CHAPTER IX.
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CHAPTER IX.
The New Zealanders--Their Manners, Customs, and Traditions--Their Clothing and Dwellings--Maori Customs--Civil Authority--Their Marriages and Social Affections--Their Vices and Faults--Their Character, Moral Qualities, and Intellectual Capacity--Maori Industry--Maori Canoes and Fortifications--Arms of Warfare--Principal Maori Traditions--Maori Tradition of the Creation--Striking Resemblance to the Mosaic Account.
I AM now about to give an idea of this part of the country, and of the whole of New Zealand. As to the produce of the soil, it must be divided into two parts,--that which is native to the country, and that which has been imported by the white people. Before the natives had communications with the outer world, they had no other fruit-bearing tree than the karaka, a tree which bears small apples of a clear red colour. The shell is very large; it contains a kernel about the size of an olive. The kumara, which is a species of sweet potato, and another sort of potato they call "uwhi"--in short, fern-root, with fish and shell-fish, was their ordinary diet. It is also certain that they ate rats and dogs, and in time of war the conquerors devoured the conquered. There probably exists no other race who have carried cannibalism to such a ferocious extent. It was not uncommon after their fights to see the limbs of several hundreds of people suspended on the fences of the victors, presenting the sight of a butcher's shop of human flesh on a large scale. When New Zealand became known to and visited by white people, its fertile soil was speedily enriched with European produce and animals--the produce of seeds and stock brought to them by the sailors. When we arrived at Hokianga they had a number of pigs, some horses, oxen, fowls, ducks, geese, and goats. They had also melons, cabbages, and all sorts of potatoes. Maize was cultivated in so large a quantity that at certain places the natives freighted merchant vessels with it. There was also a little wheat and a few vines. The taro was likewise successfully cultivated by the Maoris. They were beginning to become the farmers of their archipelago. They lived upon the fruits of their agriculture, their fishing and hunting, and bartered the produce of their soil with the whites for clothing, farm implements, tobacco, and powder, and guns. They sold also large pieces of land to procure themselves horses, boats, and sometimes small schooners, with which to navigate the coasts.
These people, before they became acquainted with the white, wore clothes made of a species of flax, called in their language "korari," which grows in great abundance in their country. They are draped only from the waste to the knee: they often wear a sort
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MAORI MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND TRADITIONS.
of mantle which reaches from the shoulders to the feet. Their clothing is very coarsely woven by hand by the women and girls, and they go about barelegged and barefooted. Their dwellings are made of branches of trees, shrubs, and twigs. They have but one opening, which is very low, and through this comes the daylight that illumines the dark interior of their houses. They light their fire in the middle of the hut and the smoke escapes by the door. They sleep on the ground on mats or on fern. In all their houses one generally sees their war weapons (their "mere," a large green-stone, sharpened), their axes, their guns, their cartridge-boxes, and sometimes trunks and cases which they have purchased from Europeans, and in which they keep their clothing and such objects as they most value.
These people are in the habit of tattooing themselves. The common people are tattooed on the face; the chiefs, moreover, tattoo their legs from the calf to the hips. The women are only tattooed around the lips, on the chin, and sometimes on the forehead.
Authority amongst them is that of a family and patriarchal type. Each tribe has its own chief, entirely independent of the neighbouring tribes, and each family in times of peace enjoys the greatest freedom under the chief of its own tribe. A native chief, sovereign over the whole of New Zealand, has never been heard of. Nevertheless, there are among them chiefs of such dignity, on account of their birth, that they exercise great influence over all the rest. It is birth alone that creates a chief among the people. They never have elections or constitutions to strengthen their power, and yet the government is very popular. The chiefs are accessible to all, and the people are so fond of and devoted to their chief that they would fight to the death rather than abandon him, even though he were in fault.
It is doubtful whether in their natural state the Maoris had valid marriages. Usually all the chiefs are polygamists, some having as many as ten wives. It is he who ranks highest by nobility of birth that takes precedence. Adultery among them is severely punished. They kill the two guilty ones, if they are not chiefs of high rank; in the latter case war is declared by the outraged party against the offender. As to the children, they live in their families and tribe enjoying the greatest freedom. These people have a great affection for one another. Ties of blood, reciprocal benefits and alliances, knit this affection. But there are very few strangers to whom they show the same regard. It is only right to say also that there are very few strangers who give them any reason to be grateful or affectionate. The savages quickly learnt whether they were loved or not, or whether people came to do them good or merely for their own special benefit. So that as soon as the Maoris understood that the Bishop and the Catholic missionaries only came to do them good, and that they had given up everything for that purpose, they showed them much attachment and devotion under very many most trying circumstances.
Cupidity, pride, and anger may be considered as their dominant vices. Unchastity obtains amongst the young people who are free, but one never hears of the commission of unnatural offences; they do not care for cleanliness and order, and are inclined to laziness. Cannibalism is the rule in war time. They are very cunning in carrying out plans of vengeance, and know the uses of duplicity and surprises in gaining their end.
