1840 - Polack, J. S. Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders [Capper reprint, 1976] - Chapter XXII

[Image of page 232]

CHAPTER XXII.

IN the preceding pages the reader will perceive, on comparing the corroborative notes, that similar habits, manners, and customs, have actuated mankind in all ages. The general character given to the inhabitants of the Islands of Austral-Asia and Polynesia by our early circumnavigators, with the exception of Cook and Vancouver, cannot be depended on, as they are either applauded as races worthy of occupying the same pages as the fabulous shepherds of Arcady, and the gentle Indians of Carteret, Rousseau, St. Pierre, and Chateaubriand, or represented as personifications of all that is treacherous, merciless, and designing. Cook had scanned human nature to perfection, and observing the latter feeling among his people, says, that when (in New Zealand) some of the natives were to be punished for a fraud, his officers and men assumed the inexorable justice of a Lycurgus, but

[Image of page 233]

in return not only excused themselves in purloining the potatoes, &c. of the natives, but would insist, in a singular strain of morality, that it could not be criminal in an Englishman to plunder an Indian plantation.

This fallacious estimate of a barbarous people, was carried to a yet greater extent during the most triumphant period of the Romans, when captive warriors, and their females, were led in chains to grace the spectacles, given in honour of successful generals, that elicited shouts of wonder and applause from the delighted multitudes assembled, but no commiseration was exhibited for the abject beings, who were thus levelled with the brute animals of the conquered countries, and were made equal objects of astonishment to the gaping throng. That such processions of civilized barbarism have passed for ever away, we may reasonably conclude; a new era having happily arisen in its stead, fraught with humanity, and the feeling, that all mankind are brethren; and in the future colonization of Europeans among uncivilized nations, and a repetition of the barbarities committed by their emigrant ancestors, so much insisted on by the enemies to colonization, is impossible to recur again, from the strong popular feeling, inclining to conciliating and humanizing measures.

The wants of the New Zealanders at the period of Cook's visit were extremely limited, but the arts to which they solely applied themselves, viz., agriculture, fishing, mat-weaving, and canoe-building,

[Image of page 234]

were carried to perfection. Their farms (na mara) drew forth the applause of their visitors, who on viewing the system employed in catching fish, acknowledged the natives were individually more expert in the art, and the method employed superior to their own, evincing that even the most barbarous people may afford useful information to more polished nations.

If in stating that the natives possess seines of 3000 feet in length, the reader supposes we have added in imagination, we would remind him, that the Italian fishers in the Mediterranean, bait lines often twenty miles in length, with a dozen of thousand hooks attached, requiring not less than twenty-four hours to haul in, as some fish are caught above a thousand lbs. in weight.

The specimens we have given of the mythology of the New Zealanders is not the avowed belief of the nation (if we may so call the scattered tribes.) 1 As they have not had hitherto any written language,

[Image of page 235]

or even hieroglyphic in lieu thereof, the attributes of these deities are often confounded. Interpolations as best suit the locality, and the genius of the narrator are added or diminished. The only intercourse they grant as having had with the Creator of the white men (na pakaha) has been by the diseases introduced by those visitors, such as the influenza, measles, and one far more to be deprecated. The attempts to instil a real belief in the Christian Religion into the minds of the benighted natives has hitherto decidedly failed, less from the attempts of the missionaries, than the moral impossibility to wean an adult savage from the errors of superstition, and a religion that suits his own convenience, imbibed, we might say, with the milk of the parent, and fostered by early self-indulgence. Many have been the (supposed) converts to missionary instruction, from the crafty feeling of bettering their present condition, but almost in every instance, where a contrary conduct ensured present benefit, the adults have renounced their lately-received opinions, and held aloof from their instructors. These facts, in all probability, would be strenuously denied by certain interested parties resident in England, and who had never been within fourteen thousand miles of this people, with whose character they would actually insist on being perfectly cognizant, but for the truth of our assertions, we would direct the attention of the reader to various portions of published missionary correspondence. Coloniza-

[Image of page 236]

tion alone, actively engaging the mental and physical powers of the people, will successfully and effectually work their moral and religious emancipation from the barbarism and thraldom of savage life.

