The Muru falling into Disuse.--Why.--Examples of the Tapu.--The
Personal Tapu.--Evading the Tapu.--The Undertaker's Tapu.--How I
got Tabooed.--Frightful Difficulties.--How I got out of them.--The
War Tapu.--Maori War Customs.
The law of _muru_ is now but little used, and only on a small scale.
The degenerate men of the present day in general content themselves
with asking "payment," and, after some cavilling as to the amount, it
is generally given; but if refused, the case is brought before a native
magistrate: the pleadings on both sides are often such as would astound
our barristers, and the decisions of a nature to throw those famous
ones by Sancho Panza and Walter the Doubter for ever into the shade.
I think the reason that the _muru_ is so much less practised than
formerly, is the fact that the natives are now far better supplied with
the necessaries and comforts of life than they were many years ago;
especially iron tools and utensils, and in consequence the temptation
to plunder is proportionately decreased. Money would still be a
temptation; but it is so easily concealed, and in general they have so
little of it, that other means are adopted for its acquisition. When I
first saw the natives, the chance of getting an axe or a spade by the
summary process of _muru_, or--at a still more remote period--a few
wooden implements, or a canoe, was so great a temptation, that the
lucky possessor was continually watched by many eager and observant
eyes, in hopes to pick a hole in his coat, by which the _muru_ might be
legally brought to bear upon him. I say legally, for the natives always
tried to have a sufficient excuse: and I absolutely declare, odd as it
may seem, that actual, unauthorized, and inexcusable robbery or theft
was less frequent than in any country I ever have been in, though the
temptation to steal was a thousandfold greater.
The natives of the present day are, however, improving in this respect,
and, amongst other arts of civilization, are beginning to have very
pretty notions of housebreaking; they have even tried highway robbery,
though in a bungling way. The fact is they are just now between two
tides. The old institutions which, barbarous and rude as they were,
were respected and in some degree useful, are wearing out, and have
lost all beneficial effect, and at the same time the laws and usages of
civilization have not acquired any sufficient force. This state of
things is very unfavourable to the _morale_ of Young New Zealand; but
it is likely to change for the better, for it is a maxim of mine that
"laws, if not _made_, will _grow_."
I must now take some little notice of the other great institution, the
_tapu_. The limits of these flying sketches of the good old times will
not allow of more than a partial notice of the all-pervading _tapu_.
Earth, air, fire, water, goods and chattels, growing crops, men, women,
and children,--everything, absolutely, was subject to its influence;
and a more perplexing puzzle to new pakehas, who were continually from
ignorance infringing some of its rules, could not be well imagined. The
natives, however, made considerable allowance for this ignorance; as
well they might, seeing that they themselves, though from infancy to
old age enveloped in a cloud of _tapu_, would sometimes fall into
similar scrapes.
The original object of the ordinary _tapu_ seems to have been the
preservation of property. Of this nature in a great degree was the
ordinary personal _tapu_. This form of the _tapu_ was permanent, and
consisted in a certain sacred character which attached to the person of
a chief, and never left him. It was his birthright: a part, in fact, of
himself, of which he could not be divested; and it was well understood
and recognized at all times, as a matter of course. The fighting men
and petty chiefs, and every one, indeed, who could by any means claim
the title of _rangatira_--which, in the sense I now use it, means
gentleman--were all in some degree more or less possessed of this
mysterious quality. It extended or was communicated to all their
movable property; especially to their clothes, weapons, ornaments, and
tools, and to everything, in fact, which they touched. This prevented
their chattels from being stolen or mislaid, or spoiled by children, or
used or handled in any way by others. And as in the old times, as I
have before stated, every kind of property of this kind was precious,
in consequence of the great labour and time necessarily, for want of
iron tools, expended in the manufacture, this form of the _tapu_ was of
great real service. An infringement of it subjected the offender to
various dreadful imaginary punishments; of which deadly sickness was
one, as well as to the operation of the law of _muru_ already
mentioned. If the transgression was involuntary, the chief, or a
priest, or _tohunga_, could, by a certain mystical ceremony, prevent or
remit the doleful and mysterious part of the punishment, if he chose;
but the civil action, or the robbery by law of _muru_, would most
likely have to take its course, though possibly in a mitigated form,
according to the circumstances.
