Nicholas once saw an instrument like a flute, made of bone, very ingeniously carved, hanging at the breast of one of the natives; and when he asked what bone it was formed from, the possessor immediately told him that it was the bone of a man. It was a larger bone than any of the native animals could have supplied.

Vocal music is one of the favourite amusements of the New Zealanders. Destitute as they are of the art of writing, they have, nevertheless, their song poetry, part of which is traditionary, and part the produce of such passing events as strongly excite their feelings, and prompt their fancy to this only work of composition of which they have any knowledge.

Certain individuals among them are distinguished for their success in these effusions; but the people inhabiting the vicinity of the East Cape seem generally to enjoy the highest reputation for this species of talent. These tribes, indeed, are described as in many other respects decidedly superior to the rest of their countrymen. It is among them that all the arts known in New Zealand flourish in the greatest perfection; as, for example, the working of mats, and the making and polishing of the different instruments used in war.

Yet, although very numerous, they are themselves of a peaceful disposition. Their houses are said to be both larger and better built than those in any other part of the island; and their plantations are also more extensive. This seems, in short, to be the manufacturing district of New Zealand, the only part of the country in which anything like regular industry has found an abode. Hence the pre-eminence of its inhabitants, both in the useful and the elegant arts.

Nicholas has printed some specimens of the songs of the New Zealanders, which, when sung, are always accompanied, he informs us, by a great deal of action. As he has given merely the words, however, without either the music or a translation, it is needless to transcribe them. The airs he describes as in general melodious and agreeable, and as having a resemblance to our chanting.

One of the songs which he gives is that which is always sung at the feast which takes place when the planting of the potatoes commences. "It describes," he says, "the havoc occasioned by the violence of an east wind. Their potatoes are destroyed by it. They plant them again, and, being more successful, they express their joy while taking them out of the ground, with the words, ah kiki! ah kiki! ah kiki!—eat away! eat away! eat away! Which is the conclusion of the song." Of another, "the subject is a man carving a canoe, when his enemies approach the shore in a canoe to attack him; endeavouring to conceal himself, he runs in among the bushes, but is pursued, overtaken, and immediately put to death."

Every more remarkable occasion of their rude and turbulent life seems to have its appropriate song. The planting of their potatoes, the gathering in of the crop, the commencement of the battle, the interment of the dead, are all celebrated, each by its peculiar chorus, as well as, probably, most of their other customary excitements, both of mirth and of mourning.

The New Zealanders have a variety of national dances; but none of them have been minutely described. Some of them are said to display much grace of movement; others are chiefly remarkable for the extreme violence with which they are performed. As among the other South Sea tribes, when there are more dancers than one, the most perfect uniformity of step and attitude is preserved by all of them; and they do not consider it a dance at all when this rule is not attended to.

Captain Dillon very much amused some of those who came on board his ship by a sample of English dancing, which he made his men give them on deck. A company of soldiers going through their manual exercise would certainly have come much nearer their notions of what a dance ought to be.

Although there are no written laws in New Zealand, all these matters are, no doubt, regulated by certain universally understood rules, liberal enough in all probability, in the license which they allow to the tyranny of the privileged class, but still fixing some boundaries to its exercise, which will accordingly be but rarely overstepped. Thus, the power which the chief seems to enjoy of depriving any of his slaves of life may be limited to certain occasions only; as, for instance, the death of some member of the family, whose manes, it is conceived, demand to be propitiated by such an offering. That in such eases slaves are often sacrificed in New Zealand, we have abundant evidence.

Cruise even informs us that when a son of one of the chiefs died in Marsden's house, in New South Wales, it required the interposition of that gentleman's authority to prevent some of the boy's countrymen, who were with him, from killing a few of their slaves, in honour of their deceased friend. On other occasions, it is likely that the life of the slave can only be taken when he has been convicted of some delinquency; although, as the chief is the sole judge of his criminality, he will find this, it may be thought, but a slight protection. The domestic slaves of the chiefs, however, it is quite possible, and even likely, are much more completely at the mercy of their caprice and passion than the general body of the common people, whose vassalage may, after all, consist in little more than the obligation of following them to their wars, and rendering them obedience in such other matters of public concern.

Between the chiefs and the common people, who, as we have already mentioned, are called "cookees," there seems to be also a pretty numerous class, distinguished by the name of rungateedas, or, as it has been more recently written, rangatiras, which appears to answer nearly to the English term gentry.[AX] It consists of those who are connected by relationship with the families of the chiefs; and who, though not possessed of any territorial rights, are, as well as the chiefs themselves, looked upon as almost of a different species from the inferior orders, from whom they are probably as much separated in their political condition and privileges as they are in the general estimation of their rank and dignity. The term rangatira, indeed, in its widest signification, includes the chiefs themselves, just as our English epithet gentleman does the highest personages in the realm.

Although there is no general government in New Zealand, the chiefs differ from each other in power; and some of them seem even to exercise, in certain respects, a degree of authority over others. Those who are called areekees,[AY] in particular, are represented as of greatly superior rank to the common chiefs. It was, probably, a chief of this class of whom Cook heard at various places where he put in along the east coast of the northern island, on his first visit to the country. He calls him Teratu; and he found his authority to extend, he says, from Cape Turnagain to the neighbourhood of Mercury Bay. The eight districts, too, into which this island was divided by Toogee,[AZ] in the map of it which he drew for Captain King, were in all likelihood the nominal territories, or what we may call feudal domains, of so many areekees.

The account which Rutherford gives of the law, or custom, which prevails in New Zealand in regard to the crime of theft, may seem at first sight to be somewhat irreconcilable with the statements of other authorities, who tell us that this crime is regarded by the natives in so heinous a light that its usual punishment is death; whereas, according to him, it would seem scarcely to be considered by them as a crime at all.

This apparent disagreement, however, arises, in all probability, merely from that misapprehension, or imperfect conception, of the customs of a foreign people into which we are so apt to be misled by the tendency we have to mix up constantly our own previously acquired notions with the simple facts that present themselves to us, and to explain the latter by the former. With our habits and improved ideas of morality, we see in theft both a trespass upon the arbitrary enactments of society, which demands the correction of the civil magistrate, and a violation of that natural equity which is independent of all political arrangements, and would make it unfair and wrong for one man to take to himself what belongs to another, although there were no such thing as what is commonly called a government in existence.

But in the mind of the New Zealander these simple notions of right and wrong have been warped, and, as it were, suffocated, by a multitude of unnatural and monstrous inventions, which have grown up along with them from his very birth. How misapplied are the epithets, natural and artificial, when employed, as they often are, to characterise the savage and civilized state! It is the former, in truth, which is by far the most artificial; and much of civilization consists in the abolition of the numerous devices by which it has falsified and perverted the natural dispositions of the human heart and understanding, and in the reformation of society upon principles more accordant with their unsophisticated dictates.

Probably the only case in which the New Zealander looks upon theft as a crime is when it is accompanied by a breach of hospitality, or is committed upon those who have, in the customary and understood manner, entrusted themselves to his friendship and honour. In any other circumstances, he will scarcely hold himself disgraced by any act of depredation which he can contrive to accomplish without detection; however much the fear of not escaping with impunity may often deter him from making the attempt.

Then, as for the estimation in which the crime is politically held, this, we need not doubt, will be very much regulated by the relative situation in regard to rank of the two parties. Most of the European visitors who have hitherto given us an account of the country have mixed chiefly with the higher classes of its inhabitants, and consequently learned but little with regard to the condition of the great body of the population, except in so far as it affected, or was affected by, that of the chiefs. Hence the impression they have taken up that theft in New Zealand is looked upon as one of the worst of crimes, and always punished with death. It is so, we have no doubt, when committed by one of the common people upon any of the privileged class. In that case, the mean and despised condition of the delinquent, as compared with that of the person whose rights he has dared to invade, converts what might otherwise have scarcely been deemed a transgression at all into something little short of sacrilege. The thief is therefore knocked on the head at once, or strung up on a gallows; for that, too, seems to be one of the modes of public punishment for this species of crime in New Zealand. This severity is demanded by the necessity which is felt for upholding the social edifice in its integrity; and is also altogether in keeping with the slight regard in which the lives of the lower orders are universally held, and the love of bloodshed by which this ferocious people is distinguished.