Of the inscrutable Omnipotence of the Creator, few persons are inclined to conceive more devoutly than ourselves, and though miracles are as "household things to mortal man" in HIS hands, yet we do not look forward at the present day to such divine exertion of power, without adding our own attempts to study (at a far distance) the wishes of the Almighty; we cannot, therefore, expect that the New Zealanders can become a moral social people, by the words addressed to them of a few men, the better half of whom are wanting in the education and mental ability necessary to work such improvement, and some of them having given examples to the people they designed to teach, not only immoral, but even grossly unnatural.

We readily grant that those "devil's missionaries," (as those very people have taught the natives to regard the respectable traders, their countrymen,) have been ejected without ceremony by the two missionary societies in England, but what has been done to counteract the evil influence, and shameful example, that was set by them? especially it so happened that those "tares among the wheat," were the very head and front of their societies' representatives.

Schismatic differences have already arisen among

[Image of page 237]

the natives, who have ranged themselves on different sides. In 1837, a serious fight, during which several persons were shot dead and wounded, arose between the Wesleyan neophytes and the sticklers to the old belief. After some months these differences were composed, but it has had no doubt a serious effect on the people. A new religion was introduced near the North Cape, about the same time, by whom it was invented it is impossible to say; the creed consisted in the belief of the Creator, whose Prophet was called Papahurihia, a native residing among the tribes at that place. The day of rest was on the Saturday, in distinction to the Sunday of the Christian natives.

Since that period, as already stated, M. Pompeliere, the French Bishop, together with several missionary brethren of the Catholic faith, located themselves on the banks of the Hokianga, and from the attention they have met with from the Europeans at that place, induced the natives to treat them with more than ordinary respect; the Bishop has since established himself at Kororarika bay, (now termed the township of Victoria,) in the Bay of Islands, and in all probability, from the multiplicity of sects now offered to the especial notice of the natives, and their present imperfect state of civilization, they will outwardly adopt the religion whereby they will obtain the greatest temporal advantages, until the example of the crown (the reli-

[Image of page 238]

gion of the state,) shall direct their devotions into a proper channel.

On the publication of the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords on the state of the Islands of New Zealand 2 Lord Colchester remarked to the President and Gentlemen of the Royal Geographical Society, that out of nineteen witnesses examined before the committee, nothing was gathered from them of the general state of the country, the habits and manners of its inhabitants, but we opine that the astonishment of the noble speaker would have ceased, had he known that out of the aforesaid nineteen witnesses, above one half had never been within many thousands of miles of the country and people they professed to be perfectly well acquainted with; their evidence consequently referred, not to what they had personally seen, experienced, and mentally digested, but in most cases to what they had casually read or accidentally heard.

Of the eight witnesses, who, having visited this

[Image of page 239]

country, it might be presumed, were enabled to give their testimony, one of them, Captain Fitzroy, R.N., had been no less than TEN DAYS at anchor in the Bay of Islands. Another witness, a dentist, of Sydney, named Towell, or Tawell, whose name will occur in the Appendix, who, having entered a ship, bound from Sydney to London (the vessel had put into Hokianga for ship-timber); had, similar to the previous witness, resided on board ship, two months and three days, confined to one spot. Mr. J. L. Nicholas, the author of an entertaining work on New Zealand, had visited the country in 1814, where he had continued about ten weeks. John Watkins, formerly entered on board a whale-ship, as medical assistant, had casually visited the Bay of Islands, on the vessel putting in for refreshments. The Rev. F. Wilkinson, formerly a Chaplain of New South Wales, had resided about three months in the Bay of Islands and Hokianga. Mr. J. B. Montefiore, a merchant, trading in 1830 to New Zealand, about four months on and off the coast. Mr. J. Flatt, a Catechist of the Church Missionary Society; a resident in various parts of the country during two years and five months; and from the opportunities afforded to him, in residing with the native tribes, well enabled to afford practical information on the actual state of the country; and the writer, who had resided seven consecutive years in the country, an absence of nine months,

[Image of page 240]

at one time, excepted, passed in the adjacent colony of New South Wales. Nayti, a New Zealander, gave his testimony, unsworn.