I have stated that the worst part of the punishment of an offence
against this form of the _tapu_ was imaginary; but in truth, though
imaginary, it was not the less a severe punishment. "Conscience makes
cowards of us all," and there was scarcely a man in a thousand, _if_
one, who had sufficient resolution to dare the shadowy terrors of the
_tapu_. I actually have seen an instance where the offender, though an
involuntary one, was killed stone dead in six hours, by what I
considered the effects of his own terrified imagination; but what all
the natives at the time believed to be the work of the terrible avenger
of the _tapu_. The case I may as well describe, as it was a strong one,
and shows how, when falsehoods are once believed, they will meet with
apparent proof from accidental circumstances.
A chief of very high rank, standing, and _mana_, was on a war
expedition; with him were about five hundred men. His own personal
_tapu_ was increased twofold, as was that of all the warriors who were
with him, by the _war tapu_. The _taua_ being on a very dangerous
expedition, they were, over and above the ordinary personal _tapu_,
made sacred in the highest degree, and were obliged to observe strictly
several mysterious and sacred customs; some of which I may have to
explain by-and-by. They were, in fact, as irreverent pakehas used to
say, "tabooed an inch thick;" and as for the head chief, he was
perfectly unapproachable. The expedition halted to dine. The portion of
food set apart for the chief, in a neat _paro_ or shallow basket of
green flax leaves, was, of course, enough for two or three men, and
consequently the greater part remained unconsumed. The party, having
dined, moved on; and soon after a party of slaves and others, who had
been some mile or two in the rear, came up, carrying ammunition and
baggage. One of the slaves, a stout hungry fellow, seeing the chief's
unfinished dinner, ate it up before asking any questions. He had hardly
finished, when he was informed by a horror-stricken individual--another
slave who had remained behind when the _taua_ had moved on--of the
fatal act he had committed. I knew the unfortunate delinquent well: he
was remarkable for courage, and had signalized himself in the wars of
the tribe. (The able-bodied slaves are always expected to fight in the
quarrels of their masters; to do which they are nothing loth.) No
sooner did he hear the fatal news than he was seized with the most
extraordinary convulsions and cramps in the stomach, which never ceased
till he died, about sundown the same day. He was a strong man, in the
prime of life; and if any pakeha free-thinker should have said he was
not killed by the _tapu_ of the chief, which had been communicated to
the food by contact, he would have been listened to with feelings of
contempt for his ignorance and inability to understand plain and direct
evidence.
It will be seen at once that this form of the _tapu_ was a great
preserver of property. The most valuable articles might, in ordinary
circumstances, be left to its protection, in the absence of the owners,
for any length of time. It also prevented borrowing and lending in a
very great degree; and though much laughed at and grumbled at by
unthinking pakehas--who would be always trying to get the natives to
give it up, without offering them anything equally effective in its
place, or indeed knowing its real object or uses--it held its ground in
full force for many years; and, in a certain but not so very observable
a form, it exists still. This form of the _tapu_, though latent in
young folks of _rangatira_ rank, was not supposed to develope itself
fully till they had arrived at mature age, and set up house on their
own account. The lads and boys "knocked about" amongst the slaves and
lower orders, carried fuel or provisions on their backs, and did all
those duties which this personal _tapu_ prevented the elders from
doing; and which restraint was sometimes very troublesome and
inconvenient.
