CHAPTER XIV. Origin of the Natives--Personal Appearance--Modesty of the Women--their Connubial Affection--Punishment for Crim. Con.--Coquetry--Grief and Joy, how manifested.
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CHAPTER XIV.
Origin of the Natives--Personal Appearance--Modesty of the Women--their Connubial Affection--Punishment for Crim. Con.--Coquetry--Grief and Joy, how manifested.
THE opinion now generally entertained, that the inhabitants of New Zealand, and those of the numerous islands in the Pacific Ocean, have sprung from the same source, appears highly probable. This opinion is founded on the striking similarity which is observable between the natives of these islands in almost all their social and domestic habits and usages, and in their moral and physical constitution. But the question from what stock did all these people spring, is not so easily solved, if we may judge from the diversity of opinion that prevails on the subject. Dr Lang ascribes to them an Asiatic origin, and it must be admitted that he has rendered this opinion very probable, if not altogether certain, by the striking similitude which he points out between them and the Asiatics, in respect of physical conformation, general character, Malay features, caste, and taboo, treatment of women, particularly their being forbidden to eat certain articles of food, or to eat in the presence of men, their inhuman conduct to the sick, their immolation of widows at the death of their husbands, and a great number of games and other usages. The affinity with respect to language, as shown by Dr Lang, is very striking, a great many words in both being exactly the same. The main difficulty attending this hypothesis is the wide interval that separates the continent of Asia from the Polynesian regions; but this difficulty the doctor removes, or attempts to remove, by producing some remarkable instances of the drifting of canoes full of natives to a very great distance from their native isles. The account which the New Zealanders themselves give of the origin of their country is this; Mawe, their divinity, was one day amusing himself by fishing; for some time his success was not very encouraging, but, when his patience was nearly exhausted, he felt a bite, and, after a great deal of exertion, he pulled out his line, at the end of which he found attached the islands of New Zealand.
The complexion of the New Zealanders is, generally speaking, either an olive or copper colour, or a kind of brown black. The external appearance of the copper-coloured natives is
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much superior to that of those who want this distinction. Many of them are above six feet in height, with a conformation in which every rule of symmetry has been exactly observed. Between the features of this class and those of the European there is frequently a great degree of similarity. Between the natives of the higher and lower order, nature, it would seem, has drawn a broad line of demarcation; for whereas, in Europe and other countries, there is no difference in the external appearance of the inhabitants, except what arises from a difference of education, society, and food, in New Zealand, though high and low are in these respects upon an equal footing, the distinction between the classes is very obvious. Has nature established an aristocracy in New Zealand and no where else? The partiality shown by nature in the physical construction of the higher class of males is extended to the same class among the females, who, in configuration and in those personal attractions which so powerfully command the admiration and love of the other sex, are admitted by all New Zealand visitants to be decidedly superior to their less fortunate countrywomen. Nor is this superiority indicated by external appearance only; it reaches to the minds of these New Zealand belles, who possess such a stamina as wants nothing but European cultivation to convert them into ladies of as refined sentimentality and as elegant manners as ever graced the assemblies at Almack's. I have seen New Zealand females of the higher class, who had intermarried with respectable Europeans, from whose conduct as a wife and a mother, regulated by good sense, good taste, and endeared by a conjugal and maternal affection, many married ladies in Great Britain might have taken a very useful lesson.
Cook, who was no flatterer, speaks in very favourable terms of the chastity of the females in New Zealand, as follows:-- "I have observed that our friends in the South Seas had not even an idea of decency with respect to any object or any action; but this was by no means the case with the inhabitants of New Zealand, in whose carriage and conversation there was as much modest reserve and decorum with respect to actions, which yet in their opinion were not criminal, as are to be found among the politest people in Europe." "Some of us," he again says, "happening one day to land at a small island in Tolaga Bay, surprised several of the ladies employed in the water, catching lobsters, having left their garments on the rocks. The chaste Diana with her nymphs could not have discovered more confusion and distress at the sight of Actaeon, than these
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women expressed at our approach. Some of them hid themselves among the rocks, and the rest crouched down in the sea until they had made themselves a girdle and apron of such weeds as they could find; and when they came out, even with this veil, we could perceive that they suffered much by our presence." It must be admitted that the eulogium of Cook on the modesty of the New Zealand females is not so generally applicable now as when he pronounced it; but for this deterioration of morals the women have to thank the introduction of Europeans into their country, who have imported and diffused among them a number of vices, to which, before their arrival, they were strangers.
The wives in New Zealand are characterized by strong connubial affection. It was formerly quite customary for the wife, on the death of her husband, to commit suicide. An instance of this took place not long ago, at the south-west coast, which is thus related by one who witnessed it. "The report arrived that a certain chief belonging to the village had been killed in battle; a relative immediately gave the head wife of the defunct a rope of flax, which she took, and instantly went to some sacred bushes and hung herself; no person attempted to prevent her." I cannot resist laying before the reader an account of two other instances of as strong connubial attachment as perhaps ever was felt. "I remember a native girl who had cohabited some time with an Englishman, who was nearly on the point of death from a debilitating illness. The afflicted girl scarce left his bedside. Hearing from the natives of my countryman's illness, I called on him to offer him such assistance as I could afford. Entering the room of the invalid, I perceived the poor wife sobbing convulsively, with the sick man's hands fast locked in hers. After remaining some time with the man, I left the house; outside which, several of the girl's friends were congregated. They told us that Etari the wife had been engaged during the morning making a rope of flax to quit a burdensome existence should her husband die. The man recovered some time after, but I had not the slightest doubt at the time, had a contrary conclusion taken place, she would have put her intentions into practice, agreeably to the customs of her people."
"A native girl, daughter of a chief, had lived for some months with a soldier, who was supposed to have caused the death of James Aldridge, a seaman who had been stabbed. As it appeared prudent to remove her from the ship, she complied with the order for her departure with much reluctance. From
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the time the unfortunate man had been put in confinement, she had scarcely left his side, or ceased to cry; and having been told that he must inevitably be hanged, she purchased some flax from the natives alongside the Dromedary, and making a rope of it, declared that if such should be his fate, she would put a similar termination to her own existence; nor was it doubted but she would have executed her intention."
In New Zealand, death is the punishment for infidelity to her husband on the part of the wife. The importance of preserving inviolable the marriage band, is not more deeply felt in any nation of Europe, than in New Zealand. The wife guilty of adultery is not only killed, but to mark the sense of her crime more impressively, her remains are subjected to the horrid rites of cannibalism. As there are no judicial tribunals in New Zealand, these punishments are usually inflicted by the injured party, who, however, sometimes accepts utu, or damages, as an indemnification for the wrong he has suffered: but the guilty wife never regains caste, or recovers that place in society which she previously held.
Coquetry is not the exclusive product of any country in the world; it is a plant indigenous to every soil; no passion being more deeply rooted in the female mind than the love of admiration. The fair sex in New Zealand are as ambitious as those in our own island to do execution, by playing off the artillery of their attractions, and when their endeavours are successful, no general is more delighted at gaining a battle than they are at the conquests which they have made. The blandishments and gestures exhibited in their dances, and the subjects and language of their amatory compositions, are not it must be confessed, exactly in keeping with the retiring modesty for which Cook gives the women credit whom he surprised in the water.
When any of their relatives die, or separate from them, they express their grief by the infliction of deep wounds on their persons, employing for this purpose the mussel shell, with which they make the blood flow from them in great profusion. And what is remarkable enough, they subject themselves to the same tormenting operations, when a friend who has been long absent returns--a practice which seems utterly at variance with the pleasure which meeting with him again is calculated to inspire.