But when one "cookee," or common man, pilfers from another, it is quite another matter. In this case, the act entirely wants those aggravations which, in the estimation of a New Zealander, give it all its criminality; and the parties, besides, are so insignificant, that the notion of avenging any injury which the one may have suffered from the other by the public execution of the offender would probably be deemed in that country nearly as unreasonable as we should hold a proposal for the application of such a scheme of government in correction of the quarrels and other irregularities of the lower animals.

It need not, therefore, surprise us to be told, especially when we consider also the trivial value of any articles of property they possess, that thieving among the common people there is regarded, not as a crime, but as an art, in which, as in other arts, the skilful and dexterous practitioner deserves reward rather than punishment; nearly as it was regarded among the Spartans, who punished the detected thief, indeed, but not so much for his attempt as for his failure; or more nearly still as it is said to have been among the ancient Egyptians, by whom such acts were, in all cases, allowed to be perpetrated with impunity.

This view will go far to explain various incidents which we find noticed in the different accounts of New Zealand. The reports of the missionaries, in particular, abound with notices of individuals put to death by the chiefs for alleged acts of theft; but in every case of this kind which is mentioned, the person punished is, we believe, a slave. We have observed no instance, noted, in which the crime in question was punished, either with death or in any other way, when committed by one "cookee" on the property of another; and it is abundantly evident, from many things which are stated, that the natives themselves really do not consider the act as implying, in ordinary cases, that moral turpitude which we generally impute to it.

In one case which Marsden mentions, the brother of a chief, named Ahoudee Ogunna,[BA] conceiving himself to have been improperly treated by one of the missionaries, stole two earthen pots from another of them; but the explanation which the chief gave of the matter was that his brother had not stolen the pots, but had only taken them away with an intention to bring on an explanation respecting the conduct which had given him offence. The man's expectation here evidently was that his theft (if it was to be so called) would merely have the effect of making the missionaries as angry as he himself was, and so of rendering both parties equally anxious for a full discussion of their differences. He had himself, as he conceived, been affronted in a manner not to be passed over; and his stealing of the pots he meant merely as a spirited act of retaliation, which would in some degree throw back the insult he had received upon those who had inflicted it, and make them in their turn feel mortified and on fire for satisfaction.

He certainly did not imagine for a moment that he was at all degrading himself by the method he adopted for attaining this end. The degradation, in his conception of the matter, would be all with the party robbed. He had, however, in his anger, forgotten one thing, which, according even to the notions of the New Zealanders, it was most material that he should have remembered, as his more considerate brother felt as soon as he heard of the transaction, and as even he himself was afterwards brought to acknowledge. The chief, besides having experienced much kindness from the missionaries, was the very person from whom they had purchased the ground on which their settlement was established, and on whose friendship, at least, they had therefore a fair right to count, if they were not even to regard themselves as in some degree under his special protection. That personage felt the force of these considerations so strongly that, in order to show how much he was vexed and ashamed at his brother's conduct, he burned his own house to the ground, and left his usual place of residence, with a determination never to return to it so long as his brother lived.

On the morning of his departure, the high-spirited chief came to take leave of the missionaries, when he told them that he had been on the spot where his house stood before he burned it, to weep with his friends, and showed them how much he had lacerated his face, arms, and other parts of his body, in which his friends had followed his example. His brother, too, at last came to them, quite penitent for his hasty conduct, and offered to restore the only one of the pots which he still had, the other having been already stolen from him by one of his countrymen. Accordingly, he soon after sent his son with the article; and the boy having been presented with six fish-hooks, he immediately brought them back, with a message, that his father would take nothing for the pot.

Such acts of retaliation as that to which the brother of Ahoudee Ogunna here had recourse are often resorted to by the chiefs with something of a similar design, to avenge themselves, namely, for injuries which they conceive they have sustained, or to bring about those ulterior measures by which they may obtain for their grievances complete atonement or redress. In this way, many wars arise. But it is a point of honour with a chief never to touch what belongs to those who have trusted themselves to his friendship, and against whom he has no claim for satisfaction on account of any old affront or outrage. To be supposed capable of doing so would be felt by any of them as an intolerable imputation.



We find a striking instance of this, to pass over many others that might be quoted, in the conduct of Tetoro, who returned home to New Zealand from Port Jackson, along with Cruise, in the "Dromedary." It was thought necessary, during the passage, to take from this chief a box containing some gunpowder, which he had got with him, and to lodge it in the magazine until the ship arrived at New Zealand. "Though every exertion," says Cruise, "was used, to explain the reason why he was requested to give it up, and the strongest assurances made that it should be restored hereafter, he either could not or would not understand what was said to him. Upon parting with the property, which, next to his musket, was in his eyes the greatest treasure in the world, he fell into an agony of grief and despair which it was quite distressing to witness, repeatedly exclaiming, 'No good,' and, rolling himself up in his mat, he declined the conversation of every one. He remained in this state so long that the powder was at length brought back; but he refused to take it, saying, 'that they might again put it in the magazine, since they must now be aware that he had not stolen it.'"

Similar to that of Tetoro, was the conduct of a chief whom Marsden met with on his first visit to New Zealand, and who was so much grieved and ashamed at the circumstance of one of his dependents having stolen some trifle from that gentleman, that he sat for two days and nights on the deck of the ship, and could not be prevailed upon to enter the cabin.[BB]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote AT: I pea, "Of course."]

[Footnote AU: Kanikani, to dance, as in the haka.]

[Footnote AV: These words are not in accord with the present system of spelling, there being no "sh" and no "c" in the Maori orthography. The former name is probably Hau, and the latter Peka. The letter "E" placed in front of them is used by the Maoris to denote the vocative, and Rutherford has evidently taken it as part of the word. Sometimes the "E"—which is pronounced as "a" in "pay"—is placed both before and after the name of the person addressed, as "E Peka, e!"]

[Footnote AW: These words are not in accord with the present system of spelling, there being no "sh" and no "c" in the Maori orthography. The former name is probably Hau, and the latter Peka. The letter "E" placed in front of them is used by the Maoris to denote the vocative, and Rutherford has evidently taken it as part of the word. Sometimes the "E"—which is pronounced as "a" in "pay"—is placed both before and after the name of the person addressed, as "E Peka, e!"]

[Footnote AX: The latter word is correct.]

[Footnote AY: Arikis.]

[Footnote AZ: Tuki.]

[Footnote BA: This is the man referred to in a previous chapter, who signed a deed of sale to Marsden by the pattern of his tattoo.]

[Footnote BB: Maning, in "Old New Zealand," gives a delightful account of the manner in which the law of muru, or plunder, ruled with an iron hand in the ancient Maoriland.]



CHAPTER VIII.

With regard to many of the other habits of the New Zealanders, Rutherford in general corroborates the testimony of other travellers.

He mentions particularly their extreme inattention to personal cleanliness, a circumstance which very much surprised Nicholas, as it seemed to present an unaccountable contrast to the neatness and order which were usually to be found both in their plantations and huts.

All the natives, Rutherford states, are overrun with vermin, which lodge not only in their heads, but in their mats. "Their way of destroying them in their mats," he adds, "is by making a fire, on which, having thrown a quantity of green bushes, they spread the mat over the whole, when the steam from the leaves compels the vermin to retreat to the surface: these the women are very active in catching on such occasions with both hands, and devouring greedily. Sometimes two or three will be catching them at the same mat."

The New Zealanders cure their fish, Rutherford tells us, by dipping them a great many times in salt water, and then drying them in the sun. The large mussels they first bake in the usual manner, and then, taking them out of the shell, string them together, and hang them up over the fire to dry in the smoke. Thus prepared, they eat like old cheese, and will keep for years. The coomeras, or sweet potatoes, are also cured in the same manner, which makes them eat like gingerbread. Their potatoes the natives pack in baskets made of green flax, and in this way preserve them for the winter. There are, however, three months in the year during which they live upon little except turnips, and at this time they do with almost no drink. The baskets in which they keep their provisions, and apply to other domestic purposes, are formed with considerable ingenuity, and with some taste, in their decorations.

Notwithstanding the stormy seas by which their islands are surrounded, and the woods, swamps, and rivers, which oppose such difficulties in the way of passing from one place to another through the heart of the country, the New Zealanders are known to be in the habit of making long journeys, both along the coasts in their canoes, and through the interior on foot.

Rutherford gives us some account of a journey which he once accomplished in company with the chief Aimy.