A man of any standing could not carry provisions of any kind on his
back; or if he did they were rendered _tapu_, and in consequence
useless to any one but himself. If he went into the shed used as a
kitchen (a thing, however, he would never think of doing except on some
great emergency), all the pots, ovens, food, &c., would be at once
rendered useless: none of the cooks or inferior people could make use
of them, or partake of anything which had been cooked in them. He might
certainly light a little fire in his own house; not for cooking, as
that never by any chance could be done in his house, but for warmth:
but that, or any other fire, if he should have blown upon it with his
breath in lighting it, became at once _tapu_, and could be used for no
common or culinary purpose. Even to light a pipe at it would subject
any inferior person (and in many instances an equal) to a terrible
attack of the _tapu morbus_; besides being a slight or affront to the
dignity of the person himself.
I have seen two or three young men when on a journey fairly wearing
themselves out on a wet day and with bad apparatus, trying to make fire
to cook with, by rubbing two sticks together; when at the same time
there was a roaring fire close at hand at which several _rangatira_ and
myself were warming ourselves: but it was _tapu_, sacred fire--one of
the _rangatira_ had made it from his own tinder box, and blown upon it
in lighting it, and as there was not another tinder box amongst us,
fast we must, though hungry as sharks, till common culinary fire could
be obtained. A native whose personal _tapu_ was perhaps of the
strongest, might, when at the house of a pakeha, ask for a drink of
water; and the pakeha, being green, would hand him some water in a
glass, or, in those days, more probably in a tea-cup; the native would
drink the water, and then gravely and quietly break the cup to pieces,
or otherwise he would appropriate it by causing it to vanish under his
mat. The new pakeha would immediately fly into a passion, to the great
astonishment of the native; who considered as a matter of course, that
the cup or glass was, in the estimation of the pakeha, a very worthless
article, or he would not have given it into his hand and allowed him to
put it to his head, the part most strongly infected by the _tapu_. Both
parties would be surprised and displeased; the native wondering what
could have put the pakeha into such a taking, and the pakeha "wondering
at the rascal's impudence, and what he meant by it?"
The proper line of conduct for the pakeha in the above case made and
provided, supposing him to be of a hospitable and obliging disposition,
would be to lay hold of some vessel containing about two gallons of
water (to allow for waste), and hold it up before the native's face;
the native would then stoop down and put his hand, bent into the shape
of a funnel or conductor for the water, to his mouth; then, from the
height of a foot or so, the pakeha would send a cataract of water into
the said funnel, and continue the shower till the native gave a slight
upward nod of the head, which meant "enough:" by which time, from the
awkwardness of the pakeha, the two gallons of water would be about
expended, half, at least, on the top of the native's head; but he would
not, however, appear to notice the circumstance, and would appreciate
the civility of his pakeha friend. I have often drunk in this way in
the old times: asking for a drink of water at a native village, a
native would gravely approach with a calabash, and hold it up before me
ready to pour forth its contents; when I, of course, cocked my hand and
lip in the most knowing manner. If I had laid hold of the calabash and
drunk in the ordinary way, as practised by pakehas, I should have at
once fallen in the estimation of all by-standers, and been set down as
a _tutua_, a nobody, who had no _tapu_ or _mana_ about him--a mere
scrub of a pakeha, whom any one might eat or drink after without the
slightest danger of being poisoned.
These things are all changed now; and though I have often, in the good
old times, been tabooed in the most diabolical and dignified manner,
there are only a few old men left now who, by little unmistakable
signs, I perceive consider it would be very uncivil to act in any way
which would suppose my _tapu_ to have disappeared before the influx of
new-fangled pakeha notions. Indeed I feel myself sometimes as if I had
somehow insensibly become partially civilized. What it will all end in,
I don't know.
