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Part I
Introductory Remarks

In treating of the agricultural activities of the Maori folk of New Zealand it is necessary that we glance at those of the native inhabitants of Polynesia, inasmuch as we know that the two peoples are closely allied, that the Maori of these isles is but an offshoot of the adventurous race that has settled in so many isles of the great Pacific.

The Polynesians are essentially an agricultural people, and must have attained that culture stage prior to their leaving the original homeland of the race, wherever that may have been. This is shown, not so much by tradition, as by the fact that of the great number of scattered communities of this race throughout the island world, all depend to some extent on cultivated food products, save in such small isles whereon agriculture is impossible. Wherever the Polynesian has settled you find him a cultivator of such available food plants as will flourish in the locality. These food plants were undoubtedly carried from isle to isle by Polynesian voyagers, whose efforts at acclimatisation sometimes failed, but were often successful. Such failures are accounted for by settlement in small arid isles unsuitable for purposes of cultivation, or by the fact that the voyagers had reached a land the climate of which was unsuitable to the growth of certain plants. Thus we know that the coco-nut, carried far and wide by man athwart the Pacific failed to grow when brought to New Zealand, that the introduced page 14kumara (Ipomoea batatas), taro (Colocasia antiquorum) and hue (Lagenaria vulgaris) produced good crops here in suitable situations, under careful treatment, but that an attempt to cultivate the kumara at the Chatham Isles was a failure. Concerning the yam we have but little information. Of other economic plants, the aute (Broussonetia papyrifera) was introduced into New Zealand, but presumably did not flourish here, for it had become rare in Cook's time. Apparently the only specimens seen by him were half a dozen growing at the Bay of Islands, which seem to have been viewed by natives as a rarity to be shown to visitors, and a few plants on the East Coast. The ti pore (Cordyline terminalis) is also probably an introduced plant, and according to the evidence of Cook and his companions, the yam (Dioscorea sp.) was cultivated by the Maori.

Reverting to the coco-nut, the late Mr John White collected in the far north an interesting tradition concerning it. It was recited by a native named Patiki, to whom it had been imparted by one Mato, a tohunga or wise man, in the year 1839. He gave some account of lands formerly occupied by the ancestors of the Maori. They once dwelt in a land called Waerota, from which they migrated to Hawaiki, and subsequently to Mata-te-ra, from which land they came to Aotea (New Zealand). "Our ancestors said that large animals existed on certain big islands adjacent to Waerota… Those islands were very warm places, where people wore but little clothing, a mere apron. Some of the peoples of those parts were exceedingly dark skinned, and smelt unpleasantly when near. Some were light skinned, an agricultural people. The dark skinned folk had curly hair; a dirty people, who cultivated but little … and wore no clothing. Their hair was reddish, and bushy … The clothing of our home over the ocean from which we came, was the aute, made from the bark of that tree … Oil was obtained from fruit of trees of those parts, the inner part being subjected to the heat of fire produced oil. The name of that fruit was Ni, it was the size of a child's head. That food product was brought hither, and the uhikaho [yam], but did not grow, hence are they no more in these times." Now ni and niu are names of the coco-nut in Polynesia, hence we have here a tradition of it as having been known to the ancestors of the Maori. The failure to introduce it here must have been a keen disappointment to the old Polynesian settlers, who, no doubt, would also attempt the introduction of the breadfruit and banana, the first being mentioned in old Maori songs under its Polynesian name of kuru.

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Of the original homeland of the Maori people we know but little, a scant account of it appears in native tradition. Possessing no form of script, the Polynesians were compelled to rely upon oral tradition in handing down knowledge, and many centuries must have elapsed since they left the hidden motherland of the race. Of such traditions the Takitumu tribes have preserved the most complete version, owing probably to the fact that their forefathers brought with them from Eastern Polynesia several of the learned record keepers, conservers of the unwritten tribal lore. These traditions contain an interesting allusion to a food product of the original homeland. It would appear that the Polynesians, having been great wanderers, have, at some time in the past, been compelled to submit to great changes in their food supplies. Thus, in their original home, which is described as a great mainland, certain food products were utilised that are not again mentioned in tradition. It is probable that, when the ancestors of the Polynesians left the homeland and entered the great island system, as related in tradition, they were compelled to give up certain food products and utilise those of their new homes. Some of the latter would be peculiar to the new region, and unknown on the mainland, such as the breadfruit. Again, when voyaging across the Pacific, and settling on many isles, they would find that some of these produced a much greater variety of food than others. Apart from the products demanding true cultivation, such as the kumara (sweet potato) yam, taro and gourd, others that merely needed to be planted, such as the coco-nut, breadfruit, banana, etc., were undoubtedly carried to many islands by old time voyagers, and thus distributed over a wide area. Thus the coco-nut was found from Central America westward across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to Africa; the breadfruit from Malaysia to the Marquesas, the banana in Asia, Africa, the Pacific Isles, and the west coast of America. When settling some of the islands, however, it would be found that some food supplying plants would not flourish, hence such supplies would have to be given up. The breadfruit will not grow on many islets where the coco-nut flourishes. The kumara can be grown much further from the equator than most other Polynesian food plants, but the yam is less hardy. In such localities as Rapa and Sunday islands, and the Sandwich Group, the native settlers were compelled to do without some tropical products that flourished in the warmer isles.

