NATIVE POPULATION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3464, 2 March 1912, Page 3

NATIVE POPULATION.

COOK STRAITS IN 1844. The Native population of Cook Straits in 1844 was estimated at 11.6-50, of which 1942 only were said to be women. There were thus eight males to one female. At. the same time another estimate placed the European population at 4600, of whom nearly half were women. From a population point of view, the chances in car.: of trouble were 5 to 1 in favor of the Europeans. It appears that it was a usual thing for the Maoris to sacrifice their female children in days of war, but the irony of the thing was that the want of women nearly always occasioned wars. Thousands of adult males were slaughtered in these conflicts, and there were thus two serious causes of depopulation—the female children killed in their infancy, the adult males in their maturity. The question has ofteir been asked, what would have happened to the Maori had these lands never been settled by Europeans, and from the foregoing it would appear that in the course of a very short period the Maoris would have shrunk in numbers to a tremendous extent.