"I took," says he, "my wife Epecka with me, and we were attended by about twenty slave-women to carry our provisions, every one of whom bore on her back, besides a supply for her own consumption, about thirty pounds of potatoes, and drove before her at the same time a pig, which she held by a string tied to its fore-leg.

"The men never travel without being armed. Our journey was made sometimes by water and sometimes by land; and, proceeding in this manner, we arrived, in about a month, at a place called Taranake,[BC] on the coast of Cook Strait, where we were received by Otago,[BD] a great chief, who had come from near the South Cape. On meeting we saluted each other in the customary manner by touching noses, and there was also a great deal of crying, as usual.

"Here I saw an Englishman, named James Mowry, who told me that he had formerly been a boy belonging to a ship called the 'Sydney Cove,' which had put in near the South Cape, when a boat's crew, of which he was one, had been sent on shore for the purpose of trading with the natives. They were attacked, however, and every man of them killed except himself, he having been indebted for his preservation to his youth and the protection of Otago's daughter: this lady he had since married. He had now been eight years in the country, and had become so completely reconciled to the manners and way of life of the natives, that he had resolved never to leave it. He was twenty-four years of age, handsome, and of middle size, and had been well tattooed. He had also been made a chief, and had often accompanied the natives to their wars. He spoke their language, and had forgotten a great deal of his own. He told me he had heard of the capture of our ship, and gave me an account of the deaths of Smith and Watson, two of my unfortunate shipmates. I, in turn, related to him my story, and what I had gone through.[BE]

"The village of Taranake stands by the sea-side, and the manners and customs of the inhabitants are the same as prevail in other parts of the island.

"We remained here six weeks; and during this time I employed myself in looking out for a ship passing through the Straits, by which I might make my escape, but was never fortunate enough to see one. I kept my intention, however, a secret from Mowry, for he was too much attached to the natives for me to trust him.

"On leaving Taranake we took our way along the coast, and after a journey of six weeks arrived at the East Cape, where we met with a great chief, named Bomurry, belonging to the Bay of Islands. He told us that he resided in the neighbourhood of Kendal,[BF] the missionary. He had about five hundred warriors with him, and several war-canoes, in one of which I observed a trunk, having on it the name of Captain Brin, of the 'Asp,' South Seaman. These people had also with them a number of muskets, with polished barrels, and a few small kegs of powder, as well as a great quantity of potatoes and flax mats. They had plundered and murdered nearly every person that lived between the East Cape and the river Thames; and the whole country dreaded the name of Bomurry.

"This great warrior showed us several of the heads of chiefs whom he had killed on this expedition, and these, he said, he intended to carry back with him to the Bay of Islands, to sell for gunpowder to the ships that touched there. He and his followers having taken leave of us, and set sail in their canoes, we also left the East Cape the day following, and proceeded on our journey homewards, travelling during the day, and encamping at night in the woods, where we slept around large fires under the branches of the trees. In this way we arrived in four days at our own village, where I was received by Eshou, my eldest wife, with great joy. I was much fatigued by my journey, as was also my other wife, Epecka, who had accompanied me."

The person whom Rutherford here calls Bomurry is doubtless the chief described in most of the other recent accounts of New Zealand under the name of Pomaree, or Pomarree[BG], one of the most extraordinary characters in that country. He had taken this name instead of another by which he used to be called, Nicholas informs us, a short time before he first saw him in 1815, because he had heard that it was that of the king of Otaheite, according to the practice which prevails among his countrymen of frequently changing their names, and calling themselves after persons of whose power or rank they have conceived a high idea.

Pomaree is described by this gentleman as having been looked upon, even in his own country, as a monster of rapacity and cruelty, always involved in quarrels with his neighbours, and in the habit of stealing their property whenever he had an opportunity. Duaterra asserted that on a recent occasion he had made an incursion into his territory, and, without any provocation, murdered six of his people, the bodies of all of whom he afterwards devoured, not even their heads having escaped his gluttony, after he had stuck them upon a stick and roasted them at the fire.

The New Zealand chiefs, however, not excepting the most respectable among them, were found to be sadly given to calumniate one another by all sorts of fictions; and even Pomaree, bad as he really was, seems sometimes to have been worse reported of by the others than he deserved.

Upon another occasion Korro-korro told a long story about a design which he said had been formed to cut off the ship belonging to the missionaries, and of which he maintained that Pomaree was the principal instigator; but this was afterwards discovered to be a mere invention of that otherwise very honourable chief.

Notwithstanding Pomaree's bad reputation, indeed, it is remarkable that we do not find a single instance anywhere recorded in which any European had reason to complain of his conduct. Nicholas was once dreadfully alarmed by the apprehension that he had decoyed away his friend, Marsden, to murder him; but was very soon relieved by the return of the reverend gentleman from a friendly walk which he had been enjoying, in the company of his supposed assassin, through one of the woods on his territory.

Pomaree, in truth, was too thoroughly aware of the advantages to be derived from the visits of the Europeans to think of exercising his murderous propensities upon their persons, however fond he might have been of embruing his hands in the blood of his own countrymen.

"We found Pomaree," says Nicholas, "to be a very extraordinary character; he was of more service to us in procuring timber than all the other chiefs put together; and I never met, in any part of the world, with a man who showed so much impatient avidity for transacting business. His abilities, too, in this line were very great; he was an excellent judge of several articles, and could give his opinion of an axe as well as any European; while handling it with ecstasy the moment he got it in his possession, his eyes would still feast themselves on so valuable an acquisition."

He then relates an anecdote of him which strikingly corresponds with one of the circumstances which Rutherford mentions: his custom of trafficking in preserved heads.

"This man," continues Nicholas, "displayed upon every occasion a more uncomplying spirit of independence than any of the other chiefs. It is customary with the New Zealanders to preserve from putrefaction, by a curious method, the heads of the enemies they have slain in battle; and Pomaree had acquired so great a proficiency in this art that he was considered the most expert at it of any of his countrymen. The process, as I was informed, consists of taking out the brains, and drying the head in such a manner as to keep the flesh entire; but in doing this an uncommon degree of skill and experience is required. Marsden put some questions to Pomaree one day about the plan he pursued in this art that gave him so decided a superiority over the others; but he was not willing to make him a direct reply, as he knew it was a subject on which we reflected with horror, and one which in its detail must be shocking to our feelings. But my friend asking him if he could procure a head preserved in this manner, it occurred to him that he might receive an axe for his trouble; and this idea made the man of business not only enter into a copious explanation of his system, but induced him also to offer us a sample of his practice, by telling us he would go and shoot some people who had killed his son, if we would supply him with powder for the purpose; and then, bringing back their heads, would show us all we wished to know about his art of preserving them.

"It will easily be supposed that this sanguinary proposal immediately put an end to all further interrogatories; and Marsden, whose motive for questioning him on the subject was not to discover the nature of a practice so revolting to humanity, but to develop more fully the character of the individual, told him he must fight no more, and desired him, in positive terms, never to attempt to bring any sample of his art on board, as he had no intention of seeing it himself at the time he inquired about it, nor would he suffer any one in the ship to countenance such a shocking exhibition.

"This was a sad disappointment to Pomaree, who found himself deceived in the hopes he had formed of increasing his wealth by the addition of another axe; and I cannot help believing that, for so tempting a reward, he would not have hesitated to take the life of the first person that came in his way, provided he could have done it with impunity. This chief omitted no opportunity of setting forth his great personal qualifications, as likewise the extensive authority he possessed; and he was constantly boasting of his warlike achievements, despising his rivals, and extolling himself over all the other heroes of New Zealand."

Cruise has given us a short account of the manner of preserving heads; and we find it also detailed in Rutherford's journal, somewhat more minutely. According to him the skull is first completely emptied of its contents, the eyes and tongue being likewise extracted; after which the nostrils and entire inside of the skull are stuffed with flax. At the neck, where the head has been cut from the body, they draw the skin together like the mouth of a purse, leaving, however, an open space large enough to admit the hand.

They then wrap it up in a quantity of green leaves, and in this state expose it to the fire till it is well steamed; after which the leaves are taken off, and it is next hung up to dry in the smoke, which causes the flesh to become tough and hard. Both the hair and teeth are preserved, and the tattooing on the face remains as plain as when the person was alive. The head, when thus cured, will keep for ever, if it be preserved dry.

