No Pre-Maori Relics.

It has not been ascertained that any traces are left to-day in Poverty Bay of settlement prior to the advent of the Maoris in A.D. 1350. Searching enquiry has, indeed, failed to reveal a single relic of any earlier people hereabouts. Tradition is, of course, not silent on the matter, but it is vague and contradictory on this as in regard to so many other important matters. In some accounts it is stated that the original Native settlers were lanky people with dark complexion. Other stories aver that they were short and plump as well as dark. And, again, there are traditions alleging the existence in this country in times long past of fairy folk, and of a light skinned race with reddish hair. Generally, tradition hath it that the “tangata whenua” were inferior physically to the Maori. And so it would appear, for the predecessors of the Maoris, in this as in other parts of the country, failed in the race for the survival of the fittest. They were killed off or died out and all that remains to be remind the world that they ever existed are changes in the Maoris due to the inter-marriage of the main body of Polynesian migrants with the peoples who were found in this land on their arrival. Toi's people no doubt intermarried with the “Mouriuri” or “Maruiwi” and, in due course, the Maoris of the A.D. 1350 migration amalgamated with both earlier races. Melanesian castaways, it is also known, reached this country from time to time, which state of affairs is held to account for such strong traces of darker blood in some localities, notably in the Bay of Plenty.