This same personal _tapu_ would even hold its own in some cases against
the _muru_; though not in a sufficiently general manner to seriously
affect the operation of that well-enforced law. Its inconveniences
were, on the other hand, many, and the expedients resorted to to avoid
them were sometimes comical enough. I was once going on an excursion
with a number of natives; we had two canoes, and one of them started a
little before the other. I was with the canoe which had been left
behind, and just as we were setting off it was discovered that amongst
twenty stout fellows my companions there was no one who had a back!--as
they expressed it: consequently there was no one to carry our
provisions into the canoe. All the lads, women, and slaves had gone off
in the other canoe,--all those who had backs,--and so there we were
left, a very disconsolate lot of _rangatira_, who could not carry their
own provisions into the canoe, and who at the same time could not go
without them. The provisions consisted of several heavy baskets of
potatoes, some dried sharks, and a large pig baked whole. What was to
be done? We were all brought to a full stop, though in a great hurry to
go on. We were beginning to think we must give up the expedition
altogether, and were very much disappointed accordingly, when a clever
fellow--who, had he been bred a lawyer, would have made nothing of
driving a mail coach through an act of parliament--set us all to rights
in a moment. "I'll tell you what we must do," said he, "we will not
carry (_pikau_) the provisions, we will _hiki_ them." (_Hiki_ is the
word in Maori which describes the act of carrying an infant in the
arms.) This was a great discovery! A huge handsome fellow seized on the
baked pig and dandled it, or _hiki'd_ it, in his arms like an infant;
another laid hold of a shark, others took baskets of potatoes, and
carrying them in this way deposited them in the canoe. And so, having
thus evaded the law, we started on our expedition.
I remember another amusing instance in which the inconvenience arising
from the _tapu_ was evaded. I must, however, notice that these
instances were only evasions of the ordinary kind of _tapu_,--what I
have called the personal _tapu_; not the more dangerous and dreadful
kind connected with the mystic doings of the _tohunga_, or that other
form of _tapu_ connected with the handling of the dead. Indeed, my
companions in the instance I have mentioned, though all _rangatira_,
were young men on whom the personal _tapu_ had not arrived at the
fullest perfection: it seemed, indeed, sometimes to sit very lightly on
them, and I doubt very much if the play upon the words _hiki_ and
_pikau_ would have reconciled any of the elders of the tribe to
carrying a roasted pig in their arms; or, if they did do so, I feel
quite certain that no amount of argument would have persuaded the
younger men to eat it: as for slaves or women, to _look_ at it would
almost be dangerous to them.
The other instance of dodging the law was as follows. I was the first
pakeha who had ever arrived at a certain populous inland village. The
whole of the inhabitants were in a great state of commotion and
curiosity, for many of them had never seen a pakeha before. As I
advanced, the whole juvenile population ran before me at a safe
distance of about a hundred yards, eyeing me, as I perceived, with
great terror and distrust. At last I suddenly made a charge at them,
rolling my eyes and showing my teeth; and to see the small savages
tumbling over one another and running for their lives was something
curious: and though my "demonstration" did not continue more than
twenty yards, I am sure some of the little villains ran a mile before
looking behind to see whether the ferocious monster called a pakeha was
gaining on them. They did run! I arrived at the centre of the village
and was conducted to a large house or shed, which had been constructed
as a place of reception for visitors, and as a general lounging place
for all the inhabitants. It was a _whare noa_, a house to which, from
its general and temporary uses, the _tapu_ was not supposed to attach:
I mean, of course, the ordinary personal _tapu_ or _tapu rangatira_.
Any person, however, _infected_ with any of the more serious or
extraordinary forms of the _tapu_ entering it, would at once render it
uninhabitable. I took my seat. The house was full, and nearly the whole
of the rest of the population were blocking up the open front of the
large shed; all striving to see the pakeha, and passing to the rear
from man to man every word he happened to speak. I could hear them say
to the people behind, "The pakeha has stood up!" "Now he has sat down
again!" "He has said, how do you all do?" "He has said, this is a nice
place of yours!" &c. &c.
