Rutherford and his comrades spent another night in the same manner as
they had done the previous one; and on the following morning set out, in
company with the five chiefs, on a journey into the interior.
When they left the coast, the ship was still burning. They were attended
by about fifty natives, who were loaded with the plunder of the
unfortunate vessel. That day, he calculates, they travelled only about
ten miles, the journey being very fatiguing from the want of any regular
roads, and the necessity for making their way through a succession of
woods and swamps.
The village at which their walk terminated was the residence of one of
the chiefs, whose name was Rangadi,[K] and who was received on his
arrival by about two hundred of the inhabitants.
They came in a crowd, and, kneeling down around him, began to cry aloud
and cut their arms, faces, and other parts of their bodies with pieces
of sharp flint, of which each of them carried a number tied with a
string about his neck, till the blood flowed copiously from their
wounds.
[Illustration: Kororareka Beach, in the Bay of Islands, where some of
Rutherford's adventures are supposed to have taken place.]
These demonstrations of excited feeling, which Rutherford describes as
merely their usual manner of receiving any of their friends who have
been for some time absent, are rather more extravagant than seem to have
been commonly observed to take place on such occasions in other parts of
the island. Mr. Marsden,[L] however, states that on Korro-korro's[M]
return from Port Jackson, many of the women of his tribe who came out to
receive him "cut themselves in their faces, arms, and breasts with sharp
shells or flints, till the blood streamed down." Some time after, when
Duaterra[N] and Shungie[O] went on shore at the Bay of Islands, they met
with a similar reception from the females of their tribes. Mr. Savage
asserts that this cutting of their faces by the women always takes place
on the meeting of friends who have been long separated; but that the
ceremony consists only of embracing and crying, when the separation of
the parties has been short. It may be remarked that the custom of
receiving strangers with tears, by way of doing them honour, has
prevailed with other savages. Among the native tribes of Brazil,
according to Lafitau, it used to be the custom for the women, on the
approach of any one to whom they wished to show especial fidelity, to
crouch down on their heels, and, spreading their hands over their faces,
to remain for a considerable time in that posture, howling in a sort of
cadence, and shedding tears. Among the Sioux, again, it was the duty of
the men to perform this ceremony of lamentation on such occasions, which
they did standing, and laying their hands on the heads of their
visitors.
In some cases, the wounds which the New Zealand women inflict on
themselves are intended to express their grief for friends who have
perished in war; and probably this may have been a reason for the strong
exhibition of feeling in the instance just noticed by Rutherford, as the
chiefs had then returned from an expedition. Such a mode of mourning has
been often observed in New Zealand. During the time that Cruise was at
the Bay of Islands, they found one day, upon going on shore, that a body
of the natives had just returned from a war expedition, in which they
had taken considerable numbers of prisoners, consisting of men, women,
and children, some of the latter of whom were not two years old; and
among the women was one, distinguished by her superior beauty, who sat
apart from the rest upon the beach, and, though silent, seemed buried in
affliction. They learned that her father, a chief of some consequence,
had been killed by the man whose prisoner she now was, and who kept
near her during the greater part of the day.
The officers remained on shore till the evening; "and as we were
preparing to return to the ship," continues Cruise, "we were drawn to
that part of the beach where the prisoners were, by the most doleful
cries and lamentations. Here was the interesting young slave in a
situation that ought to have softened the heart of the most unfeeling.
The man who had slain her father, having cut off his head, and preserved
it by a process peculiar to these islanders, took it out of a basket,
where it had hitherto been concealed, and threw it into the lap of the
unhappy daughter." At once she seized it with a degree of phrenzy not to
be described; and subsequently, with a bit of sharp shell, disfigured
her person in so shocking a manner that in a few minutes not a vestige
of her former beauty remained. They afterwards learned that this fellow
had married the very woman he had treated with such singular barbarity.
The crying, however, seems to be a ceremony that takes place universally
on the meeting of friends who have been for some time parted. We may
give, in illustration of this custom, Cruise's description of the
reception by their relatives of the nine New Zealanders who came along
with him in the "Dromedary" from Port Jackson.
