When Hawkesworth visited New Zealand with Captain Cook, he one day
came accidentally across some women who were fishing, and who had
thrown off their last garments. When they saw him they were as
confused and distressed as Diana and her nymphs; they hid among the
rocks and crouched down in the sea until they had made and put on
girdles of seaweeds (456). "There are instances," writes William Brown
(36-37), "of women committing suicide from its being said that they
had been seen naked. A chief's wife took her own life because she had
been hung up by the heels and beaten in the presence of the whole
tribe."
Shall we conclude from this that the Maoris were genuinely modest and
perhaps capable of that delicacy in regard to sexual matters which is
a prerequisite of sentimental love? What is modesty? The _Century
Dictionary_ says it is "decorous feeling or behavior; purity or
delicacy of thought or manner; reserve proceeding from pure or chaste
character;" and the _Encyclopaedic Dictionary_ defines it as
"chastity; purity of manners; decency; freedom from lewdness or
un-chastity." Now, Maori modesty, if such it maybe called, was only
skin deep. Living in a colder climate than other Polynesians, it
became customary among them to wear more clothing; and what custom
prescribes must be obeyed to the letter among all these peoples, be
the ordained dress merely a loin cloth or a necklace, or a cover for
the back only, or full dress. It does not argue true modesty on the
part of a Maori woman to cover those parts of her body which custom
orders her to cover, any more than it argues true modesty on the part
of an Oriental barbarian to cover her face only, on meeting a man,
leaving the rest of her body exposed. Nor does suicide prove anything,
since it is known that the lower races indulge in self-slaughter for
as trivial causes as they do in the slaughter of others. True modesty,
as defined above, is not a Maori characteristic. The evidence on this
point is too abundant to quote in full.
Shortland (126-27) describes in detail all of the ceremonies which
were in former days the pastimes of the New Zealanders, and which
accompanied the singing of their _haka_ or "love-songs," to which
reference has already been made. In the front were seated three
elderly ladies and behind them in rows, eight or ten in a row, and
five or six ranks deep, sat "_the best born young belles of the town_"
who supplied the poem and the music for the _haka_ pantomime:
"The _haka_ is not a modest exhibition, but the
reverse; and, on this occasion, two of the old ladies
who stood in front ... accompanied the music by
movements of the arms and body, their postures being
often disgustingly lascivious. However, they suited the
taste of the audience, who rewarded the performers at
such times with the applause they desired.... It was
altogether as ungodly a scene as can well be imagined."
The same author, who lived among the natives several years, says (120)
that
"before marriage the greatest license is permitted to young
females. The more admirers they can attract and the greater
their reputation for intrigue, the fairer is their chance of
making an advantageous match."
William Brown writes (35) that "among the Maoris chastity is not
deemed one of the virtues; and a lady before marriage may be as
liberal of her favors as she pleased without incurring censure." "As a
rule," writes E. Tregear in the _Journal of the Anthropological
Institute_ (1889),
"the girls had great license in the way of lovers. I
don't think the young woman knew when she was a virgin,
for she had love-affairs with the boys from the cradle.
This does not apply, of course, to _every_ individual
case--some girls are born proud, and either kept to one
sweetheart or had none, but this was rare."
After marriage a woman was expected to remain faithful to her husband,
but of course not from any regard for chastity, but because she was
his private property. Like so many other uncivilized races the Maori
saw no impropriety in lending his wife to a friend. (Tregear, 104.)
The faces of Maori women were always wet with red ochre and oil. Both
sexes anointed their hair (which was vermin-infested) with rancid
shark's oil, so that they were as disagreeable to the smell as
Hottentots. (Hawkesworth, 451-53.) They were cannibals, not from
necessity, but for the love of human flesh, though they did not, like
the Australians, eat their own relatives. Food, says Thompson (I.,
160), affected them "as it does wild beasts." They practised
infanticide, killed cripples, abandoned the sick--in a word, they
displayed a coarseness, a lack of delicacy, in sexual and other
matters, which makes it simply absurd to suppose they could have loved
as we love, with our altruistic feeling of sympathy and affection.
William Brown says (38) that mothers showed none of that doting
fondness for their children common elsewhere, and that they suckled
pigs and pups with "affection." "Should a husband quarrel with his
wife, she would not hesitate to kill her children, merely to annoy
him" (41). "They are totally devoid of natural affection." The men
"appear to care little for their wives," apparently from
"a want of that sympathy between the sexes which is the
source of the delicate attentions paid by the male to
the female in most civilized countries. In my own
experience I have seen only one instance where there
was any perceptible attachment between husband and
wife. To all appearance they behave to each other as if
they were not at all related; and it not infrequently
happens that they sleep in different places before the
termination of the first week of their marriage."
Thus even in the romantic isles of the Pacific we seek in vain for
true love. Let us now see whether the vast continent of North and
South America will bring us any nearer to our goal.