Cruise says that the heads are only exposed to a current of dry air; but it appears, from Rutherford's account, that they are hung in the smoke of a wood fire, and are thus, in fact, preserved from decaying principally by being impregnated with the pyroligneous acid. That the New Zealanders are well acquainted with the antiseptic powers of this extract is proved also by what was formerly stated as to their method of curing mussels. A French writer considers that this art of preserving heads is a proof of some original connection between the New Zealanders and the ancient world; as the process is as effective as that by which the Egyptians prepared their mummies.

In savage countries the spirit of war is very much a spirit of personal hostility; and both because of this, and from the state of society not admitting of the erection of expensive public memorials which elsewhere, or in another age, are employed to preserve the renown of military exploits, the barbarian victor generally celebrates his triumph on the body of his slain enemy, in disfiguring which he first exercises his ingenuity, and afterwards in converting it into a permanent trophy of his prowess.

The ancient Scythian warrior, Herodotus tells us, was wont to carry away the heads of all those whom he slew in battle, to present to his king; and the ancient Gauls, it is said, used to hang these bloody spoils around the necks of their horses. The Gauls are asserted also to have been in the practice of embalming the heads which they brought home from their wars, of which they had large collections, which they kept in chests. These they used to show with much exultation to the strangers who visited their country; boasting that neither they nor their ancestors had ever been known to dispose of such honourable heirlooms for any price that could be offered.

Among some races it has been the custom to preserve only the scalp; as, for instance, among the Indians of America. The taking of scalps, however, is also a practice of great antiquity. The Scythians used to hang the scalps of their enemies to the harness of their horses; and he was deemed the most distinguished warrior whose equipage was most plentifully decorated with these ornaments. Some were accustomed to sew numbers of scalps together, so as to form a cloak, in which they arrayed themselves. It was also usual for the warriors of this nation to tear off the skin from the right hands of their slain enemies, and to preserve it with the nails attached; and sometimes they flayed the whole body, and, after drying the skin, made use of it as a covering for their horses.

Some of the savage tribes of America are said to have been accustomed to practice the same barbarity, and to convert the skins of the hands into pouches for holding their tobacco.

The history of Scotland affords an instance, even in comparatively recent times, of a victorious party, in the bitterness of their contempt and hatred, employing the skin of a slain enemy in a somewhat similar manner. Hugh Cressingham, appointed by Edward I. Lord Chief Justice of Scotland, having been slain at Stirling Bridge in an attack by Wallace, the Scots flayed him, and made saddles and girths of his skin.

To recur to the practices of a higher state of civilization, our own custom, which existed as late as the last century, of exposing the heads of traitors, although meant as a warning, in the same way as hanging in chains, was perhaps a relic of those ferocious ages when it was not considered mean and brutal to carry revenge beyond the grave. The executions in London, after the rebellion of 1745, were followed by such a revolting display, useless for any object of salutary terror, and calculated only to excite a vulgar curiosity. Horace Walpole, in a very few words, describes the feelings with which the public crowded to this sight:—"I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads of Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spying glasses at a halfpenny a look."

The New Zealanders have, therefore, in some degree, a justification for this custom in the somewhat similar acts of civilized communities. At any rate, in preserving, as they do, the heads of their enemies, they only follow a practice which has been common to many other barbarous tribes.

Although Pomaree, it would appear, made a merchandise of these heads when he had the opportunity, his countrymen, in general, are far from treating them with so much disrespect. It was with great reluctance that some of them were prevailed upon to sell one to Mr. Banks, when he was with Cook in Queen Charlotte Sound, in 1770; and nothing could induce them to part with a second. They are, in fact, preserved as spoils or trophies during the continuance of the war; and their restoration to the party from whom they have been taken is so indispensable a preliminary to the conclusion of a peace, that it is said no chief would dispose of them, unless it were his determination never to come to terms with his opponents; so that we may suppose this was what Pomaree had resolved upon.

The brain is eaten, like the rest of the body; and the eyes are also frequently devoured by the conqueror, especially the left eye, which, it is believed, ascends to heaven and becomes a star. Shungie is stated, upon one occasion, to have eaten the left eye of a great chief whom he had killed in battle, under the idea of thus increasing the glory and brightness of his own left eye, when it should be transferred to the firmament; for it is understood that when any one eats of the person he has killed, the dead man becomes a part of himself.



Nicholas tells another amusing story of Pomaree's style of doing "business," which we shall also give in his own words. "This wily chief," says he, "had cast a longing eye upon a chisel belonging to one of the missionaries, and to obtain it he had brought some fish on board, which he presented to the owner of the chisel with so much apparent generosity and friendliness, that the other could not help considering it a gratuitous favour, and, receiving it as such, told him he felt very grateful for his kindness.

"But Pomaree had no idea of any such disinterested liberality, and as soon as the fish were eaten, he immediately demanded the chisel in return; which, however, was not granted, as it was a present much too valuable to be given away for so trifling a consideration. Incensed at the denial, the chief flew into a violent rage, and testified, by loud reproaches, how grievously he was provoked by the ill-success of his project. He told the person, who very properly refused to comply with his demand, that 'he was no good,' and that he would never again bring him anything more. He attempted the same crafty experiment upon another of our party also, but this proved equally abortive, the person being well aware of his character, and knowing he would require from him ten times more than the worth of his pretended favour."

Though so covetous and crafty himself, however, Pomaree had no mercy to show for the delinquencies of others. On one occasion, when a poor "cookee" had been detected in the commission of some petty theft about the vessel, he was loud in his exhortations to the captain to hang him up immediately. The man appears, indeed, to have been altogether divested even of those natural affections which scarcely any of his savage countrymen but himself were found to be without.

When Marsden and Nicholas left New Zealand, a number of the chiefs sent their sons with them to Port Jackson; and such a scene of anguish took place on the parting between the parents and their children that there was no European present, Nicholas says, not excepting the most obdurate sailor on board, who was not more or less affected. "But I cannot help noticing," he adds, "that in the general expression of inconsolable distress, Pomaree was the only person who showed no concern; he took leave of his son with all the indifference imaginable, and hurrying into his canoe, paddled back to the shore—a solitary exception to the affecting sensibility of his countrymen."

Even Pomaree, however, could weep on some occasions, as the following account which Marsden gives us of an interview he had with him four or five years after this will show. "He told me," says Marsden, "that he was very angry that I had not brought a blacksmith for him; and that when he heard that there was no blacksmith for him, he sat down and wept much, and also his wives. I assured him that he should have one, as soon as one could be got for him. He replied it would be of no use to him to send a blacksmith when he was dead; and that he was at present in the greatest distress: his wooden spades were all broke, and he had not an axe to make any more; his canoes were all broke, and he had not a nail or a gimlet to mend them with; his potato grounds were uncultivated, and he had not a hoe to break them up with, nor a tool to employ his people; and that, for want of cultivation, he and his people would have nothing to eat. He begged me to compare the land of Tippoonah,[BH] which belonged to the inhabitants of Ranghee-hoo[BI] and Shungie, with his; observing, that their land was already prepared for planting, because a smith was there, and they could get hoes, &c. I endeavoured to pacify his mind with promises, but he paid little attention to what I said in respect to sending him a smith at a future period."

Pomaree was by much too cunning to be cheated of his object in this way. He was evidently determined not to go without something in hand; and nothing accordingly would drive him from his point.

When Marsden tried to divert his attention to another subject by asking him if he should wish to go to England, he replied at once that he should not; adding, with his characteristic shrewdness, that he was a little man when at Port Jackson, and should be less in England; but in his own country he was a great king. The conference ended at last by an express promise that he should have immediately three hoes, an axe, a few nails, and a gimlet. This instantly put him in great good humour.

We have collected these notices in order to give a more complete illustration of so singular and interesting a character as that formed by the union of the rude and bloodthirsty barbarian with the bustling trafficker. It is an exhibition of the savage mind in a new guise. We have only to add, with regard to Pomaree, that it appears by other authorities, as well as by the notice we find in Rutherford, that he was in the habit of making very devastating excursions occasionally to the southern part of the island. When Cruise left New Zealand in 1820, he had been away on one of these expeditions nearly a year, nor was it known exactly where he had gone to. The people about the mouth of the Thames said they had seen him since he left home, but he had long ago left their district for one still farther south. The last notice we find of him, is in a letter from the Rev. H. Williams, in the "Missionary Register" for 1827, in which it is stated, that he had a short time before fallen in battle, having been cut to pieces, with many of his followers, by a tribe on whom he had made an attack.