"When their fathers, brothers, etc., were admitted into the ship," says
he, "the scene exceeded description; the muskets were all laid aside,
and every appearance of joy vanished. It is customary with these
extraordinary people to go through the same ceremony upon meeting as
upon taking leave of their friends. They join their noses together, and
remain in this position for at least half-an-hour;[P] during which time
they sob and howl in the most doleful manner. If there be many friends
gathered around the person who has returned, the nearest relation takes
possession of his nose, while the others hang upon his arms, shoulders,
and legs, and keep perfect time with the chief mourner (if he may be so
called) in the various expressions of his lamentation. This ended, they
resume their wonted cheerfulness, and enter into a detail of all that
has happened during their separation. As there were nine New Zealanders
just returned, and more than three times that number to commemorate the
event, the howl was quite tremendous, and so novel to almost every one
in the ship that it was with difficulty our people's attention could be
kept to matters at that moment more essential. Little Repero, who had
frequently boasted, during the passage, that he was too much of an
Englishman ever to cry again, made a strong effort when his father,
Shungie, approached him, to keep his word; but his early habit soon got
the better of his resolution, and he evinced, if possible, more
distress than any of the others."
The sudden thawing of poor Repero's heroic resolves was an incident
exactly similar to another which Mr. Nicholas had witnessed. Among the
New Zealanders who, after having resided for some time in New South
Wales, returned with him and Mr. Marsden to their native country, was
one named Tooi,[Q] who prided himself greatly on being able to imitate
European manners; and accordingly, declaring that he would not cry, but
would behave like an Englishman, began, as the trying moment approached,
to converse most manfully with Mr. Nicholas, evidently, however, forcing
his spirits the whole time. But "his fortitude," continues Nicholas,
"was very soon subdued; for being joined by a young chief about his own
age, and one of his best friends, he flew to his arms, and, bursting
into tears, indulged exactly the same emotions as the others."
Tooi was afterwards brought to England, and remained for some time in
this country. He was in attendance upon his brother Korro-korro, one of
the greatest chiefs in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, and, as
well as Shungie, who has just been mentioned, celebrated all over the
country for his love of fighting, and the number of victories he had
won.
Yet even this hardy warrior was no more proof than any one of his wives
or children against this strange habit of emotion. The first person he
met on his landing happened to be his aunt, whose appearance, as, bent
to the earth with age and infirmities, she ascended a hill, supporting
herself upon a long staff, Nicholas compares to that which we might
conceive the Sibyl bore, when she presented herself to Tarquin. Yet,
when she came up to Korro-korro, the chief, we are told, having fallen
upon her neck, and applied his nose to hers, the two continued in this
posture for some minutes, talking together in a low and mournful voice;
and then disengaging themselves, they gave vent to their feelings by
weeping bitterly, the chief remaining for about a quarter of an hour
leaning on his musket, while the big drops continued to roll down his
cheeks.
The old woman's daughter, who had come along with her, then made her
approach, and another scene, if possible of still more tumultuous
tenderness than the former, took place between the two cousins. The
chief hung, as before, in an agony of affection, on the neck of his
relation; and "as for the woman," says Nicholas, "she was so affected
that the mat she wore was literally soaked through with her tears." A
passionate attachment to friends is, indeed, one of the most prevailing
feelings of the savage state. Dampier tells us of an Indian who
recovered his friend unexpectedly on the island of Juan Fernandez, and
who immediately prostrated himself on the ground at his feet. "We stood
gazing in silence," says the manly sailor, "at this tender scene."
The house of the chief to which Rutherford and his comrades were taken
was the largest in the village, being both long and wide, although very
low, and having no other entrance than an aperture, which was shut by
means of a sliding door, and was so much lower even than the roof that
it was necessary to crawl upon the hands and knees to get through it.
Two large pigs and a quantity of potatoes were now cooked; and when they
were ready, a portion having been allotted to the slaves, who are never
permitted to eat along with the chiefs, the latter sat down to their
repast, the white men taking their places beside them.
The feast was not held within the house, but in the open air; and the
meat that was not consumed was hung up on posts for a future occasion.
One of the strongest prejudices of the New Zealanders is an aversion to
be where any article of food is suspended over their heads; and on this
account, they never permit anything eatable to be brought within their
huts, but take all their meals out of doors, in an open space adjoining
to the house, which has been called by some writers the kitchen, it
being there that the meal is cooked as well as eaten. Crozet says that
every one of these kitchens has in it a cooking hole, dug in the
ground, of about two feet in diameter, and between one and two feet
deep. Even when the natives are confined to their beds by sickness, and,
it may be, at the point of death, they must receive whatever food they
take in this outer room, which, however, is sometimes provided with a
shed, supported upon posts, although in no case does it appear to be
enclosed by walls. It is here, accordingly, that those who are in so
weak a state from illness as not to be able to bear removal from one
place to another usually have their couches spread; as, were they to
choose to recline inside the house, it would be necessary to leave them
to die of want.
