Abstract
The New Zealand Maoris live and work now in peace as citizens of a modern nation, but they are a people who, like some North American Indian groups and the Zulu of Africa, first became famous as warriors. A great deal has been written about Maori warfare. Particularly those aspects which seemed strange to European observers—cannibalism, the taking of heads, fighting in order to avenge verbal insults — have been richly and conspicuously documented, but copious materials on other aspects have also been made available to various observers and students of Maori life in the two centuries since Captain Cook and other Europeans first landed in New Zealand. In this chapter the materials are used to indicate that a multiphase war process operated adaptively in relation to population pressure in pre-European times and to show how it later became maladaptive and, in effect, a source of novel perturbations for the Maoris.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1976 Plenum Press, New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Vayda, A.P. (1976). Maoris and Muskets. In: War in Ecological Perspective. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2193-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2193-4_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-2195-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4684-2193-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive