Part of a Greater Story

THIS is a brief tale of home-making long ago in a new land.

How did New Zealand get its white people? Why did they come, far across the sea, to a land in which they had to win their own welcome? What sort of task “did they set themselves? How did they fare in its doing? To be true, any answer to such questions must have variety in its details; to be complete, it should include some things for which space cannot here be found. In its main facts can be read part of the great story of the movements of peoples across the face of the earth, a story still far from its end, clearly so in the case of New Zealand.

Most white folk coming here in our early days thought of a task to be done. Even of the rest, a mere handful, hardly any came from mere curiosity. There was, it .is true, pleasure to be enjoyed—no new land ever offered more—but it was not often sought as tourists now seek it. It came in the course of much hard work; yet to do without, to make shift, to endure trial and to cope with danger, were the usual lot. Life, for our early settlers, was an adventure, not a picnic.

That was so, as is told in another pictured story of this series, on the way to the new land. More so was it after arrival. Strange conditions were met. Strangest of all was the necessary contact with the Maori, a warring race still in the Stone Age when the first white immigrants came. This con­tact deeply affected, at first, the lives of both races.

What was it that brought those first white immigrants, and what did they bring?

The European entry was very much like the earlier coming of the Maori. That, too, had the spirit of adventure; more, the manner of it was similar—the finding of these islands, then a return with news of their charm and resources, and later the setting out of parties, not altogether happy where they lived, to settle in the distant country. They brought their food-plants, domestic animals, fishing and hunting gear, their weapons and tools, their customs and ideas and laws. Their voyages hither were made at different times, to different parts of the coast; and separate settlements were founded.

Those new-comers, as the Mo-uri-uri — the people in occupation before most of the Maori canoes made landfall—must have called them, multiplied and spread, inland as well as along the shore. They practised their own arts and crafts, adapting them to novel conditions, and they put to new uses many things they discovered. They covered the land with their place-names, some brought from their former home, many descriptive of local features, most recounting their fresh ex­ploits and experiences, and all packed with history. Thus and thus did, in turn, the white settlers coming late upon their heels.

Rather haphazard this new invasion was in its beginning, but before long it took distinct form, being planned to get a foothold. In its very earliest days some who came had no thought of staying; a few, indeed, stayed against their will, and one or two—Samuel Marsden was one—came only to settle others.