MAORI MANNERS.
I.
Old Colonial says that no book about Northern New Zealand, past or
present, would be complete without some special reference to Maori
manners. So, with his larger experience to aid me, I am going to try
and depict them, in brief and to a limited extent. Perhaps the best way
to begin is by sketching the early history of the race, so far as it
is known. Also, we will be pedantic for the nonce, and such words of
the native tongue as are used shall be free from European corruptions.
Thus, to begin with, there being no "s" in the language, which only
consists of fourteen letters, and no plural termination, Maori (pr.
_mowry_) stands for either one or many, and Pakeha (white man,
stranger, pr. _Pah-kay-hah_) signifies either the singular or plural
number.[2]
[2] See _Pronunciation of Maori Names_, in the Appendix.
The Maori are a Turanian race, belonging to the Polynesian family of
the Malay branch. According to their own traditions, they came to New
Zealand from some island in the South Sea, known to them as Hawaiiki.
Probably they had migrated in the first instance from the Malay
Peninsula. A certain number of large canoes landed the pilgrim fathers
of the race on the shores of Ahinamaui,[3] the names of which are
remembered, each of the tribes tracing its ancestry to one. The date
of this incursion is reckoned to have been about A.D. 1400;
the calculation being arrived at by comparison of certain genealogical
tally-sticks kept among the tribes.
[3] The North Island.
The Maori would seem to have degenerated from some more civilized
condition, as is evidenced by the remains among them of astronomical
knowledge, and of a higher political constitution, the basis of which
is discoverable in their institution of the tapu. They brought with
them to New Zealand the kumera (sweet potato), the taro (bread-root),
the hue (gourd), the seeds of the koraka tree, the dog, the pukeko
(swamp-hen), and one or two of the parrot tribe. They found in New
Zealand an aboriginal race of men, inferior to themselves. They also
found several species of gigantic birds, called by them moa, and by
naturalists _Dinornis_, _Aptornis_, and _Palapteryx_.
The Maori, of course, made war upon both man and bird, the latter for
food from the first, and the former probably for the same purpose
eventually. They had succeeded in exterminating both before Europeans
had a chance of making acquaintance with them. Bones of the moa are
frequently found, and, till recently, it was believed that living
specimens existed in the recesses of forest and mountain. But of the
aboriginal race no trace remains, unless, as some have thought, there
be an admixture of their blood in the few Maori of Otago and Stewart
Island.
New Zealand was discovered by Abel Jan van Tasman, in 1642, to whom
it owes its name—a name, by the way, that may one day be changed to
Zealandia, perhaps, just as New Holland has become Australia, and Van
Diemen's Land, Tasmania. The natives received the Dutch navigator with
hostility, massacring a boat's crew. He, therefore, drew off and left,
merely coasting for a short distance. No one else visited the country
until 1769, when Cook arrived in it for the first time.
Captain Cook was likewise received with hostility by the Maori, on his
first landing in Poverty Bay. But afterwards, in the Bay of Plenty,
Mercury Bay, and the Bay of Islands, he met with better treatment,
and was able to establish friendly relations with certain tribes. He
spent altogether nearly a year in New Zealand, between 1769 and 1777,
in which last year he left for Hawaii, to meet his death there in
Kealakekua Bay. He circumnavigated the islands, which had previously
been supposed to form part of a great Antarctic continent. He also
bestowed upon the Maori the pig and the potato, and has left us some
still interesting accounts of what he observed in the country.
Subsequently to Cook's last visit, and in the intervals between his
voyages, other explorers touched here. De Lunéville, De Surville,
Crozet, D'Urville, and Du Fresne, the French navigators, followed in
the footsteps of Tasman and Cook. Then, too, whalers began to call
along the coasts; and, by-and-by, traders from Sydney adventured hither
for timber, and flax (_phormium_), and pigs, and smoked heads. But it
was a risky thing in those days to do business with the Maori. Any
fancied slight or injury was resented most terribly. Several ships were
lost altogether, their crews being butchered and eaten; while boats'
crews and individual mariners were lost by others.
In 1772, Du Fresne, with fifteen of his men, was killed in the Bay of
Islands. He had aroused the wrath of the natives by trespassing on tapu
ground; and they also avenged on him an action of De Lunéville's, who
had rashly put a chief in irons. In 1809, the ship _Boyd_ was taken in
Whangaroa Harbour, and all her company killed, because the captain had
flogged a Maori thief. Again, in 1816, we hear of the American brig
_Agnes_ meeting with a similar fate in Poverty Bay, or thereabouts.
From the end of last century down to 1840, a few individual white
men took up their residence among the Maori here and there. These
Pakeha-Maori, as they are called, were runaway sailors, or such as
had been shipwrecked or made prisoners, or were wild, adventurous
characters who preferred the savage life to the restraints of
civilization. They married Maori women, raised families, and conformed
to all the native customs, sometimes becoming chiefs and leaders in
war. When some fitful intercourse was established with Sydney, these
men were the medium of trade, and achieved immense importance in that
way. It soon became the fashion among the chiefs of tribes for each to
have his own special Pakeha-Maori. Force was sometimes resorted to to
obtain these men. They were captured and compelled to remain, while
wars between rival tribes were conducted for the possession of them.
