Rutherford remained at the village for about six months, together with
the others who had been taken prisoners with him and who had not been
put to death, all except one, John Watson, who, soon after their arrival
there, was carried away by a chief named Nainy.[AD] A house was assigned
for them to live in, and the natives gave them also an iron pot they had
taken from the ship, in which to cook their victuals. This they found a
very useful article. It was "tabooed," so that no slave was allowed to
eat anything cooked in it; that, we suppose, being considered the surest
way of preventing it from being stolen.
At last they set out in company with Aimy and another chief, to pursue
their way further into the interior; one of them, however, whose name is
not given, remaining with Rangadi.
Having come to another village, the chief of which was called Plama,[AE]
another of them, whose name was John Smith, was left with him.
The number of those preserved alive, it will be recollected, was six; so
that, three of them having been disposed of in the manner that has been
stated, there were now, including Rutherford, as many more remaining
together.
When they had travelled about twelve miles further, they stopped at a
third village, and there they remained two days.
"We were treated very kindly," says Rutherford, "at this village by the
natives. The chief, whose name was Ewanna,[AF] made us a present of a
large pig, which we killed after our own country fashion, not a little
to the surprise of the New Zealanders. I observed many of the children
catch the flowing blood in their hands, and drink it with the greatest
eagerness. Their own method of killing a pig is generally by drowning,
in order that they may not lose the blood. The natives then singed off
the hair for us, by holding the animal over a fire, and also gutted it,
desiring nothing but the entrails for their trouble. We cooked it in our
iron pot, which the slaves who followed us had brought along with the
rest of the luggage belonging to our party.
"No person was allowed to take any part of the pig unless he received
some from us; and not even then, if he did not belong to a chief's
family.
"On taking our departure from this village, we left with Ewanna one of
our comrades named Jefferson, who, on parting from us, pressed my hand
in his, and with tears in his eyes, exclaimed, 'God bless you both! we
shall never see each other again.'
"We proceeded on our journey, in company with Aimy and his family, and
another chief; and having walked about two miles without one word being
spoken by any of the party, we arrived at the side of a river. Here we
stopped, and lighted a fire; and the natives who had charge of the
luggage having come up in about an hour, bringing with them some
potatoes and dried fish, we cooked a dinner for ourselves in the usual
manner. We then crossed the river, which was only about knee deep, and
immediately entered a wood, through which we continued to make our way
till sunset. On getting out of it we found ourselves in the midst of
some cultivated ground, on which we saw growing potatoes, turnips,
cabbage, tara[AG] (which is a root resembling a yam), water-melons, and
coomeras,[AH] or sweet potatoes.
"After a little while we arrived at another river, on the opposite side
of which stood the village in which Aimy resided. Having got into a
canoe, we crossed over to the village, in front of which many women were
standing, who, waving their mats, exclaimed, as they saw us approaching,
'Arami, arami,'[AI] which means, 'Welcome home.'
"We were then taken to Aimy's house, which was the largest in the
village, having the walls formed of large twigs covered with rushes,
with which it was also thatched. A pig was now killed for us, and cooked
with some coomeras, from which we supped; and, afterwards seating
ourselves around the fire, we amused ourselves by listening to several
of the women singing.
"In the meantime, a slave girl was killed, and put into a hole in the
earth to roast in the manner already described in order to furnish a
feast the following day, in honour of the chief's return home.
"We slept that night in the chief's house; but the next morning a number
of the natives were set to work to build one for ourselves, of the same
form with that in which the chief lived, and nearly of the same size.
"In the course of this day, many other chiefs arrived at the village,
accompanied by their families and slaves, to welcome Aimy home, which
they did in the usual manner. Some of them brought with them a quantity
of water-melons, which they gave to me and my comrade. At last they all
seated themselves upon the ground to have their feast; several large
pigs, together with some scores of baskets of potatoes, tara, and
water-melons, having first been brought forward by Aimy's people. The
pigs, after being drowned in the river and dressed, had been laid to
roast beside the potatoes. When these were eaten, the fire that had
been made the night before was opened, and the body of the slave girl
taken out of it, which they next proceeded to feast upon in the eagerest
manner. We were not asked to partake of it, for Aimy knew that we had
refused to eat human flesh before. After the feast was over, the
fragments were collected, and carried home by the slaves of the
different chiefs, according to the custom which is always observed on
such occasions in New Zealand."
