CHAPTER X. THE ISLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS.
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CHAPTER X.
THE ISLAND AND ITS INHABITANTS.
THE island of Ruapuke is about eight miles long and four miles in diameter. The coast consists of inlets and rocky bluffs. If it were within easy distance of North Germany, where the country is so flat and uniform, it would be a favourite resort. It has great natural beauty, and has an impressive appearance. Gigantic waves break on the bluffs with a sound like thunder, especially after stormy weather, and drive a great mass of water broken into spray sometimes seventy feet high, from which height it sinks again slowly like a faint bluish veil. In the inlets the waves, when they strike the beach and roll on the sand, lift themselves like walls of water. The upper combs bend over forwards, and throw themselves over with a thundering crash, burying a quantity of air, that escapes from the foam of the broken water masses with a crackling, hissing, and blowing sound. Now the broken mass foams hissing up a wide stretch of beach, then rushes back, making the pebbles roll and clatter. "Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further; here shall thy proud waves be stayed" (Job); and "Though the waves thereof toss themselves, yet shall they not prevail" (Jeremiah).
Let us cast our eye over the landscape. Round hills not over 200 feet high, huge bare masses of rock, soft flats, wood, bush and meadow alternate with one another. Little lakes, too, with fresh water (but no fishes), and lagoons of salt water are not wanting. If from the height you let your sight fall on the wide sea you can notice the round curve of our earth quite plainly. In the direction of Stewart Island you look over a charmingly
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beautiful sea, graced with little rocks and islands toward the high mountains of this island, the highest of which is about 4,000 feet. Across at the Middle Island you see the long low coast line of the plains and the high mountains over it in the blue distance. The hill at the Bluff is close to Bluff Harbour, about thirteen miles from Ruapuke, and is about 800 feet high. From some heights you can see the high mountains of the Takitumu, so named after one of the canoes in which the ancestors of the present Maoris some 800 years ago came from Savai Island, one of the Samoan Group. The formation of this island is granite. The high jagged rocks and the round hills consist of hard fine-grained granite, the cliffs of the coast, however, they are coarse grained, and the constituent parts not so well mixed, and merge into an inferior kind of rock. At a few places blocks of basalt are to be found. A few of the granite heights are partly denuded of earth, and form magnificent cliffs. Of rivers there is, of course, nothing to be said, not even of proper streams, because no point of the island is far enough from the sea, the rain water, therefore, easily flows off. In former years I once wrote, and it was printed, too, that the drinking water had a brown colour, but that only refers to the lake out of which I then drank. Later on I found that at most places good clear water can be got. If you look around between the granite blocks, which in almost every place stick up out of the soil, and search for a damp place, you can dig for a spring, and need not dig deep. I will later on speak of the fruitfulness and usefulness of the soil when the appropriate time comes. At this time, in the first year of my residence, with the exception of a few potato plantations, it was yet in a wild state. The open places where the New Zealand flax had not got the upper hand were overgrown with hard cutting reeds. The great reed stalks which grow here on dry ground are larger and stronger than the brittle German reeds. The leaves are so sharp that if one does not take care they will cut the hand to the bone. You can see the little teeth, like little saw teeth, on the sides of the leaves with the naked eye. In the shade of the dark woods grow the fern trees, as if they were ashamed of not being palms. On the average they are about ten feet high and four inches in diameter; they have
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beautiful fronds, shaped like a branching palm. The stems are used as fences. Of the rosaceae there are only a few kinds of brambles, but these bear but little, and that only a small fruit.
As I have already mentioned the songs of birds several times--and we have lovely singers here--it is suitable that I should say some more about them. The most excellent singer is the Koparapara. It is of the size of a lark, only a little more slender. It does not, however, belong to the tribe of larks, but, as I imagine, to the jays. Its grey colour is relieved by a blue shimmer. It is a wood bird, but gladly comes into the open to get honey out of the flowers. Since fruit trees were introduced here, he likes to come in companies--between ten and twelve--to visit the fruit gardens during the best of their bloom. Then, when they have satisfied their thirst for honey, they sometimes all sit in one tree and sing a merry song, as if they wished to express their gratitude in this way. They keep such good time that a musician can write their notes down. The sound is loud and metallic, like the clear sound of a bell. Verily, the birds of the air should teach men to praise God! "Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air shall tell thee, or speak to the earth and it shall answer thee, and the fishes in the sea shall tell thee, who knoweth not that the hand of the Lord hath wrought in this." (Job.)