In his account of Anamuka Isle, Tongan Group, Cook writes as follows:—"The island is very well cultivated, except in a few places, and there are some others, which, though they appear to page 16lie waste, are only left to recover the strength exhausted by constant culture, for we frequently saw the natives at work upon these spots to plant them again. The plantations consist chiefly of yams and plantains. Many of them are very extensive, and often enclosed with neat fences of reed disposed obliquely across each other, about six feet high. Within these we often saw other fences of less compass, surrounding the houses of the principal people. The breadfruit and coconut trees were interspersed with little order, but chiefly near the habitations of the natives."

In speaking of Lefuka isle, he says:—"We observed large spots covered with the paper mulberry trees, and the plantations in general were well stocked with such roots and fruits as are the natural produce of the island. To these I made some addition by sowing the seeds of Indian corn, melons, pumpkins, and the like"

Cook introduced the pineapple at the Tongan Isles, also at Tahiti. He also introduced the shaddock at Tahiti, which fruit tree he had found the Tongans in possession of.

When Polynesians settled in New Zealand, they lost many of their food plants, and those introduced called for increased labour in cultivation. Also in certain areas of these isles they did not flourish, and considerable reliance on wild products became necessary. Thus it was that the aruhe, the rhizome of Pteris aquilina, became the principal vegetable food of the Maori in many districts. In like manner the Polynesian settlers in New Zealand were forced to make a marked change in their clothing, owing to the colder climate and the fact that the ante, from which their felted bark cloth was made in Polynesia, did not flourish in New Zealand when introduced. It is a curious illustration of the effect of long use and conservatism that a kind of such felted material was formerly manufactured from the bark of our "lace-bark" tree (Hoheria), soon to be abandoned for the more durable and satisfactory garments woven from Phormium fibre. A similar change occurred when the Chatham Isles were settled from New Zealand, when seal skins came into use as clothing material.

Return we to the old homeland of the Maori, there to note one of his food products. A tradition preserved by the Takitumu tribes runs as follows—The original home of the Maori was known as Uru, which is described as a tuawhenua or mainland. The ancestors of the Maori seem to have migrated from this land to a land named Irihia, lying to the eastward, which had been made known to them by one Tu-te-rangi-atea, who reported thus—"To the eastward lies a fine land named Irihia, inhabited by dark skinned folk, a spare, page 17thin shanked people. The food supplies are fish, also bloodless foods, ari and hua a tai, and kata, and porokakata, and tahuwaero, and koropiri." These foods are described as being kai toto kore or bloodless foods, a curious expression, hence they were used as offerings to the gods. The hua a tai may have been ocean products, but the ari is said to have been a small seed. It was a cultivated food. Rarotongan traditions, as shown in Hawaiki, by Mr S. Percy Smith, state that, in their ancestral homeland of Atia, the main food product was vari, but all knowledge as to what that food was has been lost. Both the Rarotongan vari and Maori ari have been compared with vari, fari and pari, names for rice. The Bishop of Dornakal, South India, informs me that ari is the Dravidian word for rice The great hot land of Irihia, of Maori tradition, may also be compared with Vrihia, an ancient name of India, and vrihi was a Sanscrit name for rice. The Rarotongan account is that vari was the food of their remote ancestors until they obtained the breadfruit, which they would certainly not encounter until they entered the island system, say Indonesia. Maori tradition states that their ancestors left Irihia, owing to prolonged fighting with dark-skinned peoples, and migrated by sea toward the rising sun. They wandered on, sojourning in several lands, until we find them occupying recognised islands of Polynesia.

Those interested in these rice words and in the above traditions will find some interesting information in the Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 13, p. 133; also Vol. 22, pp. 12-13.

Although it is now impossible to say what food supplies of the old homeland of the Maori are represented by the names handed down in tradition, and given above, yet we are on surer ground when we come to his sojourn in Polynesia. In that region the natives are utilising the same food products that their ancestors did prior to the time when progenitors of the Maori left eastern Polynesia and settled in New Zealand, with the addition of certain food plants introduced by Europeans in modern times. The principal vegetable foods of the Polynesian area at the time when Europeans first came among them, were the bread-fruit, banana, yam, sweet potato, taro, coco-nut, gourd, arrowroot and ti or Cordyline terminalis. At that period the sweet orange, the mango, the avocado, and a number of other food plants now found there, had not been introduced.