Nicholas, in the course of an excursion which he made in the
neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, was once not a little annoyed and
put out of humour by this absurd superstition. It rained heavily when he
and Marsden arrived very hungry at a village belonging to a chief of
their acquaintance, where, although the chief was not at home, they were
very hospitably received, their friends proceeding immediately to dress
some potatoes to make them a dinner. But after they had prepared the
meal, they insisted, as usual, that it should be eaten in the open air.
This condition, Nicholas, in the circumstances, naturally thought a
somewhat hard one; but it was absolutely necessary either to comply with
it, or to go without potatoes. To make matters worse, the dining-room
had not even a shed. So they had no course left but to take shelter in
the best way they could, under a projection from the roof of the house,
extending about three feet; and here they contrived to take their
repast, without being very much drenched. However, they were not allowed
this indulgence without many anxious scruples on the part of their
friends, who considered even their venturing so near to the house on
such an occasion as an act of daring impiety. As they had got possession
of the potatoes, their entertainers, though very much shocked and
alarmed, did not proceed to such rudeness as to take these from them
again; but whenever they wanted to drink out of the calabash that had
been brought to them, they obliged them to thrust out their heads for it
from under the covering, although the rain continued to fall in
torrents.
Fatigued as he was, and vexed at being in this way kept out of the
comfortable shelter he had expected, Nicholas at last commenced
inveighing, he tells us, against the inhospitable custom, with much
acrimony; and as Tooi, who was with them, had always shown so strong a
predilection for European customs, he turned to him, and asked him if he
did not think that these notions of his countrymen were all gammon.
Tooi, however, replied sharply, that "it was no gammon at all"; adding,
"New Zealand man say that Mr. Marsden's _crackee crackee_ (preaching)
of a Sunday is all gammon," in indignant retaliation for the insult that
had been offered to his national customs.
But the worst part of the adventure was yet to come; for as the night
was now fast approaching, and the rain still pouring down incessantly,
it was impossible to think of returning to the ship; "and we were
therefore," continues Nicholas, "obliged to resolve upon remaining where
we were, although we had no bed to expect, nor even a comfortable floor
to stretch upon. We wrapped ourselves up in our great coats, which by
good fortune we had brought with us, and when the hour of rest came on,
laid ourselves down under the projecting roof, choosing rather to remain
here together, than to go into the house and mingle with its crowded
inmates, which we knew would be very disagreeable. Mr. Marsden, who is
blessed by nature with a strong constitution, and capable of enduring
almost any fatigue, was very soon asleep; but I, who have not been cast
in a Herculean mould, nor much accustomed to severe privations, felt all
the misery of the situation, while the cold and wet to which I was
unavoidably exposed, from the place being open, brought on a violent
rheumatic headache, that prevented me from once closing my eyes, and
kept me awake in the greatest anguish.
"Being at length driven from this wretched shelter by the rain, which
was still beating against me, I crept into the house, through the
narrow aperture that served for a door; and, stretching myself among my
rude friends, I endeavoured to get some repose; but I found this equally
impossible here as in the place I had left. The pain in my head still
continued; and those around me, being all buried in profound sleep,
played, during the whole night, such music through their noses, as
effectually prevented me from being able to join in the same chorus."
On one occasion, in the course of his second visit, Marsden spent the
night in the house of a chief, the entrance to which was of such narrow
dimensions that he could not, he says, creep in without taking his coat
off. The apartment altogether measured only about fourteen feet by ten;
and when he looked into it he found a fire blazing on the centre of the
floor, which made the place as hot as an oven, there being no vent for
the smoke, except through the hole which served for a door. However, the
fire, on his entreating it, was taken out, and then he and his friend,
Butler, who was with him, crept in, and were followed by their
entertainer, his wife and nephew. The hut was still extremely hot, and
they perspired profusely when they lay down, but they were a little
relieved by the New Zealanders consenting to allow the door to remain
open during the night.
Another time he was thrust into a still closer dormitory. "The
entrance," says he, "was just sufficient for a man to creep into. Being
very cold, I was glad to occupy such a warm berth. I judged the hut to
be about eight feet wide, and twelve long. It had a fire in the centre;
and no vent either for smoke or heat. The chiefs who were with us threw
off their mats and lay down close together in a state of perfect nudity.
