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Maori Agriculture

Preface

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Preface

An account of Maori agriculture, as practised in pre-European days, might be viewed as a task of no difficulty, and one to be soon disposed of. It has, however, taken many years to collect the data contained in this paper. The difficulties that arose during such collection were traceable to three causes, viz., the different methods employed in different districts, the unravelling of the myths and peculiar beliefs connected with various cultivated food plants and their origin, and, thirdly, the fact that the many ceremonial performances and ritual formulæ pertaining to the cultivation of the prized kumara were rapidly passing into the realm of oblivion.

On the whole the subject may be deemed one of considerable interest. Although ignorant of the use of metals, and possessing but extremely rude agricultural implements, yet we find that the neolithic Maori has preserved some highly interesting features in his practises and beliefs connected with agriculture. He has carried his economic plants across wide seas, and so made the arts of the husbandman known in many far scattered isles. He has had to change his principle cultivated products, his materials for clothing, and his manner of life, as he settled lands differing widely in climate and natural products. He has, in common with many other peoples, surrounded his principal cultivated food product with a network of myths, superstitions, tapu, and ritual performances. His procedure in the matter of cultivation of the kumara resembles a religious function.

There is certain evidence that, in long past times in far distant lands the Maori may have been a cultivator of grain, and that a rice goddess was transformed in to a "mother" of the sweet potato. One of the best of native authorities of the middle of the 19th century stated that the principal cultivated food product of the old homeland of Irihia was a small seed called ari, and ari is the Dravidian word for rice.

Our task is, however, to describe the methods of agriculture employed by the Maori of New Zealand in days of yore, and not to discuss theories as to his habits and habitat of twenty centuries ago. It will be seen that, when the ancestors of the Maori settled in these isles, they experienced a climate differing much from that of their former home, the isles of Eastern Polynesia. They would find that some of their food producing plants could not be grown here, and that others demanded increased labour and care. In some districts they could not be grown at all.

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Ever the Maori was adaptable. If he had to give up the coco-nut and breadfruit in these isles, he made the so called fern root one of his principal food supplies. If he had ever known the sago palm, then he found some kind of a substitute for it in various species of Cordyline. And ever he looked to the gods, and the shining stars above, to provide him with necessary sustenance, as his forbears had done in the hidden homeland that lies far away beneath the setting sun.

My indebtedness to native friends for the necessary data is by no means limited to the few individuals whose names are mentioned in the narrative. They are as numerous as the sands of Hine-one, for I have been endeavouring to unravel tangled skeins for more years than I care to count. Thanks are also due to the curators of the Auckland, Whanganui, New Plymouth, and Hastings Museums for permission to photograph divers artifacts in their collections, likewise to Mr. W. H. Skinner, Dr. P. H. Buck, Mr. T. W. Downes and others who have made the necessary arrangements for obtaining such illustrations. In this work of procuring photographs from the various museums mentioned the Maori Ethnological Research Board has taken a leading part. The drawings of Miss E. Richardson and photographs taken by Mr. H. Hamilton show the forms of the old native implements, and serve that purpose more effectually than do the written descriptions.

Readers of this paper will note some tedious repetition, as in descriptions of old usages, but it is well to bring together the observations of early writers, and in most cases the various accounts illustrate certain differences in procedure, as in different districts or among different tribes.

Elsdon Best