In a paper on Cultivated Food Plants of the Polynesians, published in Vol. XXXIII. of the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, Mr T. F. Cheeseman remarks as follows:—"The position page 18occupied by the Polynesian races as tillers of the soil has hardly had sufficient attention given to it, although it may be doubted whether any people ignorant of the use of metals ever advanced so far as they have done." Further on he says:—"On the first arrival of European navigators there was every evidence of a long continued cultivation of the soil, not, of course, in the same shape that was visible in New Zealand, for in a tropical climate the growth of vegetation is so rapid, and the necessity for shading the soil so great, that many cultivations, when seen from a distance, present more or less the appearance of a jungle, and an abandoned plantation reverts to the forest in a year or two. But as regards the extent to which the inhabitants were dependent on vegetable food, the number of different plants cultivated, the care given to their plantations, the assiduity with which new varieties were raised and propagated, the evidence is even more complete than in New Zealand." This writer also tells us that—"so far as botanical enquiry has been made into the origin of the common food plants of Polynesia, it certainly seems to point to the belief that most of them are introductions from abroad, coming in the majority of cases from the direction of the Malay Archipelago or eastern tropical Asia … The actual introduction of the plants must have taken place at some far remote period, in order to give time, not only for their spread through most parts of the Pacific, but also to allow of the gradual selection of so many different local varieties, in itself a proof of long continued cultivation, … I wish to make another point perfectly clear … that the Polynesians were not only great cultivators, but that they regularly carried cultivated plants from one part of the Pacific to another … This statement follows naturally on the assumption that the cultivated plants are not indigenous, and it is also supported by many traditions. But it must also be true if we assume that the cultivated plants are natives of Polynesia. For, even on this hypothesis, we cannot state with any reasonable degree of probability that all the food plants are natives of every one of the hundreds of islands on which they are cultivated from Fiji to Hawaii. Such a statement would not be supported by any of the known facts of botanical distribution. Under any tenable theory there must have been numerous stations where some of them did not exist, and which were stocked by human agency." To the list of three introduced food plants referred to above, one more, the yam, must certainly be added, as shown by the statements of Cook and Banks. Cordyline terminalis would increase the list to five.

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When we consider this evidence, as also the fact that the Maori succeeded in introducing five and probably six of the economic plants of Polynesia into New Zealand, one of which is only propagated by cuttings, then we see how erroneous were the remarks of Colenso, when he stated that the Polynesians could not possibly have carried such plants from isle to isle of the island system, or to these shores.

An important fact in regard to the length of time during which certain economic plants have been cultivated, as also the question of their transportation, is the flowerless and seedless condition to which some of them have been reduced, such as the sweet potato and breadfruit. In these cases also a great number of varieties have been produced by continued cultivation, e.g., twenty-three varieties of breadfruit at Tahiti, and some dozens of the sweet potato in New Zealand. Ellis states that many more varieties of breadfruit were known to early missionaries.

Rutland makes comment as follows:—"The presence of the seedless breadfruit and bananas in eastern Polynesia, and of the aute or paper mulberry in New Zealand, proves beyond doubt that both regions were regularly colonised, and not accidentally peopled, as many writers have asserted." Again he writes—"What we particularly gather from the cultivated plants and domesticated animals of Polynesia is that in the history of the Pacific there was a period during which the region was in communication with the Malay Islands, and probably with the Asiatic mainland, and that this period was followed by a long interval of isolation, terminated only by the advent of Europeans."

The sweet potato and the coco-nut are two economic plants of which the origin is doubtful, the former having been cultivated in America, the Pacific Islands and Asia for a long period, while the coco-nut was known all across the Pacific and Indian oceans, from islands off Panama to Madagascar and the east coast of Africa.

We have seen that the inhabitants of Polynesia possessed a number of tropical and subtropical food plants well adapted to their needs, most of which are thought to have been introduced into that region from the west, but that only four such plants needing careful cultivation had they succeeded in introducing into New Zealand. We know that the Polynesian race, of which our Maori folk are a branch, is essentially an agricultural people. This stage of culture the Polynesians seem to have occupied for a long period of time, before they left the fatherland, where they cultivated page 20the ari, also several other plants which are unidentified. The old time Polynesian voyagers may have introduced certain food plants into the eastern Pacific, or he may have found them already acclimatised there by a previous people. When possible he led the life of an agriculturist, and cultivated his food products with much care and no small amount of ceremony; when forced to dwell in isles where no cultivation was possible, he accepted the position with equanimity and subsisted on such products as the gods might provide.