This event, of the circumstances of which Dillon was furnished with a particular account by some of the near relations of the deceased chief, took place in the southern part of the island.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote BC: This is one of the discrepancies in Rutherford's narrative. Taranaki is a district on the West Coast of the North Island, and is about 150 miles from Cook Strait.]

[Footnote BD: Otago is a large province in the southern part of the South Island, 300 miles from the Strait. Rutherford probably refers to Takou, a Wairarapa chief, who was connected with the Ngai-Tahu of Otago.]

[Footnote BE: It is supposed that the man was "Jim the Maori," the latter word being wrongly spelt "Moury" in the manuscript of Rutherford's story. The man's real name was James Caddell. He was an Englishman by birth, and lived amongst the Maoris so long that he became one of them, adopting their customs and ideas. Those who have investigated his case believe that he belonged to the "Sydney Cove," a sealer, which sailed in New Zealand waters. Near the South Cape, a boat from a sealer was captured by the Maoris, and all the members of the crew except Caddell were killed and eaten. Caddell, according to his own account, was saved by running to a chief and touching his mat. He was sixteen years of age then. He married a chief's daughter, and became a Maori in all respects except colour. He was captured by Captain Edwardson, of the "Snapper," and was taken to Sydney, where he seems to have paraded as a savage chief. While he was with the Maoris, he almost forgot the English language, and found much difficulty in making himself understood by Captain Edwardson.]

[Footnote BF: Mr. Kendal was one of the missionaries who went to New Zealand with Marsden when missionary work in the country was begun.]

[Footnote BG: Pomare.]

[Footnote BH: Te Puna, at that time the principal town in the Bay of Islands.]

[Footnote BI: Rangihoua.]



CHAPTER IX.

The New Zealanders, according to Rutherford, have neither priests, nor places of worship, nor any religion except their superstitious dread of the Atua.

To an uneducated man, coming from a Christian country, the entire absence of all regular religious observances among these savages would very naturally give such an impression. Cook ascertained that they had no "morais"[BJ] or temples, like some of the other tribes of the South Seas; but he met with persons who evidently bore what we should call the priestly character.

The New Zealanders are certainly not without some notions of religion; and, in many particulars, they are a remarkably superstitious people. During the whole course of their lives, the imagined presence of the unseen and supernatural crosses them at every step. What has been already stated respecting the "taboo" may give some idea of how submissive and habitual is their sense of the power of the Divinity, and how entirely they conceive themselves to be in his hands; as well as what a constant and prying superintendence they imagine him to exercise over their conduct.

It would be easy to enumerate many minor superstitions, all indicative of the extraordinary influence of the same belief. They think, for instance, that if they were to allow a fire to be lighted under a shed where there are provisions, their god would kill them.

They have many superstitions, also, with regard to cutting their hair. Cook speaks, in the account of his third voyage, of a young man he had taken on board the ship, who, having one day performed this ceremony, could not be prevailed upon to eat a morsel till night, insisting that the atua would most certainly kill him if he did.

Cruise tells us that Tetoro, on the voyage from Port Jackson, cut the hair of one of his companions, and continued to repeat prayers over him during the whole operation.

Nicholas, having one day found another chief busy in cutting his wife's hair with a piece of sharp stone, was going to take up the implement after it had been used, but was immediately charged by the chief not to touch it, as the deity of New Zealand would wreak his vengeance on him if he presumed to commit so daring a piece of impiety.

"Laughing at his superstition," continues Nicholas, "I began to exclaim against its absurdity, but like Tooi, on a former occasion, he retorted by ridiculing our preaching, yet at the same time asking me to sermonize over his wife, as if his object was to have her exorcised; and upon my refusing, he began himself, but could not proceed from involuntary bursts of laughter."

On this occasion, the chief, when he had cut off the hair, collected it all together, and, carrying it to the outskirts of the town, threw it away. Cook remarks that he used to see quantities of hair tied to the branches of the trees near the villages. It is stated, in a letter from one of the missionaries, that the hair, when cut, is carefully collected, and buried in a secret place.

Certain superstitions have been connected with the cutting of the hair, from the most ancient times. Many allusions are found in the Greek and Roman writers to the practice of cutting off the hair of the dead, and presenting it as an offering to the infernal gods, in order to secure a free passage to Elysium for the person to whom it belonged. The passage in the fourth book of the "AEneid," where Iris appears by the command of Juno to liberate the soul of the expiring Queen of Carthage, by thus severing from her head the fatal lock, will occur to many of our readers.

Whatever may have been the origin of this superstition, it is probable that most of the other notions and customs which have prevailed in regard to the cutting of the hair are connected with it. The act in this way naturally became significant of the separation from the living world of the person on whom it was performed. Of the antiquity of this practice, we have a proof in a command given by Moses to the Jews:—"Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead." These were superstitious customs of the nations by whom they were surrounded.

The Gentiles used excessive lamentations, amounting to frenzy, at their funeral rites. According to Bruce, the Abyssinian woman, upon the death of a near relation, cuts the skin of both her temples with the nail of her little finger, which she leaves long on purpose; and thus every fair face throughout the country is disfigured with scars. The same notion of abstraction from the present life and its concerns is expressed by the clerical tonsure, so long known in the Christian church, and still retained among the Roman Catholics. It is still common, also, among ourselves, for widows, in the earlier period of their mourning, to cut off their hair, or to remove it back from the brow. Among all rude nations, besides, the hair has been held in peculiar estimation from its ornamental nature, and its capability of being formed into any shape, according to the fancy of its possessor, or the fashion of the country.

Amongst nations, especially, where the ordinary clothing of the people, from the materials of which it was formed, did not admit of being made very decorative, this consideration would be much regarded, and still more where no clothing was worn at all. In such cases, the hair, either of the head or of the beard, has usually been cherished with very affectionate care, and the mode of dressing it has been made matter of anxious regulation. Many of the barbarous nations of antiquity had each a method of cutting the hair peculiar to itself; and it was sometimes accounted the deepest mark of servitude which a conqueror could impose when he compelled the violation of this sacred rule of national manners.

We have a remnant of these old feelings in the reverence with which his beard is regarded by a Turk of the present day. It is recorded, too, that no reform which Peter the Great of Russia essayed to introduce among his semi-barbaric subjects was so pertinaciously resisted as his attempt to abbreviate their beards.

Marsden, on asking a New Zealander what he conceived the atua to be, was answered—"An immortal shadow." Although possessed, however, of the attributes of immortality, omni-presence, invisibility, and supreme power, he is universally believed to be in disposition merely a vindictive and malignant demon.

When one of the missionaries had one day been telling a number of them of the infinite goodness of God, they asked him if he was not joking with them. They believe that whenever any person is sick, his illness is occasioned by the atua, in the shape of a lizard, preying upon his entrails; and, accordingly, in such cases, they often address the most horrid imprecations and curses to the invisible cannibal, in the hope of thereby frightening him away. They imagine that at other times he amuses himself in entangling their nets and oversetting their canoes. Of late years they have suspected that he has been very angry with them for having allowed the white men to obtain a footing in their country, a proof of which they think they see in the greater mortality that has recently prevailed among them. This, however, they at other times attribute to the God of the Christians, whom they also denounce, accordingly, as a cruel being, at least to the New Zealander. Sometimes they more rationally assign as its cause the diseases that have been introduced among them by the whites. Until the whites came to their country, they say, young people did not die, but all lived to be so old as to be obliged to creep on their hands and knees.

The white man's God they believe to be altogether a different being from their own atua. Marsden, in one of his letters, relates a conversation he had upon this subject with some of the chiefs' sons who resided with him in New South Wales. When he told them that there was but one God, and that our God was also theirs, they asked him if our God had given us any sweet potatoes, and could with difficulty be made to see how one God should give these to the New Zealander and not equally to the white man; or, on the other hand, how he should have acted so partially as to give to the white man only such possessions as cattle, sheep, and horses, which the New Zealander as much required. The argument, however, upon which they seem most to have rested, was:—"But we are of a different colour from you; and if one God made us both, he would not have committed such a mistake as to make us of different colours." Even one of the chiefs, who had been a great deal with Marsden, and was disposed to acknowledge the absurdity both of the "taboo" and of many of his other native superstitions, could not be brought to admit that the same God who made the white men had also made the New Zealanders.