Rutherford, a survivor of the _Agnes_, was one such. His experiences
of twelve years' residence among the Maori are recorded in Lord
Brougham's compilation. Judge Maning has related the tale of another,
at a somewhat later date.
In 1814, as has been elsewhere mentioned, the Rev. Samuel Marsden,
together with some other missionaries, landed in the Bay of Islands;
and from that event, New Zealand's real history may be said to commence.
The story of Marsden's interest in New Zealand is not without a certain
romantic element. He was chaplain to the Government of New South Wales.
At Sydney he had many opportunities of hearing of New Zealand, and of
the terrible race of fighting man-eaters who inhabited it. Traders
spoke freely of all they knew, and the barbarities, treacheries, and
fearful deeds of the Maori, much exaggerated, no doubt, were matters of
common report. Moreover, individual Maori sometimes shipped as sailors
on board the vessels that touched on their coasts; and so Marsden was
able to judge of the character of the race from the actual specimens he
saw. We may be sure that he was favourably impressed by their evident
superiority in every way to the black aborigines of Australia.
Marsden was in England in 1809, and there he vainly endeavoured to
awaken sympathy on behalf of the Maori, and to persuade the Christian
public to make effort for their help. On his return, he noticed, among
the sailors of his ship, a coloured man, very sick and dejected. Him
he made acquaintance with, finding him to be Ruatara, a Maori of the
chieftain rank, belonging to the Ngapuhi tribe.
Ruatara had had an eventful time of it. In 1805, when a mere lad of
eighteen, he had shipped on board a whaler, hoping thereby to see
something of the world. In her he was treated badly, being marooned on
a desert island for some months, and eventually brought back again to
New Zealand, without more experience than a whaling cruise in the South
Sea could give him.
But, nothing daunted by these vicissitudes, he again shipped on board
a whaler, and in her was carried to London. This was the acme of his
desires, for his great idea was to see King George. But, all the time
the ship lay in dock, Ruatara was scarcely allowed to go on shore,
even, and was not permitted to carry his wishes into execution. He
appears to have been brutally ill-treated, and was finally turned
over to a convict ship, the _Ann_, bound for Port Jackson. On board
of her Marsden sailed, and saw and took this forlorn wretch, ill and
disappointed, under his protection.
Arrived in Sydney, Marsden took Ruatara to his own house, and kept him
there as his guest for some months, doing his best, meanwhile, we may
be sure, to enlighten the mind of the barbarian whom Providence had
thrown in his way. Finally, he took means to send Ruatara home to his
own country.
The Church Missionary Society, stirred by Marsden's representations, at
last sent out a missionary party. But on their arrival in Sydney the
members of it hesitated about venturing to New Zealand—the affair of
the _Boyd_, and similar deeds, being just then fresh in the colonial
mind. Marsden, however, was not to be daunted.
In 1814 he sent a vessel to the Bay of Islands, loaded with useful
presents, and bearing an invitation to Ruatara to visit him once more.
It was readily accepted, not only by Ruatara, but also by several other
chiefs, including the subsequently famous Hongi Hika, who was uncle to
Ruatara. These persons were hospitably entertained by Marsden at his
residence at Paramatta. Towards the end of the year, they returned to
New Zealand, and with them went Marsden and his companions, landing at
Te Puna in December of that year, as has been elsewhere spoken of.
This is the first appearance of the redoubtable Hongi. Both he and
Ruatara took the missionaries under their protection, and firmly
maintained that attitude as long as they lived. Neither of them
embraced Christianity; but Hongi's care for the missionaries is shown
in the charge he gave to his successors on his death-bed concerning
them, which I have recorded in a previous chapter. Ruatara was a
man of much milder disposition than his uncle, though both appeared
well-mannered, courteous, amiable, and eminently sagacious when among
Europeans. Ruatara would probably have become a convert, had he not
died soon after the advent of Marsden.
During this period many of the Maori evinced great desire to travel,
and especially to see England and its king. They were ready to
undergo any amount of hardship and ill-treatment to accomplish this.
Numbers shipped as seamen on board such vessels as would receive
them. Sometimes they resorted to amusing tricks in order to get
carried to England. Tupei Kupa, for example, a powerful chief in the
neighbourhood of Cook Straits, came on board a ship passing along the
coast, and resisted all endeavours, even force, to make him return. He
was eventually made to serve as a sailor, and seems to have become a
general favourite. He resided some time in Liverpool, afterwards being
sent home by Government.
