Title: The Southern Districts of New Zealand : a Journal, with Passing Notices of the Customs of the Aborigines

Author: Edward Shortland

Publication details: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1851, London

Part of:

• The New Zealand Provincial Histories Collection
• New Zealand Texts Collection

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 New Zealand Licence

Share:

page v

Preface.

The following pages have been compiled from the notes of a journal written during part of the years 1843-4, while the author was employed in the service of the Colonial Government of New Zealand, as a Protector of the Aborigines. His duties obliged him at that time to visit the east coast of the Middle Island, from banks Peninsula to Foveaux's Straits—a part of New Zealand to which the attention of colonists has lately been more particularly directed: and as several applications have been made to him for information regarding it, by persons who had formed the design of emigrating, or by their friends, he has been induced to publish the volume now offered to the public.

page vi

It is hoped that the anecdotes and other matters illustrative of the habits of the aboriginal population of the country, which have been occasionally introduced, will prove instructive as well as entertaining; for it appears to be by no means an unimportant element of the prosperity of our settlements in New Zealand, that the colonists should understand as much as possible of the peculiar ideas and prejudices of the people with whom they must be constantly associated.

The natives of New Zealand differ essentially from those of all other of our Australian Colonies. They are comparatively more numerous; they are given to agricultural pursuits; and have been found to learn, and readily adopt, the more civilized practices of Europeans; at the same time that their bodily and mental organization is generally considered not inferior to our own. These advantages, added to their natural bravery and love of freedom, constitute them a class who must always have a political weight in their own country.

page vii

The author estimates highly the value of the Southern Districts of New Zealand to colonists, being of opinion that they alone—on account of the inconsiderable amount of native population there—are at all suitable to the system of colonization, which, at the present day, finds favour with the public; namely, colonization conducted under the auspices of companies. For it is indispensable to the success of this system, to have at command a continuous and extensive block of land, unembarrassed by the claims of native proprietors; which requisite is not to be obtained in the North Island.

The map facing the title page will, it is believed, give a better general idea of the Southern Districts of New Zealand than any hitherto published. It was first drawn in 1844, to accompany the report on land claims inserted in Appendix II. That portion of the west coast which is distinguished by a dotted line, was taken from the drawing of an intelligent settler, named Meurant, who had passed several years there while page viii a sealer; and the track across the island, from the east to the west coast, with the lakes in the interior, was laid down from the sketch and descriptions of a native named Huruhuru, as narrated at pp. 205-6. The remaining coast line, where it differs from that of the Admiralty Chart of 1838, rests on the imperfect authority of the eye and a pocket compass. To take the bearings of headlands, to note down the apparent positions of hills and mountains, and to compute the distance from place to place by means of a watch and the supposed rate of walking, were found to give an additional interest to travelling on foot, when it might otherwise have been wearisome.

It is thought necessary to say thus much of the sources whence the map was derived, to preclude the supposition that any part of it has been borrowed from a map recently published by Mr. Arrowsmith, which resembles it in some remarkable points—particularly in the part given on the authority of the native Huruhuru. That part being founded on a description page ix either verbal or traced with a pencil, pretends to be only a rude approximation to correctness, and it will therefore, without doubt, be granted that it is next to impossible that the same incorrect outline could be drawn in exactly the same manner by other hands, or even by the same person, a second time; and consequently that, whoever furnished Mr. Arrowsmith with the drawing from which this part, at least, of his map was taken, obtained his information from a copy of the map which was drawn, as stated, in 1844.

The only material alterations made in the map here published are, the outline of Banks's Peninsula, corrected from a chart by Commodore Bérard, and hills and mountain ranges, introduced from sketches made formerly, or from memory, in order to give as far as practicable a description of what was seen of the country.

At the end of the volume will be found a vocabulary containing several words and expressions common in the Southern Districts, which differ from those in use in page x other parts of New Zealand. The author trusts it may be useful, not agreeing with the opinion that to encourage the study of the language of the New Zealanders is to discourage their learning English. On the contrary, he believes, that those who are anxious to teach the New Zealanders English will be better able to do so, having first learned their language. Poor George Primrose went to Holland expecting to make his fortune by teaching the Dutch English; but discovered on his arrival there, that, “in order to teach Dutchmen English, it was necessary that they should first teach him Dutch.”