Now there happened to be at a distance, an old gentleman engaged in
clearing the weeds from a _kumera_ or sweet potato field, and as the
kumera in the old times was the crop on which the natives depended
chiefly for support, like all valuable things it was _tapu_, and the
parties who entered the field to remove the weeds were _tapu pro tem._
also. One of the effects of this temporary extra _tapu_ was that the
parties could not enter any regular dwelling-house, or, indeed, any
house used by others. The breach of this rule would not be dangerous in
a personal sense, but the effect would be that the crop of sweet
potatoes would fail. The industrious individual I have alluded to,
hearing the cry of "A pakeha! a pakeha!" from many voices, and having
never had an opportunity to examine that variety of the species, or
_genus homo_, flung down his wooden _kaheru_ or weed exterminator, and
rushed towards the town house before mentioned. What could he do? The
_tapu_ forbade his entrance, and the front was so completely blocked up
by his admiring neighbours that he could not get sight of the wonderful
guest. In these desperate circumstances a bright thought struck him: he
would, by a bold and ingenious device, give the _tapu_ the slip. He ran
to the back of the house, made with some difficulty a hole in the
padded _raupo_ wall, and squeezed his head through it. The elastic wall
of _raupo_ closed again around his neck; and the _tapu_ was fairly
beaten! No one could say he was _in_ the house. He was certainly more
out than in; and there, seemingly hanging from, or stuck against the
wall, remained for hours, with open mouth and wondering eyes, this
brazen head; till at last, the shades of night obstructing its vision,
a rustling noise in the wall of flags and reeds announced the departure
of my ingenious admirer.
Some of the forms of the _tapu_, however, were not to be trifled with,
and were of a most virulent kind. Of this kind was the _tapu_ of those
who handled the dead, or conveyed the body to its last resting-place.
This _tapu_ was, in fact, the uncleanness of the old Jewish law; it
lasted about the same time, and was removed in almost the same way. It
was a most serious affair. The person who came under this form of the
_tapu_ was cut off from all contact, and almost all communication, with
the human race. He could not enter any house, or come in contact with
any person or thing, without utterly defiling them. He could not even
touch food with his hands; which had become so frightfully _tapu_, or
unclean, as to be quite useless. Food would be placed for him on the
ground, and he would then sit or kneel down, and, with his hands
carefully held behind his back, would gnaw it in the best way he could.
In some cases he would be fed by another person, who, with
out-stretched arm, would manage to do it without touching the _tapu'd_
individual; but this feeder was subjected to many and severe
restrictions, not much less onerous than those to which the other was
subject.
In almost every populous native village there was a person
who--probably for the sake of immunity from labour, or from being good
for nothing else--took up the undertaking business as a regular
profession, and, in consequence, was never for a moment, for years
together, clear of the horrid inconveniences of the _tapu_, as well as
its dangers. One of these people might be easily recognized, after a
little experience, even by a pakeha. Old, withered, haggard, clothed in
the most miserable rags, and daubed all over from head to foot with red
paint (the native funereal colour), made of stinking shark oil and red
ochre mixed, keeping always at a distance, silent and solitary, often
half insane, he might be seen sitting motionless all day at forty or
fifty yards distance from the common path or thoroughfare of the
village. There, under the "lee" of a bush, or tuft of flax, he gazed
silently, and with "lacklustre eye," on the busy doings of the Maori
world, of which he was hardly to be called a member. Twice a day some
food would be thrown on the ground before him, to gnaw as best he
might, without the use of hands; and at night, tightening his greasy
rags around him, he would crawl into some miserable lair of leaves and
rubbish; there, cold, half starved, miserable, and dirty, to pass, in
fitful ghost-haunted slumbers, a wretched night, as prelude to another
wretched day. It requires, they say, all sorts of people to make a
world; and I have often thought, in observing one of these miserable
objects, that his, or hers, was the very lowest ebb to which a human
being's prospects in life could be brought by adverse fate. When I met,
or rather saw, a female practitioner, I fairly ran for it; and,
believing my readers to be equally tender-hearted, I shall not venture
on any more description, but merely say that the male undertaker, such
as I have described him, would be an Apollo, in comparison with one of
these hags.