Another somewhat larger bird of the same species is the Tui. He sings less, but he is remarkable for his black coat, and two snow-white feathers that hang under his throat make him look ridiculously like a parson. He is a honey-sucker, and very skilful at sucking the honey out of the flax.
This plant is remarkable for its rich store of honey. The New Zealand flax, growing here everywhere, belongs to the order of lilies. One kind of the same grows as a sort of reed in swampy places in North Germany. This has, however, no flax threads in its leaves, whilst the New Zealand flax is full of them. In other respects the leaves, the flowers, and seed vessels are very similar, the New Zealand plant, however, is much larger, and the flowers are reddish, whilst the German ones, as far as I can recollect, are yellow. The reed-like leaves are here four to six feet high, and
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the flower or seed stalks eight to ten feet long. These stalks are about an inch in diameter. They have a hard rind, and internally, when they are dry, they are filled with a cork-like substance. They are, therefore, light, and useful for making garden fences to keep the poultry out. At the bottom, the leaves contain a kind of gum, which could be used for polishing furniture, if it were not soluble in water and did not soon draw the water out of damp air. You can fasten papers together with it very well. Perhaps the roots will yet be found to contain medicinal properties. The leaves contain many tough flax threads. The flowers, of which every stalk bears a great many, contain so much fluid honey that it can be poured out. You can fill a teaspoon out of three or four flowers. If this honey fluid is collected and then slowly boiled, a syrup is obtained that tastes like honey. The flax blooms at Christmas here--in the middle of Summer.
So far, the attempt to separate the threads from the other component parts of the leaves in an easy way has not been successful enough to make the labour of doing so a profitable industry. All attempts so far to discover suitable machines for so doing have been attended with unsatisfactory results. The Maori women take a sharp mussel shell, hold it between the toes of their naked feet, and then draw a flax leaf underneath it through between the toes. In this manner the green stuff of the leaves is scraped off and a white flax produced that, with rubbing and beating, becomes very fine, and takes on a fine silky lustre. This labour is, however, too slow, and not adapted to commerce, on account of the high wages current in New Zealand. For this reason, this remarkable and useful plant is mostly burnt, and rots away, to make room for corn and meadow land. It certainly is there for a purpose, and until the proper time comes, all attempts to utilise it will be useless. But when the time comes--when the dear God (who orders everything in wisdom when least to be observed, in order that we children of men may exercise our powers with the intention of discovery) chooses to show men how they shall go to work--a new and important branch of industry will arise in New Zealand. It is not probable that this plant would thrive in lands that have not so moist a climate as New Zealand has.
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The surrounding sea, although it rages and mightily roars in storms (and it looks quite different to what it does in the estuaries of the great rivers in North Germany), in calm weather, on a fine day, is something very lovely. It, too, has plants like the earth, only they are differently formed. Some of them are as high as the trees of the forest, and grow in groups like copses. If you look out of the boat into the clear, deep water, you seem gently to sway over the tops of high forest trees. The leaves are not green, but brown; the stems are not thick, but consist of long, thick tubes, which cling to the rocks with their thick roots at the bottom of the sea as mosses do to dry rocks on land. Some of the tubes are furnished with little balls full of air, which float them upwards. Others have large, round leaves just like snakes; others, again, have leaves that look like a large carpenter's apron: both sorts are internally filled with coarse air-vessels. If you cut one of the apron-like leaves through, you see a web of cells like the cells in a honeycomb. The outside brown skin of the leaves is tough, but the inside is brittle, and easily broken with the hand. If you work your hand backwards and forwards inside, and break all the cells, you have a great empty sack, which you can blow out and tie up in an airtight manner at the top. It then looks quite full, but contains nothing but wind. When it is dry, you can let out the wind and turn the sack to use, as is shown further on.
Sometimes you see an innumerable quantity of black birds like a huge swarm of bees, about the size of crows, partly swimming on the water, partly flying low down. The Maoris call them Titi; the Englishmen have named them mutton birds (I have forgotten the scientific name). These birds breed on uninhabited islands, of which there are a great many scattered about here and there in the neighbourhood of Stewart Island. In each nest there is one egg nearly as large as a goose egg, although the bird that lays it is not much larger than a common crow. The parent birds take a long time to hatch the one egg, and at last bring out a young one. The parents feed this so well that when it is grown it is twice as large as the old birds. The young one then consists of about two-thirds clear fat and one-third tender flesh and bones. The flesh, as long as it is fresh, is of excellent
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flavour, and the fat when melted looks like the fat of geese, and is of similar taste. But with time both flesh and fat take on an unpleasant train-oil taste. Perhaps with better management this might be avoided. The feathers, too, are good for pillows and mattresses. They are as soft as down, but they must first be allowed to hang in baskets in airy rooms to get rid of the fishy smell. Evidently these birds are made for human use. In April, the beginning of Autumn here, the young ones are fully grown. The natives then go to the islands and take them out of their nests, which are small holes in the ground, by thousands. The old ones appear already quite ready to leave the young ones, and these are too fat and heavy to fly, and, therefore, easily caught. As long as the Maoris were unacquainted with proper salt, naturally they did not know how to salt them, but they understood before the Europeans arrived how to preserve the flesh in air-tight vessels. They boiled the young birds and put them with the melted fat into the before-mentioned sacks made out of seaweed and fastened them up air tight. In savage times human flesh was similarly preserved. The heavy kelp bags are not strong enough to bear transport, they are, therefore, enclosed in bark and bound up with light sticks. Large ones intended as presents for high chiefs are ornamented with feather work and embroidery. Birds thus preserved, although they will keep good for years, have an unpleasant taste of fish and seaweed. Proper salting in barrels would doubtless be better, but the Maoris do not yet understand this.
How far the breeding grounds of these birds extend towards the south, the east, and west, I do not yet know, but Ruapuke lies on their northern border. At his request I have sent my scientific friend and countryman, Dr. Julius von Haast (ennobled by the Emperor of Austria on account of his scientific services at the Vienna Exhibition), some sealed preserved sacks of these and other southern birds. He is superintendent of the Museum at Christchurch on Banks Peninsula.
The sea is here, as it is all over New Zealand, rich in fish. It is only in calm, fine weather, which we do not often have in this windy district, that one can go out to fish with boat and lines. The ordinary fishes of different sorts that are caught here weigh
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two or three pounds. But if the sea is calm enough to allow one to go out into deep water to fish, some weighing fifty pounds and over are caught. They are shaped like carp, but I dare not say whether they belong to that species or not. They are of a pleasant flavour. All the fish which are caught here are better flavoured than those caught in more northern seas, and the oysters of Stewart Island are held in high estimation. The reason of this is that the water is cooler; on the other hand the fruits of the north are much more pleasant than those growing here because the air in Summer is there warmer.
Among shellfish I call attention, as being remarkable, to a large univalve called Paoa by the Maoris. (The vowels flow into one another so that each is heard, and sounds as if one said Paua slowly in German.) It is five and a-half inches long, four inches wide, and in the deepest place one and a half inches deep. The animal quite fills the shell. The shell covers the upper side, while the under side clings to the rocks in the sea, like a snail, and moves at will. This mussel is caught at low spring tides (the days directly after the new and full moon). The flesh is firm, and, boiled, has a flavour like that of a pig's head. As long as I had teeth I was very fond of it, but I can no longer bite it. The shell has inside a green, cloudy, shimmering colour, like mother-of-pearl, and is an article of commerce. It is shipped to England, and used in the manufacture of buttons, which are sent back here as well as to all other countries.