With the exception of Mr. Flatt and the writer, not one of the witnesses had the slightest knowledge of the language; and, in consequence of their residing on board ship, and among Europeans, during the period of their stay, excepting Messrs. Nicholas, Montefiore, and Wilkinson, had not an opportunity of becoming acquainted, in the remotest degree, with the social habits, customs, manners, or opinions of the people, whose language was a dead letter to them; but of whose personal desires, on the subject of colonization, they had sworn to give testimony.

On this evidence, it is not our intention to make any remarks, in the present publication, excepting that our evidence, taken in short-hand, was afterwards revised by us, and the comments enlarged; but, as the Select Committee had taken a different view of the subject, and were certainly biassed previously to listening to testimony, our remarks were not allowed to be printed; though their fidelity, relative to the actual state of the country, were unimpeachable. The following is the gloomy report of the Lords' Committees: --

"By the Lords' Committees appointed a Select Committee to inquire into the present state of the Islands of New Zealand, and the expediency of regulating the settlement of British subjects therein;

[Image of page 241]

and to consider and report; and to whom was referred the petition of merchants and ship-owners of London, trading in the South Seas and to the Australian Colonies, praying for protection of the shipping interest; and to whom were also referred certain papers connected with the inquiry before the committee: --

"Ordered to report, --That the Committee have met, and have considered the subject matter to them referred; and have come to the following resolution, viz.: --

"Resolved, --That it appears to this committee, that the extension of the colonial possessions of the Crown is a question of public policy, which belongs to the decision of her Majesty's government; but that it appears to this Committee, that support, in whatever way it may be deemed most expedient to afford it, of the exertions which have already beneficially effected the rapid advancement of the religious and social condition of the aborigines of New Zealand, affords the best present hopes of their future progress in civilization.

"And the Committee have directed the minutes of evidence taken before them, together with an index thereto, to be reported to the House."

Despite of the above statement, we feel assured that any dispassionate reader of the evidence would come to a totally different conclusion; in truth of which, the following opinion of the Re-

[Image of page 242]

verend Messrs. Coates and Beecham, secretaries to the Church and Wesleyan Missionary Societies, though, the direst opponents to the colonization of the country, will bear us out: in page 255 of the Report: --

"Q. --Do you imagine that without something Like a colony, it will be possible for the missionaries, in course of time, to christianize the whole country?

"A. --I could not say that without the intervention of a colony that object cannot be reached; but I do think, that without a measure of some description or other, the progress of things in New Zealand cannot be expected to be of that steady and satisfactory kind, that I apprehend all parties are desirous of seeing. I think that the committee of the Church Missionary Society feel strongly the necessity of some remedial measures being applied to the case of New Zealand, principally with reference to the evils arising out of the residence of Europeans and other whites there."

Again, page 267, the same gentlemen are addressed by the committee, on the petition forwarded by the British residents, praying for protection from the government.

"Q. --Do you not consider that petition as strong evidence of the opinion of the respectable portion of the community there (New Zealand), whether connected with missions or not, that some

[Image of page 243]

remedy is necessary for the present state of things?

"A. --No doubt: all parties that I am aware of are quite agreed that some remedy is wanted."

In proof how much remedial measures are urgently required in New Zealand, we would direct the attention of the public to the correspondence of the Reverend Messrs. Henry and William Williams, Missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, especially between the years 1823 to 1837, who deprecate the unsteady natures of their own neophytes; and assert, that if the people are left to the tender mercies of each other, their speedy extinction will ensue. The correspondence of those gentlemen may be implicitly relied on, as being untinctured by enthusiasm, or the fanaticism that distinguishes many of their brethren. 3

The best proof, illustrating the fallacy of the

[Image of page 244]

opinion of the Select Committees, is best evidenced from the fact of the British government having extended its mantle of protection over the country; and despatched Captain Hobson, an efficient and experienced officer, as Consul, subsequently to merge into the dignity of Lieutenant-Governor, subjected to the supervisorship of New South Wales.

Even the President of the said Select Committee has adopted our views relative to the speedy colonization of the noble country we have treated of in the foregoing pages; having placed his name as Governor of the Plymouth New Zealand Land Company, having for its object, views directly opposed to the gloomy resolution of the Select Committee, viz., a systematic laical colonization, that shall effectually spread the blessings of civilization amid the hitherto benighted natives, inclusive of their religious and moral regeneration.