The house that had been ordered to be built for Rutherford and his
companion was ready in about a week; and, having taken up their abode in
it, they were permitted to live, as far as circumstances would allow,
according to their own customs. As it was in this village that
Rutherford continued to reside during the remainder of the time he spent
in New Zealand, we may consider him as now fairly domesticated among his
new associates, and may therefore conveniently take the present
opportunity of completing our general picture of the country and its
inhabitants, by adverting to a few matters which have not yet found a
place in our narrative.
No doubt whatever can exist as to the relationship of the New Zealanders
to the numerous other tribes of the same complexion, by whom nearly all
the islands of the South Sea are peopled, and who, in physical
conformation, language, religion, institutions, and habits, evidently
constitute only one great family.
Recent investigations, likewise, must be considered to have
sufficiently proved that the wave of population, which has spread itself
over so large a portion of the surface of the globe, has flowed from the
same central region, which all history points to as the cradle of our
race, and which may be here described generally as the southern tract of
the great continent of Asia. This prolific clime, while it has on the
one hand sent out its successive detachments of emigrants to occupy the
wide plains of Europe, has on the other discharged its overflowing
numbers upon the islands of the Pacific, and, with the exception of New
Holland[AJ] and a few other lands in its immediate vicinity, the
population of which seems to be of African origin, has, in this way,
gradually spread a race of common parentage over all of them, from those
that constitute what has been called the great Indian Archipelago, in
the immediate neighbourhood of China, to the Sandwich Islands and Easter
Island, in the remotest east of that immense expanse of waters.
The Malay language is spoken, although in many different dialects and
degrees of corruption, throughout the whole of this extensive range,
which, measured in one direction, stretches over nearly half the
equatorial circumference of the globe, and in another over at least
seventy degrees of latitude. The people are all also of the same brown
or copper complexion, by which the Malay is distinguished from the
white man on the one hand, and the negro on the other.
In New Zealand, however, as, indeed, in most of the other seats of this
race, the inhabitants are distinguished from each other by a very
considerable diversity in the shades of what may be called the common
hue. Crozet was so much struck with this circumstance that he does not
hesitate to divide them into three classes--whites, browns, and
blacks,--the last of whom he conceives to be a foreign admixture
received from the neighbouring continent of New Holland, and who, by
their union with the whites, the original inhabitants of the country,
and still decidedly the prevalent race, have produced those of the
intermediate colour.
[Illustration: Two Maori Chiefs--Te Puni, or "Greedy," and Wharepouri,
or "Dark House."]
Whatever may be thought of this hypothesis, it is certain that in some
parts of New Zealand the natives are much fairer than in others. Cook
remarks, in the account of his first voyage, that the people about the
Bay of Islands seemed darker than those he had seen further to the
south; and their colour generally is afterwards described as varying
from a pretty deep black to a yellowish or olive tinge. In like manner,
Marsden states that the people in the neighbourhood of the Shukehanga
are much fairer than those on the east coast. It may also, perhaps, be
considered some confirmation of Crozet's opinion as to the origin of the
darkest coloured portion of the population, that those who come under
this description are asserted to be characterized, in addition, by the
other negro peculiarity of a diminutive stature.[AK]
In general, however, the New Zealanders are a tall race of men, many of
the individuals belonging to the upper classes being six feet high and
upwards. They are also described as strong, active, and almost uniformly
well-shaped. Their hair is commonly straight, but sometimes curly;
Crozet says he saw a few of them with red hair. Cook describes the
females as far from attractive; but other observers give a more
flattering account of them. Savage, for example, assures us that their
features are regular and pleasing; and he seems to have been much struck
by their "long black hair and dark penetrating eyes," as well as "their
well-formed figure, the interesting cast of their countenance, and the
sweet tone of their voice." Cruise's testimony is almost equally
favourable.
The dress of the two sexes is exactly the same, and consists of an inner
mat or tunic, fastened by a girdle round their waists, and an upper
cloak, which is made of very coarse materials for ordinary wear, but is
of a much finer fabric, and often, indeed, elaborately ornamented, when
intended for occasions of display. Both these articles of attire are
always made of the native flax. The New Zealanders wear no covering
either for the head or the feet, the feathers with which both sexes
ornament the head being excepted.
