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The South Island Māori population.
No full text"D. W. Rutherford"--handwritten on t.p.
Typescript (photocopy).For the proper study of any aspect of Māori life - enthnological, economic, or historical - a preliminary census of Māori population would appear to be essential. Preliminary surveys of population-movements do, in fact, appear in the introduction to a number of recent books on primitive peoples. But only one such survey of any New Zealand area has yet appeared - Miss E. Durward's paper on the Māori population of Otago. (1) How completely the need for accurate estimates of Māori population has been lost sight of its demonstrated by the appearance in August 1940, and of The Māori of To-day, edited by Professor I. L. G. Sutherland, in which no independant study of Māori population is made, though the editor quotes Dr. Buck's estimate of from 200,000 to 500,000 for the pre-European population (2) while Harold Miller quotes Colenso's estimate of 60,000 killed in inter-tribal wars between 1820 and 1837, and Roger Duff places the pre-European South Island native population at from eight to ten thousand. (3). These figures will be discussed later, but it can be said here that all three are guess work. Further, it is of interest to note that Miss Durward's paper is not mentioned by any contributor.
This paper aims at defining the numbers and location of the Māori communities which inhabited the South Island of New Zealand from the era which saw the arrival of the Waitaha (1) up to the year 1940. It attempts to re-construct population history through this period and to describe the situation at the present time. All traditional Maori history except that which bears directly on the subject of the paper has been excluded. Archaeology has been made the basis of estimates for pre-European times. But activity in this field has been confined to the south of the island., where the Otago Museum has undertaken a series of evacuations on coastal sites. --Introduction
The economic life of the present-day Māori.
No full textSummary: In order to gather material and to fit himself generally for the writing of this thesis, the writer, in company with a companion, devoted a portion of the Summer Vacation to an extended tour of the Māori field. Time did not permit of a visit to the North Auckland Peninsula, but with this exception, a complete circuit of the North Island was made. Visits to different parts of the South Island field had been made at an earlier date and had brought forth valuable experience in methods of approach and in the kind of enquiries that should be pursued. Letters of introduction were secured from Officials of the Native Department in Wellington, and from other Māori leaders, to prominent local personalities at different points in the journey. Under the sponsoring of such local leaders, avenues of enquiry were opened up that would otherwise have been closed. Care was taken, however, not to see only those things to which the leaders directed our attention. We travelled by car and carried camping equipment, so that it was possible to pause where inclination prompted. Many nooks and corners were thereby investigated. Living conditions, attempts at farming, the lately-instituted Land-development Schemes, and the Māori at work and at play, were all seen at first hand. Such observations were supplemented by interviews and casual conversations with scores of people, both Māori and European, in all walks of life:- Officials of Māori Land Boards, County Clerks, School Teachers, Medical men, Clergymen, Lawyers, Policemen, Storekeepers, Hotel Proprietors, Picture Theatre Managers of Dairy Factories, Farmers of all grades, labourers, tramps and many other such. From the wealth of material gathered, selection and elimination, for the purpose of keeping the thesis within reasonable bounds, have been difficult processes. The principle adopted has been to include such material as was calculated to give the most representative presentation of the whole Māori field.
The tour has been valuable more in the way it has brought an appreciation of general trends than in the provision of exact information. Exact quantitative material has been gleaned largely from other sources - mostly from official publications and from direct correspondence with Government Departments. The contribution of the tour lies in the way it has illuminated all subsequent reading on the subject and in the way it has provided both general conclusions for enunciation and concrete examples with which to back them up