I had not been many minutes in this oven, before I found the heat and
smoke, above, below, and on every side, to be insufferable. Though the
night was cold, Mr. Kendall and myself were compelled to quit our
habitation. I crept out, and walked in the village, to see if I could
meet with a shed to keep me from the damp air till the morning. I found
one empty, into which I entered. I had not been long under my present
cover before I observed a chief, who came with us from the last village,
come out of the hut which I had left, perfectly naked. The moon shone
very bright. I saw him run from hut to hut, till at last he found me
under my shed, and urged me to return. I told him I could not bear the
heat, and requested him to allow me to remain where I was; to which he
at length consented with reluctance. I was surprised at the little
effect that heat or cold seemed to have upon him. He had come out of the
hut smoking like a hot loaf drawn from the oven, walked about to find
me, and then sat down, conversed some time, without any clothing, though
the night was cold. Mr. Kendall remained sitting under his mat, in the
open air, till morning."
The New Zealanders make only two meals in the day, one in the morning
and another at sunset; but their voracity when they do eat is often very
great. Nicholas remarks that the chiefs and their followers, with whom
he made the voyage from Port Jackson, used, while in the ship, to seize
upon every thing they could lay their hands upon in the shape of food.
In consequence of this habit of consuming an extraordinary quantity of
food, a New Zealander, with all his powers of endurance in other
respects, suffers dreadfully when he has not the usual means of
satisfying his hunger.
The huts of the common people are described as very wretched, and little
better than sheds; but Nicholas mentions that those which he saw in the
northern part of the country had uniformly well-cultivated gardens
attached to them, which were stocked with turnips, and sweet and common
potatoes. Crozet tells us that the only articles of furniture the French
ever found in these huts, were fishing-hooks, nets, and lines,
calabashes containing water, a few tools made of stone, and several
cloaks and other garments suspended from the walls.
Amongst the tools, one resembling our adze is in the most common use;
and it is remarkable that the handles of these implements are often
composed of human bones. In the museum of the Church Missionary Society
there are adzes, the handle of one of which is formed of the bone of a
human arm, and another of that of a leg.
The common people generally sleep in the open air, in a sitting
posture, and covered by their mats, all but the head; which has been
described as giving them the appearance of so many hay-cocks or
beehives.
The house of the chief is generally, as Rutherford found it to be in the
present case, the largest in the village; but every village has, in
addition to the dwelling-houses of which it consists, a public
storehouse, or repository of the common stock of sweet potatoes, which
is a still larger structure than the habitation of the chief. One which
Cruise describes was erected upon several posts driven into the ground,
which were floored over with deals at the height of about four feet, as
a foundation. Both the sides and the roof were compactly formed of
stakes intertwisted with grass; and a sliding doorway, scarcely large
enough to admit a man, formed the entrance. The roof projected over
this, and was ornamented with pieces of plank painted red, and having a
variety of grotesque figures carved on them. The whole building was
about twenty feet long, eight feet wide, and five feet high.
The residences of the chiefs are built upon the ground, and have
generally the floor, and a small space in front, neatly paved; but they
are so low that a man can stand upright in very few of them. The huts,
as well as the storehouses, are adorned with carving over the door.
One of the arts in which the New Zealanders most excel is that of
carving in wood. Some of their performances in this way are, no doubt,
grotesque enough; but they often display both a taste and ingenuity
which, especially when we consider their miserably imperfect tools, it
is impossible to behold without admiration. This is one of the arts
which, even in civilized countries, does not seem to flourish best in a
highly advanced state of society. Even among ourselves, it certainly is
not at present cultivated with so much success as it was a century or
two ago.
Machinery, the monopolizing power of our age, is not well fitted to the
production of striking effects in this particular branch of the arts.
Fine carving is displayed, as in the works of Gibbons, by a rich and
natural variety, altogether opposed to that faultless and inflexible
regularity of operation which is the perfection of a machine. Hence the
lathe, with all the miraculous capabilities it has been made to evolve,
can never here come into successful competition with the chisel, in so
far as the quality and spirit of the performance are concerned; but the
former may, nevertheless, drive the latter out of the market, and seems
in a great measure to have done so, by the infinitely superior facility
and rapidity of its operation. Hence the gradual decay, and almost
extinction among us, of this old art, of which former ages have left us
so many beautiful specimens. It is said to survive now, if at all, not
among our artists by profession, whose taste is expended upon higher
objects, but among the common workmen of our villages, who have pursued
it as an amusement, long after it has ceased to be profitable.