Another sea creature, called by the Maoris Ngaio, deserves to be mentioned here as a curiosity. I believe it belongs to the class of sea acorns, but it appears to be a very superior sort. It is undoubtedly a plant, and just as undoubtedly an animal. It grows with a stump on the bottom of the sea on rocks, as mosses or lichens grow on rocks on dry ground. A number of stems grow out of the root-foot, of the thickness of a lead line, perhaps two feet, or more, long. Every stem has, at the upper end, a thick knob, of the size of a duck's egg, with a mouth attached to it. So far it is a plant; but if you cut the knob, inside, growing along with the plant, the flesh of a living animal is found, that not only fills the knob but extends as marrow of
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the stem in animal substance right down to the root. In stormy weather, when the waves are high and deep, a few are torn loose from the rocky sea bed and cast on the shore. For a long time I could not overcome my dislike to eat these plant-animals, but when, in the course of time, I did so, and got used to the flavour, I ate them with pleasure. The animal flesh when boiled and separated from the rind of the plant, consists of skin and a delicate substance which consists, perhaps, of nerves. They taste like a boiled egg flavoured with oil, and have a very good flavour. The taste must, however, be acquired.
In heathenish times, the Maoris had a community of goods. Every clan (a subdivision of the tribes), generally under a minor chief, lived and worked together--the potatoes which were harvested, the carrots which were dug, the birds and fishes they caught, belonging to the community of the clan. Naturally, the chiefs, or those who were otherwise powerful amongst them, always got the best. For the same reason, for all requirements of any individual--as, for instance, at marriages--the entire appropriations of the clan were available. Gifts were made to the high chiefs by all the clans of his tribe: what the chiefs desired no one dare refuse them. Sometimes there were prisoners taken in war, who were kept as labourers and, when convenient, killed and eaten. If there were many slain, a part of the human flesh was boiled and preserved in air-tight bags, or sent as a present to friendly tribal or clan relations. The women, although generally more industrious than the men, were not oppressed, as is the case amongst many savages. All women, even those who had but few clothes, conducted themselves with noteworthy modesty, of which the men, however, are most neglectful. When the women were not occupied outside, they sat at their spinning. The flax threads, spun by hand, were entirely woven with the finger. It was very tedious work, and the web quite different to that made by a weaver.
Before the Maoris were acquainted with European cooking utensils, they cooked entirely with hot stones. A round hole was made in the earth, and firewood laid over it; on this stones were heaped up, and the fire then lit. Whilst the wood burnt, the stones
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fell into the hole; some were lifted out with sticks, other let lie. The provisions were then wrapped round with wet grass, and the hot stones laid on them. On this fresh grass was again laid, and the whole covered with earth. Such a steaming and rich-smelling heap was a lovely sight to children and hungry people. Warlike heroes were accustomed to comfort themselves with the thought that, when they fell, such a savoury bed was already prepared for them. Cannibalism had only been quite left off here a very few years ago, and now only provisions were cooked among the stones. In my journeys amongst the Maoris I have often eaten meals so cooked, and I consider that this method of cooking meals gives a very good flavour. I have often seen them rubbing fire out of two sticks, for at that time a fire produced in this manner was considered holier than an ordinary one which was lit with matches obtained from Europeans, and it was considered necessary to heat the cooking stones in this manner. A somewhat broad piece of wood, in which a groove was cut lengthwise, was laid on the ground. A man then rubbed a sharp-pointed stick backwards and forwards in the groove. Soon a smoky smell was noticeable, then the fine dust which was rubbed off began to smoke and then to glow. Now the burning sparks were wrapped in fine dry grass and waved to and fro by hand in the air till flames broke out. It was not permitted to blow with the mouth, because this would have made the fire unavailable for cooking.
The villages lay, in order to have dry ground underneath them, mostly on sandhills near the sea. In every village, mostly inhabited by a clan and their relatives, there was a common house, in which everyone could sit and sleep. Families lived mostly in little private houses. The common house was twice as long as broad, and, on the whole, a roomy building. At the fore-end, roof and side walls reached two or three yards further than the forward wall, and formed an open porch in front. The pillars and rafters of such houses were ornamented with artistic carving, the figures often as grotesque as those in London Punch. The door which leads from the porch into the house was about two feet high and broad. To the right of it, and a little higher, were the openings for light and air, of the same size. If you crawled into the opening
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you came on a passage about three feet wide that extended the whole length of the house. On both sides, and filling all the remainder of the spaces in the house, were platforms about one and a-half feet above the ground. These consisted of sticks as thick as a finger closely laid together, which were fastened to a joist, and formed a floor like basket-work, on which one could either comfortably sit, lie, sleep, chatter, or loaf. If it was cold, one or two small fires were lit inside; but no cooking was done there. On the right side of the passage were two or three strong posts, which bore at the top a long, strong beam, on which the upper ends of the rafters were fastened, while the lower ends rested on the side walls. Roof and walls were covered with reeds inside, and, if they were of ancient date, were ornamented with artistic patterns. Outside, the roof and walls were made of grass, on which in most cases the winds had blown up white sand.