Their character is good and manly, they are frank and open and intelligent enough to understand what is naturally right when one is able to explain to them in their own language. They easily learn to read and write without the necessity of constant teaching. It is only necessary to give them a few leaflets of easy reading, and to write some characters on bits of slate to enable them to read and write their own language within three months. Temperance and sobriety are strictly observed by them. One seldom sees a drunken native; they drink only water. The pigs which they fatten are kept to sell to the Europeans, who give them, in exchange, European clothing, and especially blankets.
They love truth, justice, and frankness, and in their native state were extremely hospitable. They display great bravery in their battles. Before going to war, an event
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which they do not seem to dread, they prudently despatch messengers to hold consultation at a grand meeting of the chiefs to discuss the question.
These people are more inclined to work than the savages of the tropical islands. They are more manly in character, less fickle, and of a hardier constitution. They bear the fatigues of a march, the inclemency of the seasons, and the toil of labour with greater ease than the South Sea Islanders.
The women and girls are employed in making clothes and cooking, being helped by slaves. They may be seen also assisting at the cultivation of the potato, the kumara, and maize. When journeying by water, they row with their paddles the same as the men. In time of war they follow the men to the field of battle, where they prepare food for the combatants, cast bullets and make cartridges. They lend their relatives military assistance on the battlefield by carrying thither ammunition, and sometimes even joining them in the fight against the enemy.
The men and the young people make canoes from great trunks of trees, which they hollow out in the shape of long boats. They build the huts for the tribe, which are sufficiently close enough to one another to form a sort of village. They surround these collections of huts with fortifications, which they place in a line and very close to each other, and which are constructed with trunks of trees and branches. These enclosures are sometimes from fifteen to twenty feet in height. All around inside they dig ditches from which the assailed can repel their assailants without exposing themselves to their blows.
The men make also all their weapons for war, which consist of a club, a "mere," a lance, and a tomahawk made of wood or of hard stone. As to powder, guns and lead, and all kinds of sharp steel instruments, they get them by means of barter from the white people. Nearly all the tribes had been armed with guns for about two years before the date of my arrival in New Zealand. The men also do the most towards cultivating the land with spades, which they purchase from the whites, or, failing a spade, by means of implements made of hard wood, which supply its place. The men likewise do the fishing, but the women mostly gather the shell-fish; and, finally, the men carve grotesque and indecent wooden figures, which they affix to their canoes, the doors of their houses, to the burial-places of their ancestors, and the fortification of their villages. They make also innumerable ornaments carved out of the precious stone, called "pounamon," which they use as earrings, or hang around their necks. Since the whites have been established in their country, who use the timber for building purposes, and have sawmills, one may see the natives engaged in this work for the small wage which is offered them.
Before having intercourse with the whites the Maoris could neither read nor write. They possess no written monument of the history of their country, no grammar or dictionary to give an idea of their language. Oral tradition has been the sole vehicle for the transmission of their habits, custom, religion, superstition and language, and yet, strange to say, their principal traditions are identical over the whole island. There is, moreover, no country, however civilised it may be, whose language undergoes fewer modifications than that of the Maori. A foreigner who learns the language among any one of the native tribes will be understood by all the other tribes. It is in these countries that one learns by experience how powerful oral tradition is in transmitting unchanged the ideas of the people from generation to generation.
The following are their principal traditions before their intercourse with the whites:--1. The whole world was limited to New Zealand and one other island which they called "Awaihi," and whose whereabouts they did not know. According to some of their learned men, it was from this island that men of divine origin came to people the earth. 2. The ancestor whom they most venerate is called Maui. To him, indeed, they attribute the creation of New Zealand. According to their superstition, one day, while Maui was fishing in these seas, he drew up from the deep a large and enormous fish, which, on arriving at the surface, turned into fertile land and formed the great archipelago which they inhabit. 3. Maui had a wife called Kina, who bore him two
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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF THE MAORIS.
sons; the elder slew the younger, and by this fratricide incurred the just anger of his father, who banished him from his dwelling; he became a wanderer over the whole archipelago and was the father of several tribes. 4. It is related also that the ancestors of Maui had no wives, and that death did not exist in the world. It was not until the first woman was created that men began to die. Who cannot see in this a striking resemblance between the Maori traditions and some of the principal facts mentioned in Genesis regarding the commencement of the world? Do not Maui and Kina stand for Adam and Eve? The elder son of Maui who slew his brother, does he not represent Cain who slew Abel? The eldest son of Maui who was banished by his father, does it not recall to us the banishment of Cain? Lastly, death, which entered the world after the creation of the first woman, does it not indicate the forbidden fruit eaten by Eve and by Adam, that is to say, original sin, which was the source of all evil, and the punishment of which has been the death of all mankind? Now, from these traditions may we not conclude that in ancient times the ancestors of the Maoris were not totally ignorant of the divine traditions mentioned in Genesis?