The New Zealand artist has no lathe to compete with; but neither has he
even those ordinary hand-tools which every civilized country has always
afforded. The only instruments he has to cut with are rudely fashioned
of stone or bone. Yet even with these, his skill and patient
perseverance contrive to grave the wood into any forms which his fancy
may suggest. Many of the carvings thus produced are distinguished by
both a grace and richness of design that would do no discredit even to
European art.
The considerations by which the New Zealanders are directed in choosing
the sites of their villages are the same which usually regulate that
matter among other savages. The North American Indians, for example,
generally build their huts on the sides of some moderately sized hill,
that they may have the advantage of the ground in case of being attacked
by their enemies, or on the bank of a river, which may, in such an
emergency, serve them for a natural moat. A situation in which they are
protected by the water on more sides than one is preferred; and,
accordingly, both on this account, and for the sake of being near the
sea, which supplies them with fish, the New Zealanders and other
savage tribes are much accustomed to establish themselves at the mouths
of rivers. Among the American Indians, as in New Zealand, a piece of
ground is always left unoccupied in the middle of the village, or
contiguous to it, for the holding of public assemblies. So, also, it
used to be in our own country, almost every village in which had
anciently its common and its central open space; the latter of which,
after the introduction of Christianity, was generally decorated by the
erection of a cross.
[Illustration: A door-lintel, showing Maori carving. _Tourist Dept.
photo_]
It is curious to remark how the genius of commerce--the predominating
influence of a more civilized age--has seized upon more than one of
these provisions of the old state of society, and converted them to its
own purposes. The spacious area around the village cross, or the
adjacent common, has been changed into the scene of the fair or the
daily market; and the vicinity of the sea, or the navigable river, no
longer needed as a protection against the attacks of surrounding
enemies, has been taken advantage of to let in the wealth of many
distant climes, and to metamorphose the straggling assemblage of mud
cottages into a thronged and widespread city--the proud abode of
industry, wealth, elegance, and letters.
Rutherford states that the baskets in which the provisions are served up
are never used twice; and the same thing is remarked by Cruise. The
calabash, Rutherford adds, is the only vessel they have for holding any
kind of liquid; and when they drink out of it, they never permit it to
touch their lips, but hold their face up, and pour the liquor into their
mouth.
After dinner they place themselves for this purpose in a row, when a
slave goes from one to another with the calabash, and each holds his
hand under his chin as the liquor is poured by the slave into his mouth.
They never drink anything hot or warm. Indeed, their only beverage
appears to be water;[R] and their strong aversion to wine and spirits is
noticed by almost all who have described their manners.
Tetoro, one of the chiefs who returned from Port Jackson in the
"Dromedary," was sometimes admitted, during the passage, into the cabin,
and asked by the officers to take a glass of wine, when he always tasted
it, with perfect politeness, though his countenance strongly indicated
how much he disliked it. George of Wangaroa, the chief who headed the
attack on the "Boyd," was the only New Zealander that Cruise met with
who could be induced to taste grog without reluctance; and he really
liked it, though a very small quantity made him drunk, in which state he
was quite outrageous. His natural habits had been vitiated by having
served for some time in an English ship.
It is probable, however, that the sobriety of this people has been
hitherto principally preserved by their ignorance of the mode of
manufacturing any intoxicating beverage. Even the females, it would
appear, have some of them of late years learned the habit of drinking
grog from the English sailors; and Captain Dillon gives an account of a
priestess, who visited him on board the "Besearch," and who, having
among several other somewhat indecorous requests, demanded a tumbler of
rum, quaffed off the whole at a draught as soon as it was set before
her.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote K: Probably Rangatai, although no chief of that name is
known.]
[Footnote L: The Rev. Samuel Marsden, who was appointed chaplain to the
convict settlement of New South Wales in 1793, and who held the first
divine service in New Zealand, on Christmas Day, 1814.]
[Footnote M: Koro-koro.]
[Footnote N: Ruatara, a close friend of Mr. Marsden.]
[Footnote O: Hongi.]
[Footnote P: This is exaggerated.]
[Footnote Q: Tui, in the accepted orthography.]
[Footnote R: The ancient Maoris were one of the very few races that had
no intoxicating drinks.]