The South Island Māori population.

Abstract

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.