The food upon which they principally live is the root of the fern-plant,
which grows all over the country.
Rutherford's account of the method of preparing it, which we have
already transcribed, corresponds exactly with that given by Cook,
Nicholas, and others. This root, sometimes swallowed entirely, and
sometimes only masticated, and the fibres rejected after the juice has
been extracted, serves the New Zealanders not only for bread, but even
occasionally for a meal by itself. When fish are used, they do not
appear, as in many other countries, to be eaten raw, but are always
cooked, either by being fixed upon a stick stuck in the ground, and so
exposed to the fire, or by being folded in green leaves, and then placed
between heated stones to bake. But little of any other animal food is
consumed, birds being killed chiefly for their feathers, and pigs being
only produced on days of special festivity.
The first pigs were left in New Zealand by Cook, who made many attempts
to stock the country both with this and other useful animals, most of
whom, however, were so much neglected that they soon disappeared. Cook,
likewise, introduced the potato into New Zealand; and that valuable root
appears to be now pretty generally cultivated throughout the northern
island.
The only agricultural implements, however, which the natives possess are
of the rudest description; that with which they dig their potatoes being
merely a wooden pole, with a cross-bar of the same material fixed to it
about three feet from the ground. Marsden saw the wives of several of
the chiefs toiling hard in the fields with no better spade than this;
among others the head wife of the great Shungie, who, though quite
blind, appeared to dig the ground, he says, as fast as those who had
their sight, and as well, first pulling up the weeds as she went along
with her hands, then setting her feet upon them that she might know
where they were; and, finally, after she had broken the soil, throwing
the mould over the weeds with her hands.
The labours of agriculture in New Zealand are, in this way, rendered
exceedingly toilsome, by the imperfection of the only instruments which
the natives possess. Hence, principally, their extreme desire for iron.
Marsden, in the "Journal of his Second Visit," gives us some very
interesting details touching the anxiety which the chiefs universally
manifested to obtain agricultural tools of this metal. One morning, he
tells us, a number of them arrived at the settlement, some having come
twenty, others fifty miles. "They were ready to tear us to pieces," says
he, "for hoes and axes. One of them said his heart would burst if he
did not get a hoe."
They were told that a supply had been written for to England; but "they
replied that many of them would be in their graves before the ship would
come from England, and the hoes and axes would be of no advantage to
them when dead. They wanted them now. They had no tools at present, but
wooden ones to work their potato-grounds with; and requested that we
would relieve their present distress."
When he returned from his visit to Shukehanga, many of the natives of
that part of the country followed him, with a similar object, to the
settlement. "When we left Patuona's village," says he, "we were more
than fifty in number, most of them going for an axe or a hoe, or some
small edge-tool. They would have to travel, by land and water, from a
hundred to a hundred and forty miles, in some of the worst paths,
through woods, that can be conceived, and to carry their provisions for
their journey. A chief's wife came with us all the way, and I believe
her load would not be less than one hundred pounds; and many carried
much more." But, perhaps, the most importunate pleader the reverend
gentleman encountered on this journey was an old chief, with a very long
beard, and his face tattooed all over, who followed him during part of
his progress among the villages of the western coast. "He wanted an
axe," says Marsden, "very much; and at last he said that if we would
give him an axe, he would give us his head. Nothing is held in so much
veneration by the natives as the head of their chief. I asked him who
should have the axe when I had got his head. At length he said, 'Perhaps
you will trust me a little time; and, when I die, you shall have my
head.' This venerable personage afterwards got his axe by sending a man
for it to the settlement."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote AD: Probably Nene.]
[Footnote AE: There is no "l" in the Maori orthography, and the name
cannot be traced.]
[Footnote AF: This is another case where Rutherford's pronunciation
seems to have been at fault.]
[Footnote AG: The taro.]
[Footnote AH: The kumera, a sweet potato, which was extensively
cultivated by the ancient Maoris.]
[Footnote AI: "Haere mai," "come here," the usual words of welcome.]
[Footnote AJ: That is, Australia.]
[Footnote AK: The origin of the Maori is dealt with exhaustively by Mr.
S Percy Smith in "Hawaiki"; by Mr. E. Tregear, in "The Maori Race"; and
by Professor Macmillan Brown, in "Maori and Polynesian."]