1885: The Aryan Maori
June 5, 2020
By AHNZ
The Aryan Maori (1885) has come to be a book dismissed out of hand. The premise of the author, Edward Tregear, was that Maori were migrants from Aryan stock who had a previous home around India. Tregear made a case that was seriously considered in his day but dismissed in our time completely.
Why?
The Treaty of Waitangi signatures do resemble sanskrit and the human species did have to have a common ancestor didn’t it? So if you want to contemplate this sort of thing it comes down to Asia or Africa. Pick your ‘cradle of civilisation’. Humans did not originate on the Pacific Islands.
Lots of ethnographers, like Julius von Haast, reckoned Maoris came from Egypt. Lots of Maoris claimed they came from the Middle East– a lost tribe of the Jews.
Tregear was going strong in saying that both British and Maori shared this common Aryan ancestor. So he’s not being derogatory or racist or decisive, he’s unifying. Indeed, as a Liberal Government era public servant¹, and thus Socialist Statist, Tregear naturally provided doctrine to suit that (r-selected) Melting Pot ideology. ‘Lefties’ like to think of everyone as being part of one big family herd. That’s why they like the UN and globalism.
The historiographic push-back came with Keith Sinclair in the mid-20th century, dismissing Tregear as unqualified amateur. That’s what has stuck.
Yet, we were all amateurs about the Maori in those days. Thomas Kendall and Richard Owen didn’t have textbooks about the language or the moa, they’d have to write their own.
“I would also suspect that Tregear advances enough evidence as to residual knowledge of animals that Maori had never seen, but were embedded in their language, to be interesting rather than compelling. He provides the example of Taurus =bull. M. Tara (courage) Tararua (two peaks) Taraweti (hostile) Tareha (he was red) Tareha (he threw the earth over him) Taringa (he was obstinate) Tarore (he had a noose put on him) Taru (he ate grass)…”- Don Jacobs; comment to AHNZ; Facebook
At least Tregear was having a go. What do we do now? Avoid Maori anthropology because it’s Politically Incorrect and Wrong Think to contemplate! His ideas are worthy of serious consideration.
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1 The first edition of the book was issued out of the Government Printing Office. So I guess you could say it was sponsored by the ‘New Zealand on Air’ of the day; Ref. Colonist, 15/8/1885; Papers Past
Image ref. Early edition (1st?) cover of the book. Colour enhanced a little bit by AHNZ to draw out the image of the Maori and the animal he is supposed to have a word for but not seen for many generations- the cow
The Aryan Maori was first published c.10 August, 1885
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