The Maoris have well built figures and, as long they are not ill, a strong constitution. Their legs are a little shorter than those of Europeans, their bodies a little longer. For that reason, they can sit down on the flat earth with the knees in front of the breast as easily as on a chair, and with the same ease can rise up from the ground--which a European had better not try. In the south, the colour of their skin is nearly as light as that of the southern Europeans. Old people had their faces, as well as the most of their bodies, tattooed with artistic spiral lines, strongly marked and blackish in colour. The younger ones, however, had somewhat lost the art of tattooing, and to the still younger ones it was distasteful. When I say I discover art in tattooing, I do not mean that the natural beauty of the human countenance can be heightened by it, but the contrary--as the beautiful, natural shape of man is most dreadfully deformed even amongst highly civilized people by artificial means. I mean merely that real art is displayed in the tattooing of the old Maoris; the loss of this art shows a falling off in the Maori nature. It appears, moreover, that they could not always have lived in so dirty a condition as the one in which I found them and have already pointed out, otherwise they could not have maintained such stability of
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constitution. The consequences of this decadence could not long remain without disclosing themselves.
I found when I kept an exact register of births and deaths that there was only one birth to three or four deaths. It appeared that this decline in bodily strength arose from their having outlived the spiritual ideas of an earlier and better time, and as they were not in position to renew their own youth, unavoidable extinction must have befallen them, unless help came from outside. Mothers suckled their children until they were three or four years old, and sometimes older, and for that reason there were fewer births. A few babies had already learned to suck smoke through their parents' black tobacco pipe, saturated as it was with tobacco juice.
The power of recuperation amongst the Maoris was so weak that if anyone became ill there was no hope of his getting better. A small hut was then built for the sick person in a lonely place, in which he lay all alone, receiving more or less attention, according to the number of his relations, being often much neglected, and was left alone until he died. Ordinary people who died were at once buried, or otherwise put out of the way; but chiefs were bent together immediately after death, the knees being placed under the chin, and then placed in a wooden box, specially made which was fastened on the top of a strong post. These posts were then placed upright in a good house and left for a few years, till all soft parts of the body had wasted away. The whole house was of course strictly tapu. Near relations, who on account of their rank were superior to tapu, were allowed to enter it whenever inclined. After a few years the box was opened by a man who had power to take off the tapu, and the bones were burnt. The idea of packing the sacred body thus closely pressed together arose from the conception that it then was in the womb of the Goddess of Night or Death, who was the original mother of mankind. Later on I shall have more to say about this goddess.
The Maoris believed in a life after death, but their conceptions of it were so comfortless that they gave no consideration to it. According to the old religion there was a Kingdom of Death, which was called Po (night), in which the gods and the chiefs who
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were raised to gods dwelt. The Goddess of Death lived here--Hene Muotepo, the great Goddess of the Night (Hene means properly virgin, but stands here for goddess), who drew her children--mankind--after her. For the common Maoris of later generations this blessed place appeared to have become unattainable; they bethought themselves, therefore, of a nearer underworld, called Reinga, the entrance to which lay on the northern promontory of New Zealand. Of rewards in the next life for deeds done and opinions held in this life they knew nothing. In the entrance was a cleft, and in it stood two ghosts as watchmen, named Taupiko and Tawhaitiri, who leaned over from each side against one another, and between these two the souls of the dead had to glide. An active soul could slip through, but a helpless one was seized and annihilated. The empire of the dead lay in a deep valley underneath the earth; in the middle was a lake, and on its banks the souls lived again in bodily form. When a soul arrived it seated itself on the point of a mountain which was reflected in the lake, till it was seen by someone below. It then called out, asking "Do you belong to me?" If this was not the case it shook its head, and waited till a relation spoke; it then threw its head back for a sign of Yes; then replied the relation, "Fly down," and as it did that it received its bodily form again. But here it was mortal, and then went to a still deeper place of death. High chieftains might in this manner reach the blessed Kingdom of Death--Po--where their ancestors lived as gods; but the common people arrived, after many wanderings, through the common Kingdom of Death, back to earth again, and appeared in the form of blue blowflies or butterflies. The latter were, therefore, commonly called wairua tangata (wairua, soul; tangata, man). This was their last existence. It seemed, also, that some souls of the lower people were not even good enough to go to the underworld, but were condemned to remain at the place of their previous existence. They dwelt in the ruins of fallen buildings, of which there were many that belonged to people already dead. These were, therefore, dangerous places, and no living soul dared to go near them. They were inhabited by man-eating ghosts, and if anyone went too near they led him in and slowly ate away his