Among themselves, the New Zealanders appear to have a great variety of other gods, besides the one whom they call emphatically the atua. Crozet speaks of some feeble ideas which they have of subordinate divinities, to whom, he says, they are wont to pray for victory over their enemies. But Savage gives us a most particular account of their daily adoration of the sun, moon, and stars. Of the heavenly host, the moon, he says, is their favourite; though why he should think so, it is not easy to understand, seeing that, when addressing this luminary, they employ, he tells us, a mournful song, and seem as full of apprehension as of devotion; whereas "when paying their adoration to the rising sun, the arms are spread and the head bowed, with the appearance of much joy in their countenances, accompanied with a degree of elegant and reverential solemnity, and the song used upon the occasion is cheerful." It is strange that none of their other visitors have remarked the existence of this species of idolatry among these savages.

Yet two New Zealanders, who are now in this country, were in the habit of commencing the exhibition of their national customs with the ceremonies practised in their morning devotion to the sun.

The vocal part of the rite, according to the account we have received, consisted in a low monotonous chant; the manual, in keeping a ball about the size of an orange constantly whirling in a vertical circle. The whole was performed in a kneeling posture. Like most other rude nations, the New Zealanders have certain fancies with regard to several of the more remarkable constellations; and are not without some conception that the issues of human affairs are occasionally influenced, or at least indicated, by the movements of the stars. The Pleiades, for instance, they believe to be seven of their departed countrymen, fixed in the firmament; one eye of each of them appearing in the shape of a star, being the only part that is visible. But it is a common superstition among them, as we have already noticed, that the left eyes of their chiefs, after death, become stars.

This notion is far from being destitute of poetical beauty; and perhaps, indeed, exhibits the common mythological doctrine of the glittering host of heaven being merely an assemblage of the departed heroes of earth, in as ingenious a version as it ever has received. It would be easy to collect many proofs of the extensive diffusion of this ancient faith, traces of which are to be found in the primitive astronomy of every people. The classical reader will at once recollect, among many others of a similar kind, the stories of Castor and Pollux, and of Berenice's tresses, the latter of which has been so elegantly imitated by Pope, in telling us of the fate of the vanished lock of Belinda:—

"But trust the muse—she saw it upward rise, Though marked by none but quick poetic eyes; (So Home's great founder to the heavens withdrew, To Proculus alone confessed to view); A sudden star it shot through liquid air, And drew behind a radiant trail of hair."

The New Zealanders conceive, also, that what we call a shooting star is ominous of the approaching dissolution of any one of their great chiefs who may be unwell when it is seen. Like the vulgar among ourselves, too, they have their man in the moon; who, they say, is one of their countrymen named Rona, who was taken up long ago, one night when he went to the well to fetch water.

Nicholas has given us, on the authority of his friend Duaterra, the most particular account that has appeared of the inferior deities of New Zealand. Their number, according to him, is very great, and each of them has his distinct powers and functions; one being placed over the elements, another over the fowls and fishes, and so of the rest. Deifications of the different passions and affections, also, it seems, find a place in this extended mythology.

In another part of his work, Nicholas remarks, as corroborative of the Malay descent of the New Zealanders, the singular coincidence, in some respects, between their mythology and that of the ancient Malay tribe, the Battas of Sumatra, whose extraordinary cannibal practices we have already detailed; especially in the circumstance of the three principal divinities of the Battas having precisely the same functions assigned to them with the three that occupy the same rank in the system of the New Zealanders.[BK]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote BJ: Marae. With Maoris and Samoans the word means an open space in a village; in the Tahitian, Mangaian, and Paumotan languages it means a temple, or a place where rites were performed.]

[Footnote BK: The religion, and superstitions and legends of the Maoris are dealt with in Sir George Grey's "Polynesian Mythology," Mr. S. Percy Smith's "Hawaiki," articles by Mr. Elsdon Best in the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," articles by that author and by Mr. Percy Smith in the "Journal of the Polynesian Society," Mr. E. Tregear's "The Maori Race," and Mr. J.C. Andersen's "Maori Life in Ao-tea."]



CHAPTER X.

It is very remarkable that the New Zealanders attribute the creation of man to their three principal deities acting together; thus exhibiting in their barbarous theology something like a shadow of the Christian Trinity. What is still more extraordinary is their tradition respecting the formation of the first woman, who, they say, was made of one of the man's ribs; and their general term for bone is hevee, or, as Professor Lee gives it, iwi[BL] a sound bearing a singular resemblance to the Hebrew name of our first mother.



Particular individuals and places would also seem to have their own gods. When the "Active" was in the river Thames, a gale of wind, by which the ship was attacked, was attributed by the natives on board to the anger of the god of Shoupah,[BM] the Areekee who resided in the neighbourhood. Korro-korro, who was among them said that as soon as he got on shore he would endeavour to prevail upon the Areekee to propitiate the offended deity. When Marsden asked the people of Kiperro[BN] if they

knew anything of their god, or ever had any communication with him, they replied that they often heard him whistle. The chiefs, too, are often called atuas, or gods, even while they are alive. The aged chief, Tarra,[BO] maintained to one of the missionaries that the god of thunder resided in his forehead; and Shungie and Okeda[BP] asserted that they were possessed by gods of the sea.

The part of the heavens in which the gods reside is represented as beautiful in the extreme. "When the clouds are beautifully chequered," writes Kendal, "the atua above, it is supposed, is planting sweet potatoes. At the season when these are planted in the ground, the planters dress themselves in their best raiment, and say that, as atuas on earth, they are imitating the atua in heaven."

The New Zealanders believe that the souls of the higher orders among them are immortal; but they hold that when the "cookees" die they perish for ever. The spirit, they think, leaves the body the third day after death, till which time it hovers round the corpse, and hears very well whatever is said to it. But they hold also, it would seem, that there is a separate immortality for each of the eyes of the dead person; the left, as before-mentioned, ascending to heaven and becoming a star, and the other, in the shape of a spirit, taking flight for the Reinga. Reinga signifies, properly, the place of flight; and is said, in some of the accounts, to be a rock or a mountain at the North Cape from which, according to others, the spirits descend into the next world through the sea. The notion which the New Zealanders really entertain as to this matter appears to be that the spirits first leap from the North Cape into the sea, and thence emerge into an Elysium situated in the islands of the Three Kings. The submarine path to the blissful region of the New Zealanders is less intricate than that of the Huron of America:—

"To the country of the Dead, Long and painful is thy way! O'er rivers wide and deep Lies the road that must be past, By bridges narrow-wall'd, When scarce the soul can force its way, While the loose fabric totters under it."

In the heaven of the New Zealanders, as in that of the ancient Goths, the chief employment of the blessed is war, their old delight while on earth. The idea of any more tranquil happiness has no charms for them. Speaking of an assembly of them which he had been endeavouring to instruct in the doctrines of Christianity, one of the Wesleyan missionaries says: "On telling them about the two eternal states, as described in the Scriptures, an old chief began to protest against these things with all the vehemence imaginable, and said that he would not go to heaven, nor would he go to hell to have nothing but fire to eat; but he would go to the Reinga or Po, to eat coomeras, (sweet potatoes) with his friends who had gone before."

The slaves that are sacrificed upon the death of a chief, by his friends, are generally intended to prevent him from coming again to destroy them; but we find that on the occasion of a child having been drowned, the mother insisted upon a female slave being killed, to be a companion for it on its way to the Reinga.

Though the New Zealanders do not assemble together at stated times to worship their gods, they are in the habit of praying to them in all their emergencies. Thus, when Korro-korro met his aunt, as before related, his brother Tooi informed Nicholas that the ejaculations the old woman uttered as she approached were prayers to the divinity. When Korro-korro urged Marsden to take his son with him to Port Jackson, and was told by that gentleman that he was afraid to do so lest the boy should die, as so many of his countrymen had done when removed from their native island, the chief replied, that he would pray for his son during his absence, as he had done for his brother Tooi when he was in England, and then he would not die.

Tupee,[BQ] too, another of the Bay of Islands chiefs, Marsden tells us, used to pray frequently. When that gentleman lay sick in his cot, on the voyage home from his first visit to New Zealand, Tupee, who was with him, used to sit by his side, and, laying his hands on different parts of his body, addressed himself all the while with great devotion to his god, in intercession for his friend's recovery.

The priests, or tohungas, as they are called, are persons of great importance and authority in New Zealand, being esteemed almost the keepers and rulers of the gods themselves.