What will my kind reader say when I tell him that I myself once got
_tapu'd_ with this same horrible, most horrible, style of _tapu_? I
hold it to be a fact that there is not one man in New Zealand but
myself who has a clear understanding of what the word "excommunication"
means: indeed I did not understand what it meant till I got _tapu'd_. I
was returning with about sixty men from a journey along the west coast,
and was a short distance in advance of the party, when I came to where
the side of a hill had fallen down on to the beach and exposed a number
of human bones. There was a large skull rolling about in the water, and
I took up this skull without consideration, carried it to the side of
the hill, scraped a hole, and covered it up. Just as I had finished
burying it up came my friends, and I saw at once, by the astonishment
and dismay depicted on their countenances, that I had committed some
most unfortunate act. They soon let me know that the hill had been a
burial-place of their tribe, and jumped at once to the conclusion that
the skull was the skull of one of their most famous chiefs; whose name
they told me. They informed me also that I was no longer fit company
for human beings, and begged me to fall to the rear and keep my
distance. They told me all this from a very respectful distance, and if
I made a step towards them, they all ran as if I had been infected by
the plague. This was an awkward state of things, but as it could not be
helped, I voted myself _tapu_, and kept clear of my friends till night.
At night when they camped, I was obliged to take my solitary abode at a
distance under shelter of a rock. When the evening meal was cooked,
they brought me a fair allowance, and set it down at a respectful
distance from where I sat; fully expecting, I suppose, that I should
bob at it as Maori _kai tango atua_, or undertakers, are wont to do. I
had, however, no idea of any such proceeding; and, pulling out my
knife, proceeded to operate in the usual manner. I was checked by an
exclamation of horror and surprise from the whole band--"Oh, what are
you about? You are not going to touch food with your _hands_!" "Indeed,
but I am," said I, and stretched out my hand. Here another scream--"You
must not do that: it's the worst of all things. One of us will feed
you: it's wrong, wrong, very wrong!" "Oh, bother," said I, and fell too
at once. I declare, positively, I had no sooner done so than I felt
sorry. The expression of horror, contempt, and pity, observable in
their faces, convinced me that I had not only offended and hurt their
feelings, but that I had lowered myself greatly in their estimation.
Certainly I was a pakeha, and pakehas will do most unaccountable
things, and may be, in ordinary cases, excused; but this, I saw at
once, was an act which, to my friends, seemed the _ne plus ultra_ of
abomination. I now can well understand that, while sitting there eating
my potatoes, I must have appeared to them a ghoul, a vampire; worse
than even one of their own dreadful _atua_, who, at the command of a
witch, or to avenge some breach of the _tapu_, enters into a man's body
and slowly eats away his vitals. I can see it now, and understand what
a frightful object I must have appeared.
My friends broke up their camp at once, not feeling sure, after what I
had done, but I might walk in amongst them, in the night, when they
were asleep, and bedevil them all. They marched all night, and in the
morning came to my house, where they spread consternation and dismay
amongst my household by telling them in what a condition I was coming
home. The whole of my establishment at this time being natives, ran off
at once; and when I got home next evening, hungry and vexed, there was
not a soul to be seen. The house and kitchen were shut up, fires out,
and, as I fancied, everything looked dreary and uncomfortable. If only
a dog had come and wagged his tail in welcome, it would have been
something; but even my dog was gone. Certainly there was an old tom
cat; but I hate cats: there is no sincerity in them, and so I had
kicked this old tom, on principle, whenever he came in my way, and now,
when he saw me, he ran for his life into the bush.
The instinct of a hungry man sent me into the kitchen; there was
nothing eatable to be seen but a raw leg of pork, and the fire was out.
I now began to suspect that this attempt of mine to look down the
_tapu_ would fail, and that I should remain excommunicated for some
frightfully indefinite period. I began to think of Robinson Crusoe, and
to wonder if I could hold out as well as he did. Then I looked hard at
the leg of pork. The idea that I must cook it for myself, brought home
to me the fact more forcibly than anything else how I had "fallen from
my high estate"--cooking being the very last thing a _rangatira_ can
turn his hand to. But why should I have anything more to do with
cooking?--was I not cast off and repudiated by the human race? (A
horrible misanthropy was fast taking hold of me.) Why should I not tear
my leg of pork raw, like a wolf? "I will run a-muck!"--suddenly said I.
