The “Lion-like” Maori.

There were some “braw lads” among the old-time Maoris. Here is an extract from a letter by the missionary Butler given in the lately published Letters of Samuel Marsden. The great pioneer missionary accompanied by Mr. Butler visited the Waitemata and the Kaipara in 1820, and on their arduous journey they saw at the Kaipara a wonderful specimen of the chieftain race. This was Tinana, the great chief whose people twenty years later sold the present site of Auckland City to the Government. Butler thus described him in a letter:

“Teenana [the missionary's spelling] is an aged man but of an amazing size and full of flesh. His head is extraordinarily large, and his beard very thick and long, which gives him a lion-like appearance. Mr. Marsden said he would give twenty guineas for his likeness if it was possible to obtain it. One would suppose he had sprung from a race of giants. His sons are all of them very fine large men.”

We don't build them that size nowadays. Tinana lived in a more spacious age.