a rumour that there may be a remnant of the lost Ngati Mamoe tribe surviving away back yonder in the forest recesses of Fiordland. The latest proposal is put forth by a Maori of Ruapuke Island, that celebrated map-dot you pass between the Bluff and Stewart Island. He is a veteran whaler and sealhunter, and is in part descended from Ngati-Mamoe. His idea is that an expedition should be fitted out to search the unknown country at the head of the West Coast Sounds for traces of the fugitives who were driven into that vast forest wilderness many generations ago.

Down in Southland years ago, I heard from old Maoris many a tale about the vanished people, a section of Ngati Mamoe who were pursued to the western shores of Lake Te Anau by their enemies, and who disappeared into the mountains and bush between those parts and the Sounds. The period was about the latter part of the eighteenth century. Traces of the tribe of the mist were seen by early pakeha seal-hunters, at the head of Bligh Sound and George Sound. It was evident that there were still inhabitants of those parts some eighty or ninety years ago. The last signs of the fugitive folk, so far as my information goes, were seen by Hone te Paina and a crew of Southland Maoris who went round to Milford Sound in a sealing boat in 1870. Old Hone and another veteran of the seal-hunt told me at Oraka in 1903 that they found footprints in the mud on the shore of Lake Ada, and the remains of sleeping-places, and the ashes of long dead camp fires.

That was the very last. There is no sound reason for the belief that any of the Ngati-Mamoe have survived to these times in the Fiordland. But by all means let that search party get busy this summer. Though they are not likely to discover the bush tribe, they are certain to find a lot of other items of scientific interest, mayhap that rara avis, the takahea, the notornis like a blue turkey.

My own private theory concerning those Ngati-Mamoe is that they were all bitten to death long ago by the sandflies and mosquitoes of our Great Lone Land