"I wonder how many I can kill before they 'bag' me? But--I must have
some supper."
I soon made a fire, and, after a little rummaging, found the _materiel_
for a good meal. My cooking was not so bad either, I thought; but
certainly hunger is not hard to please in this respect, and I had eaten
nothing since the diabolical meal of the preceding evening, and had
travelled more than twenty miles. I washed my hands six or seven times,
scrubbing away and muttering with an intonation that would have been a
fortune to a tragic actor, "Out, damned spot;" and so, after having
washed and dried my hands, looked at them, returned, and washed again,
again washed, and so on, several times, I sat down and demolished two
days' allowance. After which, reclining before the fire with my pipe,
and a blanket over my shoulders, a more kindly feeling towards my
fellow-men stole gradually upon me. "I wonder," said I to myself, "how
long this devilish _tapu_ will last! I wonder if there is to be any end
at all to it! I won't run a-muck for a week, at all events, till I see
what may turn up. Confounded plague though to have to cook!" Having
resolved as above, not to take any one's life for a week, I felt more
patient.
Four days passed, somehow or another, and on the morning of the fifth,
to my extreme delight, I saw a small canoe, pulled by one man, landing
on the beach before the house. He fastened his canoe and advanced
towards the kitchen, which was detached from the house, and, in the
late deplorable state of affairs, had become my regular residence. I
sat in the doorway, and soon perceived that my visitor was a famous
_tohunga_, or priest, and who also had the reputation of being a witch
of no ordinary dimensions. He was an old, grave, stolid-looking savage,
with one eye; the other had been knocked out long ago in a fight,
before he turned parson. On he came, with a slow, measured step,
slightly gesticulating with one hand, and holding in the other a very
small basket, not more than nine or ten inches long. He came on,
mumbling and grumbling a perfectly unintelligible _karakia_ or
incantation. I guessed at once he was coming to disenchant me, and
prepared my mind to submit to any conditions or ceremonial he should
think fit to impose. My old friend came gravely up, and putting his
hand into the little basket pulled out a baked _kumera_, saying, "_He
kai mau._" I of course accepted the offered food, took a bite, and as I
ate he mumbled his incantation over me.
I remember I felt a curious sensation at the time, like what I fancied
a man must feel who had just sold himself, body and bones, to the
devil. For a moment I asked myself the question whether I was not
actually being then and there handed over to the powers of darkness.
The thought startled me. There was I, an unworthy but believing member
of the Church of England as by Parliament established, "knuckling down"
abjectly to the ministration of a ferocious old cannibal, wizard,
sorcerer, high priest,--or, as it appeared very probable,--to Satan
himself. "Blacken his remaining eye! knock him over and run the
country!" whispered quite plainly in my ear my guardian angel, or else
a little impulsive sprite who often made suggestions to me in those
days. For a couple of seconds the sorcerer's eye was in desperate
danger; but just in those moments the ceremony, or at least this most
objectionable part of it, came to an end.
The _tohunga_ stood back and said, "Have you been in the house?"
Fortunately I had presence of mind enough to _forget_ that I had, and
said, "No." "Throw out all those pots and kettles." I saw it was no use
to resist, so out they went. "Fling out those dishes" was the next
command. "The dishes?--they will break." "I am going to break them
all." Capital fun this. Out go the dishes; "and may the ----." I fear I
was about to say something bad. "Fling out those knives, and those
things with sharp points"--(the old villain did not know what to call
the forks!)--"and those shells with handles to them"--(spoons!)--"out
with everything." The last sweeping order is obeyed, and the kitchen is
fairly empty. The worst is over now at last, thank goodness, said I to
myself. "Strip off all your clothes." "What?--strip naked!--you
desperate old thief--mind your eye." Human patience could bear no more.