Many of the greatest of the chiefs and Areekees are also priests, as was, for example, Tupee, whom we have just mentioned. It is the priest who attends at the bedside of the dying chief, and regulates every part of the treatment of the patient. When the body of a chief who has been killed in battle is to be eaten, it is the priest who first gives the command for its being roasted. The first mouthfuls of the flesh, also, being regarded as the dues of the gods, are always eaten by the priest. In the case of any public calamity, it is the priest whose aid is invoked to obtain relief from heaven.

Marsden states that on occasion of the caterpillars one year making great ravages among the crops of sweet potatoes at Rangheehoo,[BR] the people of that place sent to Cowa-Cowa[BS] for a great priest to avert the heavy judgment; and that he came and remained with them for several months, during which he employed himself busily in the performance of prayers and ceremonies. The New Zealanders also

consider all their priests as a species of sorcerers, and believe they have the power to take the lives of whomsoever they choose by incantation. Themorangha,[BT] one of the most enlightened of the chiefs, came one day to Marsden, in great agitation, to inform him that a brother chief had threatened to employ a priest to destroy him in this manner, for not having sold to sufficient advantage an article which he had given him to dispose of. "I endeavoured," says Marsden, "to convince him of the absurdity of such a threat; but to no purpose; he still persisted that he should die, and that the priest possessed that power; and began to draw the lines of incantation on the ship's deck, in order to convince me how the operation was performed. He said that the messenger was waiting alongside, in a canoe, for his answer. Finding it of no use to argue with him, I gave him an axe, which he joyfully received, and delivered to the messenger, with a request that the chief would be satisfied, and not proceed against him."

Themorangha seems to have been particularly selected by these priests as a subject for their roguish practices, perhaps by way of revenge for the freedom with which he occasionally expressed himself in regard to their pretensions, when his fears were not excited. A short time before this, one of them had terrified him not a little by telling him that he had seen his ghost during the night, and had been informed, by the atua, that if he went to a certain place to which he was then about to proceed, he would die in a few days. He soon, however, got so far the better of his fears as, notwithstanding this alarming intimation, to venture to accompany Marsden to the forbidden district; and he expressed his feelings of contempt for the sacred order in no measured terms, when he found that at the expiration of the predicted period he was still alive.

He said that there were too many priests at New Zealand, and that they "tabooed" and prayed the people to death. Others, as well as the priests, however, are supposed sometimes to have the power of witchcraft.

Two of the missionaries, when one day about to land at a place a short distance from the settlement, were alarmed by nearly running the boat's head on three human bodies, which lay close together by the water's edge among some rushes; and upon inquiry they were informed that they were the bodies of three slaves who had been killed that morning for makootooing a chief, i.e. betwitching or praying evil prayers against him, which had caused his death.[BU]

A common method which the priests use of bewitching those whom they mean to destroy, is to curse them, which is universally believed to have a fatal effect. The curse seems usually to be uttered in the shape of a yell or song, so that the process is literally a species of incantation. Bishop Newton, in his commentary on the scriptural account of Balaam being sent for to curse the Israelites, says, "It was a superstitious ceremony in use among the heathens, to devote their enemies to destruction at the beginning of their wars; as if the gods would enter into their passions, and were as unjust and partial as themselves."

The demeanour of most of the New Zealand priests is something so entirely different from that observed by the ministers of religion in civilized countries that it is not surprising Rutherford should have failed to recognise them as belonging to that order.

Thus, we read of a priest who speaks of having killed, not by enchantment, but in the usual way, with his own hands, both a woman who had gone on board a ship contrary to his orders, and a man who had stolen some potatoes.

Another is mentioned as having one day introduced himself into the house of Mr. Williams, one of the missionaries, by springing over the fence, and then, when his rude conduct was reproved, stripping himself to fight with that gentleman. The same personage, who bore the venerable name of Towee Taboo,[BV] or Holy Towee, a short time after attempted to break Mr. Williams's door to pieces with a long pole; and when he could not accomplish that object, effected his entrance by leaping over the fence as before. What he now wanted, he said, was hootoo,[BW] or payment, for a hurt which he had given his foot in performing this exploit on the former occasion. When this strange demand was refused, he attempted to set the house on fire; and having collected a mob of his friends, would certainly have done so, had not another party of the natives come to the assistance of Mr. Williams and his family.

But one of the most remarkable among this order of men seems to be Tamanhena[BX], the priest of the head of the Shukehanga, who is believed to have absolute command over the winds and waves. Marsden met with this dignitary on his second visit to New Zealand; and found that, in addition to being a priest, he was in the habit of acting as a pilot, a profession with which the other suited very well, as by virtue of his sacred character he had the power of keeping the winds and waves quiet whenever he chose to put to sea.

Accordingly, Marsden went out with him in a canoe to examine the entrance of the river; Tamanhena assuring him, though it blew very fresh, that he would soon make both the wind and the waves fall.

"We were no sooner in the canoe," continues Marsden, "than the priest began to exert all his powers to still the gods, the winds, and the waves. He spake in an angry and commanding tone. However, I did not perceive either the winds or waves yield to his authority; and when we reached the head, I requested to go on shore."

Tamanhena wished very much to learn to pray like the Europeans, and said he should willingly give a farm to any missionary who would come to reside near him. He also promised that he would let Marsden hear his god speak to him; but when they got to the place where the conference was to be held, he discovered that the god was not there. Marsden, however, found him remarkably well informed on all subjects relating to his country and religion, and thought him, upon the whole, a very sensible man, making allowance for his theological opinions.

Cruise has, however, detailed some particulars of this venerable personage, whom he also met with a few months after Marsden had seen him, which grievously detract from his character for sanctity. He made the voyage with them in the "Dromedary" from the Bay of Islands to the mouth of the Shukehanga, but announced his intention of leaving them the day after their arrival.

"During his stay in the ship," says Cruise, "there certainly was nothing of a very sacred character about him; he was by far the wildest of his companions; and, unfortunately, on the morning fixed for his departure, a soldier having missed his jacket, there was so great a suspicion of the pilot's honesty, that the sentinel at the gangway took the liberty of lifting up his mat, as he prepared to go down the side, and discovered the stolen property under it.

"The jacket was of course taken from him; and as the only excuse he had to offer for his misconduct was that he had lost a shirt that had been given to him, and that he considered himself authorised to get remuneration in any way he could, he was dismissed without those presents which were given to the others. We were glad to see that his countrymen seemed to notice his conduct in the strongest terms of disapprobation; and the next day, when they were about to leave us, they seemed so determined to put him to death that they were requested not to do so, but to consider his having lost his presents, and his being forbidden ever to come near the ship, a sufficient punishment for his offence."

It is very remarkable, that, whenever a child is born in New Zealand, it is the invariable practice to take it to the tohunga, or priest, who sprinkles it on the face with water, from a leaf which he holds in his hand. It is believed that the neglect of this ceremony would be attended with the most baneful consequences to the child.

Much reverence is felt among the New Zealanders for dreams; and it is believed that the favoured of heaven often receive in this way the communications of the gods. We need hardly remark how universal this superstition has been. The reader of Homer will recollect the

[Greek: kai gar t onar ek Dios estin]

of that poet, and the [Greek: oulos oneiros], or evil dream, which, in the second book of the Iliad, Jupiter sends down to Agamemnon, to lure him to give battle to the Trojans in the absence of Achilles.

We must refer to Lafitau's learned work on the savages of America for an account of the notions which prevail among them as to divination by dreams. Dillon tells us that he found no way so effectual of repressing the importunities of his New Zealand friends, in any case in which it was inconvenient to gratify them, as assuring them he had dreamed that the favour they requested would turn out a misfortune to them. When some of them, for example, entreated that he would take them with him to India, he told them that he had dreamed that if they went to that country they would die there; and this at once put an end to their solicitations.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote BL: The Maoris and Hawaiians use the word "iwi" for a bone; the Samoans, Tahitians, and other islanders say "ivi."]

[Footnote BM: Probably Tupa.]

[Footnote BN: Probably Kaipara.]

[Footnote BO: Tara.]

[Footnote BP: Okita.]

[Footnote BQ: Tupi.]

[Footnote BR: Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands.]

[Footnote BS: Kawa-kawa, in the same district.]

[Footnote BT: Te Morenga, a chief of the Bay of Islands.]

[Footnote BU: The maketu, which is correctly described here, was one of the most firmly established institutions in New Zealand in old times.]

[Footnote BV: Tui Tapu.]

