Chapter XXII: Appendix: To Chapter XII

Compare the following account of the New Zealanders:--

"Shut out from the rest of the world, without any to set them
a pattern of what was right or to reprove what was wrong,
is it surprising that morally they should have degenerated,
even from the standard of their forefathers? They were not
always addicted to war, neither were they always cannibals;
_the remembrance of the origin_ of these horrid customs is
_still preserved amongst them_. If the progressive development
theory were true, aboriginal races should have progressively
advanced; every successive generation should have added some
improvement to the one which preceded it; but experience
proves the contrary. A remarkable instance of this may be
adduced in the fact, that the New Zealanders have retrograded,
even since the days of Captain Cook; they then possessed large
double canoes, decked, with houses on them similar to those of
Tahiti and Hawaii, in which, traditionally, their ancestors
arrived; it is now more than half a century since the last was
seen. Tradition also states that they had finer garments in
former days and of different kinds; that, like their reputed
ancestors, they made cloth from the bark of trees--the name
is preserved, but the manufacture has ceased. There are
remains also in their language which would lead us to suppose
that, like the inhabitants of Tonga, they once possessed a
kingly form of government, and though they have now no term
to express that high office, still they have words which are
evidently derived from the very one denoting a king in Tonga.
Their traditions, which are preserved, also establish the
same fact, and perhaps one of the strongest proofs is their
language; its fulness, its richness, and close affinity not
only in words but in grammar to the Sanscrit, carries the mind
back to a time when literature could not have been unknown."
From "Te Ika a Maui," or "New Zealand and its Inhabitants,"
by the Rev. Richard Taylor, M.A., F.G.S., a Missionary in New
Zealand for more than thirty years, pp. 5, 6.