Out I jumped. I did "strip." Off came my jacket. "How would you prefer
being killed, old ruffian?--can you do anything in this way?" (Here a
pugilistic demonstration.) "Strip!--he doesn't mean to give me five
dozen, does he?" said I, rather bewildered, and looking sharp to see if
he had anything like an instrument of flagellation in his possession.
"Come on!--what are you waiting for?" said I.
In those days, when labouring under what Dickens calls the "description
of temporary insanity which arises from a sense of injury," I always
involuntarily fell back upon my mother tongue; which in this case was
perhaps fortunate, as my necromantic old friend did not appreciate the
full force of my eloquence. He could not, however, mistake my warlike
and rebellious attitude, and could see clearly I was going into one of
those most unaccountable rages that pakehas were liable to fly into,
without any imaginable cause. "Boy," said he, gravely and quietly, and
without seeming to notice my very noticeable declaration of war and
independence, "don't act foolishly; don't go mad. No one will ever come
near you while you have those clothes. You will be miserable here by
yourself. And what is the use of being angry?--what will _anger_ do for
you?" The perfect coolness of my old friend, the complete disregard he
paid to my explosion of wrath, as well as his reasoning, began to make
me feel a little disconcerted. He evidently had come with the purpose
and intention to get me out of a very awkward scrape, and I began also
to feel that, looking at the affair from his point of view, I was just
possibly not making a very respectable figure: then, if I understood
him rightly, there would be no _flogging_. "Well," said I, at last,
"Fate compels: to fate, and not old Hurlo-thrumbo there, I yield--so
here goes." Let me not dwell upon the humiliating concession to the
powers of _tapu_. Suffice it to say, I disrobed, and received
permission to enter my own house in search of other garments.
When I came out again, my old friend was sitting down with a stone in
his hand, battering the last pot to pieces, and looking as if he was
performing a very meritorious action. He carried away all the smashed
kitchen utensils and my clothes in baskets, and deposited them in a
thicket at a considerable distance from the house. (I stole the knives,
forks, and spoons back again some time after, as he had not broken
them.) He then bid me good-by; and the same evening all my household
came flocking back: but years passed before any one but myself would go
into the kitchen, and I had to build another. And for several years
also I could observe, by the respectable distance kept by young natives
and servants, and the nervous manner with which they avoided my pipe in
particular, that they considered I had not been as completely purified
from the _tapu tango atua_ as I might have been. I now am aware, that
in consideration of my being a pakeha--and also, perhaps, lest, driven
to desperation, I should run away entirely, which would have been
looked upon as a great misfortune to the tribe--I was let off very
easy, and might therefore be supposed to retain some tinge of the
dreadful infection.
Besides these descriptions of _tapu_, there were many other. There was
the _war tapu_, which in itself included fifty different "sacred
customs," one of which was this. Often when the fighting men left the
pa or camp, they being themselves made _tapu_--or sacred, as in this
particular case the word means--all those who remained behind, old men,
women, slaves, and all non-combatants, were obliged strictly to fast
while the warriors were fighting; and, indeed, from the time they left
the camp till their return, even to smoke a pipe would be a breach of
this rule. These war customs, as well as other forms of the _tapu_, are
evidently derived from a very ancient religion, and did not take their
rise in this country. I shall, probably, some of these days, treat of
them at more length, and endeavour to trace them to their source.
Sacrifices were often made to the war demon, and I know of one instance
in which, when a tribe were surrounded by an overwhelming force of
their enemies, and had nothing but extermination--immediate and
unrelenting--before them, the war chief cut out the heart of his own
son as an offering for victory; and then he and his tribe, with the
fury of despair and the courage of fanatics, rushed upon the foe,
defeated them with terrific slaughter, and the war demon had much
praise, and many men were eaten.
The warriors, when on a dangerous expedition, also observed strictly
the custom to which allusion is made in 1st Samuel, xxi. 4, 5.