[Footnote BW: Utu. This is another great institution amongst the ancient Maoris. It represents the principle of payment, an equivalent, a return, compensation, or satisfaction for injuries.]

[Footnote BX: Tamihana.]



CHAPTER XI.

For some time after his return from Cook Strait, Rutherford's life appears to have been unvaried by any incident of moment.

"At length," says he, "one day a messenger arrived from a neighbouring village, with the news that all the chiefs for miles round were about to set out, in three days, for a place called Kipara,[BY] near the source of the river Thames, and distant about two hundred miles from our village. The messenger brought also a request from the other chiefs to Aimy to join them along with his warriors; and he replied that he would meet them at Kipara at the time appointed. We understood that we were to be opposed at Kipara by a number of chiefs from the Bay of Islands and the river Thames, according to an appointment which had been made with the chiefs in our neighbourhood.

"Accordingly, everything was got ready for our journey as quickly as possible; and the women were immediately set to work to make a great number of new baskets, in which to carry our provisions. It is the custom for every person going on such an expedition to find his own arms and ammunition, as also provisions, and slaves to carry them. On the other hand, every family plunder for themselves, and give only what they think proper to the chief. The slaves are not required to fight, though they often run to the assistance of their masters while engaged.

"When the day was come for our departure, I started along with the rest, being armed with my mery, a brace of pistols, and a double-barrelled fowling-piece, and having also with me some powder and ball, and a great quantity of duck-shot, which I took for the purpose of killing game on our journey.

"I was accompanied by my wife Epecka, who carried three new mats to be a bed for us, which had been made by Eshou during my absence at Taranake.

"The warriors and slaves, whom we took with us, amounted in all to about five hundred; but the slaves, as they got rid of the provisions they carried, were sent home again, as we had no further use for them. While on our journey, if we came to a friendly village at night, we slept there; but, if not, we encamped in the woods. When the provisions we had brought with us were all consumed, we were compelled to plunder wherever we could find anything. Our journey, being made during the rainy season, was more than usually fatiguing. We were five weeks in reaching Kipara, where we found about eleven hundred more natives encamped by the side of a river. On our arrival, huts were immediately constructed for our party, and one was allotted to me and my wife. We had also two female slaves allowed us for the purpose of digging fern-root, gathering cockles, and catching fish, which articles were our only provisions while we remained here; unless now and then, when I went to the woods, and shot a few wood-pigeons or a wild pig."

A party of New Zealanders thus wandering through their country, with all the inconveniences attending the movement of large bodies of men, but without the combinations of foresight which are necessary for the safety of an army, or the management of supplies, must be occasionally exposed to great privations.

Their island, however, it would seem from Rutherford's narrative, abundantly supplied them with provisions, and their slaves were at hand to perform the office of cooks. Their method of procuring fire for culinary purposes and warmth is curious; and we may as well mention it somewhat fully here, before we proceed to the more busy parts of Rutherford's narrative.

When Nicholas was in New Zealand, he had an opportunity of seeing the process usually resorted to. "The place where we landed," says he, speaking of an excursion which he made with Marsden, and some of the chiefs, to a place a short distance from the Missionary Settlement, "was a small plantation of potatoes belonging to Shungie, and here our party intended to prepare their refreshments, seating themselves, along the ground for the purpose. Fire, however, was wanting; and to procure it, Shungie took my fowling-piece, and, stopping up the touch-hole, he put a small piece of linen into the pan, and endeavoured to excite a spark. But this expedient proved unsuccessful, as the lock had got rusted and would not go off; he then got some dry grass and a piece of rotten wood, and turning a small stick rapidly between his hands, in the same manner as we mill chocolate, the friction caused the touchwood, in which the point of the stick was inserted, to take fire; while, wrapping it up in the dry grass, and shaking it backward and forward, he very soon produced a flame, which he communicated to some dry sticks, and other fuel that our party had collected."

This was not, however, any sudden device of Shungie's, but merely the contrivance in general use in such emergencies among his countrymen.

"We have mentioned two New Zealanders, who are at present in this country, and have recently been exhibiting the dances and other customs of their native land, in several of our provincial towns. Among other things which they show is this method of kindling fire, and we extract from the letter of a correspondent who saw them at Birmingham, the following account of this part of their performance:—'A small board of well-dried pine was laid upon the floor, and the younger New Zealander took in his hand a wedge about nine inches long, and of the same material; then rubbing with this upon the board, in a direction parallel to the grain, he made a groove, about a quarter of an inch deep and six or seven inches long. The friction, of course, produced a quantity of what, had it been produced by another means, would have been called sawdust; and this he collected at the end of the groove farthest from that part of the board on which he was kneeling. He then continued his operation; and in a short time the wood began to smoke, the sides of the groove becoming completely charred. On this he stopped and gathered the tinder over that part of the groove which appeared to be most strongly heated. After a few moments, it became manifest that the sawdust or tinder was ignited; and a gentle application of the breath now drew forth a flame which rose to the height of several inches. This experiment did not always succeed the first time; whenever it was repeated, whether after failure or success, the operator took a new wedge and formed a new groove, and it was stated that this was absolutely necessary. The process was evidently one of very great labour; at the conclusion of it, the operator was steaming with perspiration, and his elder countryman stated that his own strength was unequal to the feat.'"



This method of procuring fire has, in fact, been in use from the most ancient times, and in all parts of the world. It was, as Lafitau remarks, the very method which was prescribed for rekindling the vestal fire at Rome, when it was accidentally extinguished. This writer describes it as in use also among several tribes of the Indians of South America. Among them, however, it is somewhat more artificially managed than it appears to be among the New Zealanders, inasmuch as their practice is first to make a hole in the wood with the tooth of the acouti, and then to insert in this an instrument resembling a wimble, by the rapid revolution of which the wood is set on fire.

The Baron Alexander de Humboldt gives a similar account of the manner in which the operation appears to have been performed among the ancient Mexicans, who adopted this method of rekindling their fires, on their general extinction at the end of every cycle of fifty-two years.

In a letter which Humboldt has printed at the conclusion of his work, from M. Visconti, it is remarked that we find mention made of this contrivance both in Homer's "Hymn to Mercury," and in the "Argonautics" of Apollonius Rhodius. The scholiast of the latter gives a description of the process, which exactly answers to the Mexican delineation.

"On the opposite side of the river," Rutherford proceeds, "which was about half a mile wide, and not more than four feet deep in any part, about four hundred of the enemy were encamped, waiting for reinforcements. Meanwhile messengers were continually passing from the one party to the other, with messages concerning the war.

"One of them informed us that there was a white man in his party who had heard of and wished to see me; and that the chiefs, who also wished to see me, would give me permission to cross the river to meet him, and I should return unmolested whenever I thought proper. With Aimy's consent, therefore, I went across the river; but I was not permitted to go armed, nor yet to take my wife with me. When I arrived on the opposite side, several of the chiefs saluted me in the usual manner by touching my nose with theirs; and I afterwards was seated in the midst of them by the side of the white man, who told me his name was John Mawman, that he was a native of Port Jackson, and that he had run away from the 'Tees' sloop of war while she lay at this island. He had since joined the natives, and was now living with a chief named Rawmatty;[BZ] whose daughter he had married, and whose residence was at a place called Sukyanna,[CA] on the west coast, within fifty miles of the Bay of Islands. He said that he had been at the Bay of Islands a short time before, and had seen several of the English missionaries. He also said that he had heard that the natives had lately taken a vessel at a place called Wangalore, which they had plundered and then turned adrift; but that the crew had escaped in their boats and put to sea. This is the same place where the crew of the ship 'Boyd' were murdered some years before.[CB]

"While I remained among these people, a slave was brought up before one of the chiefs, who immediately arose from the ground, and struck him with his mery and killed him. This mery was different from any of the rest, being made of steel. The heart was taken out of the slave as soon as he had fallen, and instantly devoured by the chief who slew him. I then inquired who this chief was, and was informed that his name was Shungie, one of the two chiefs who had been at England, and had been presented to many of the nobility there, from whom he received many valuable presents; among others, a double-barrelled gun and a suit of armour, which he has since worn in many battles. His reason, they told me, for killing the slave, who was one belonging to himself, was that he had stolen the suit of armour, and was running away with it to the enemy, when he was taken prisoner by a party stationed on the outskirts of the encampment. This was the only act of theft which I ever saw punished in New Zealand.