The Morioris of Chatham Islands (Classic Reprint) PDF Download

Author: H. D. Skinner
Publisher: Forgotten Books
ISBN: 9780331932508
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Excerpt from The Morioris of Chatham Islands My attention was first turned to the material culture of the Morioris about the year 1906. The view that then prevailed in New Zealand, a view which has been supported by the weighty authority of Percy Smith was that the ancestors Of the Morioris were representatives Of the earliest ethnic wave into New Zealand, whence they had been driven by later and more warlike immigrants from Tahiti. If this were the true account Of their origin, and the Morioris did represent the earliest stratum Of mankind in New Zealand, it was evident that a study Of their social system, of their religion, and of their art would yield results of the first importance in any attempt that might be made to write the history of society. Religion, or material culture in New Zealand. There were, however, several facts which seemed to indicate that the problem Of Maori and Moriori origins was not so simple as the current explanation assumed. That explanation was based on traditional evidence derived from the Maoris, for Moriori tradition was vague and uncertain. The Maori tradition stated that the people whom the Tahitians found in New Zealand were black and that their culture was extremely primitive. But Moriori culture, though simple, was not in any way more primitive than that Of the Maoris. And since a series of investigations in Moriori craniology had shown that the Morioris were in no degree less Polynesian than the Maoris, it became evident the Maori traditional account was not in consonance with the facts, and that an examination Of all other lines of evidence was called for. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.