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vitals, till at last he died of hunger. A different kind of spirit inhabited the priests called Tohunga (perhaps from Tohu--sign), by means of which they professed to heal sicknesses, give protection from witchcraft and wicked people, and to reveal secret events through oracular words uttered whilst in a state of convulsive enchantment. Belief in witchcraft was so universal that every sickness was attributed to the witchcraft of wicked people, to tapu, or having come too near a man-eating ghost, against which the priests or proper wizards could afford no relief. There was, however, another and a better kind of Tohunga, perhaps a remnant of the true priests, of which the wizards were only an off-shoot. The best Tohungas had nothing to do with witchcraft and soothsaying. It was their duty to preserve in their memories the old theology, heroic sayings, and the genealogy of the nobility, and to perpetuate these to successors who had a natural adaptability for retaining them. We may, therefore, call them the "wise people." Later I was myself admitted into their secrets without any ceremony.
One must not imagine there were any deep-meaning secrets. I had opportunity of learning from the mouths of the wise Maoris a language free from foreign intermixture. These "wise men" are now all dead, and I am the solitary successor alive in the south. There were further Tohungas for tattooing, architecture, carvers for ornamenting public buildings and canoes, but in the south these were already all dead. Idols the Maoris in New Zealand never had. Lately, however, I learnt that there is an idol in existence at Nelson, in New Zealand, which was brought with them by the immigrating Maoris from Savai (Samoa Islands), and that it is kept as a holy relic and shown to no vulgar eyes.
It is already mentioned that because there was no literature from which the language could be learnt I was obliged to prepare one from oral narratives. Narratives of daily occurrences taken down in writing became in time insufficient to enable me to penetrate far enough into the spirit of the language and the spiritual ideas of the people. I inquired after folk-lore. I heard that such existed, and a few old people were pointed out to me who were acquainted with it. These were, however, reticent,
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but I continued to make inquiry when circumstances permitted it, and sought explanations of fragments which I had already learnt until they at last recognised me as one who was initiated, and then opened to me the treasures of their wisdom. This happened a few years later, but it is better that I refer to it here in order that the reader may obtain a clear insight into the spiritual views of the people before we come to their conversion. Many a Winter evening I sat with two or three of these old "wise people," and we discussed their old religion and the old gods and heroes of heathendom. I wrote down their narratives in the Maori language and studied it in private.
If, in a dark corner of the earth, one is for the time being the only man with scientific culture, even though that be but small, one attains to a certain amount of distinction. This was the reason why I was drawn into correspondence with Sir George Grey when he was Governor of New Zealand for the first time (it was carried on through Mr Tuckett). Whilst I was collecting the mythological tales of the Maoris here in the south, Sir George Grey did the same in the north, and in the same manner--namely, by writing down the sayings of the old "wise people" as uttered by them in the Maori language.
Later, he had his collection printed in the Maori language and sent me a copy. It appears therefrom that the old mythology and history of the heroes, both in the north and south, agree with one another in all essentials: only in the later folk-lore, which appears only to refer to pleasant events, is there a marked difference.
Later on, I translated my collections into English, and they are now printed in the scientific transactions of the New Zealand Institute. There is no room for the tales; only a few items out of their mythology may find a place here. In these translations I have carefully abstained from all doubtful and foreign interventions, because that would have been disadvantageous to their being properly understood. Scientific men, who gather such reports from different peoples in order to compare one with another, require only the raw material. Here, however, I may make comparison with the Mosaic records; but the comparisons need only be taken for what they are worth.