Hongi was affected by the same spirit. In 1820 he, accompanied by
another chief, Waikato, and under the charge of Rev. Mr. Kendall,
visited England. There he was presented to King George, and was made
much of. The two chiefs aided Mr. Kendall and Professor Lee in the
compilation of the first Maori vocabulary. They returned to Sydney
loaded with many and valuable presents.
But in Sydney the true character of Hongi came out. He realized all
his property, and converted it into muskets, powder, and ball. With
these he sailed joyfully back to his own country. Arrived there, he set
about arming his fighting men and instructing them in the use of the
new acquisitions. He also became very friendly to such trading vessels
as touched on his coasts, giving them cargoes of such produce as the
country afforded in return for more arms.
This chief's ambition was to constitute himself king of all New
Zealand, just as King George was sovereign over all Britain. His
theory of the way to bring this about seems to have been by killing
and eating all who opposed the project. There were some thirty tribes
of the Maori, and these were divided and subdivided into various
little sections. Sometimes a powerful chief was dominant over a large
confederation; and, again, each little kainga regarded itself as
independent.
Originally, Hongi was ariki (head chief or king) of the Ngapuhi, and
ruled over the inhabitants of the districts round the Bay of Islands,
and between that and the west coast. As soon as he had returned from
England, and had achieved the possession of fire-arms, he converted his
previously somewhat loose lordship into a real despotism. He organized
a taua (army, regiment, or war-party), and quickly reduced any unruly
sections to obedience. Then he attacked the Ngatipo of Whangaroa, the
Ngararawa of Whangape, and the Ngaopuri of the North Cape. These he
massacred, devoured, and dispersed, swelling the ranks of his army with
accessions from among the subdued tribes.
After this, various expeditions, under the command of Hongi, or his
sub-chiefs, marched southward to slay and eat all and sundry. The
Ngatewhatua, a populous tribe of the Kaipara districts, had to bear the
brunt of Hongi's advance, and were almost annihilated. He penetrated
a long way south, ever victorious over every one by reason of his
superior weapons. There is little doubt that he must have sometimes led
an army of as many as five thousand men, mostly armed with muskets.
This was a prodigious force for Maori war, irrespective of the enormous
advantage of powder and ball over the native merè (battle-axe) and patu
(a sort of halberd).
Such was the spirit of the Maori, and such their warlike ferocity, that
tribes never thought of submitting peaceably, or fled from superior
strength. They always fought first. It is difficult to realize,
nowadays, the awful carnage that Hongi instituted. Districts were
depopulated, tribes annihilated, men, women, and children, in scores
and hundreds, were butchered and eaten; pa and kainga were burnt and
destroyed.
Far to the south went the bloodthirsty conquerors, even into
what afterwards came to be the province of Wellington. Ngapaoa,
Ngatewaikato, Ngatimaniapoto, Ngatiawa, and many another tribe felt
the full force of Hongi's lust for conquest. Even to the East Cape his
terrible warriors came, decimating Ngateurewera and Ngatiporu. Of these
latter they once roasted and ate fifteen hundred, at a single one of
their cannibal orgies.
But Hongi did not become king of New Zealand after all. He received
a wound in battle, which brought him to his death in 1828. In spite
of his propensities for war and cannibalism, both of which, one may
say, were hereditary in the Maori blood at that time, Hongi would
seem to have possessed many good qualities. His intellect was quick
and vigorous, and would have distinguished him among any people. His
ingenuity was great, both in overcoming difficulties and in the
arts which the Maori used, or that had been taught him by Europeans.
His bravery was undoubted, and was mingled with much large-hearted
generosity. He had good impulses, and was singularly affectionate to
his own family. To him missionaries and white traders owed the first
footing they obtained in the country, and the ability to hold their own
there afterwards.
From the period of Marsden's first visit the labours of the
missionaries began to bear fruit, and Christianity spread, at first
slowly, but afterwards with marvellous rapidity and completeness. Soon
after Hongi's death a more peaceful era commenced: arms were less often
employed; cannibalism was given up among christianized tribes; and
peaceful arts were more attended to. In 1823, a Wesleyan mission was
established, first of all in Whangaroa; and, in 1837, a Roman Catholic
one was commenced in Hokianga. By 1840 the whole of the tribes of
the Maori were professedly Christian, and had relinquished their old
warlike customs.
In 1864 there arose a singular religious revival among the Maori, known
by the name of Hau-hau. This was just at the period when the Waikato
war was concluded, and when certain sections of various tribes in the
interior had declared themselves independent under a king of their own
election. Hau-hau was instituted by some of the old tohunga (priests,
prophets, and medicine-men), mainly from political motives. They said
that as there was an English Church, a Scottish Church, and a Roman
Church, that there ought also to be a distinctive Maori Church. They
accordingly set to work to form one.
Hau-hau consists of a frenzied form of Christianity, mingled with some
observances taken from the Mosaic Law, and comprehending old heathenish
usages grafted upon the new order of things. From the extraordinary
excitement its professors manifest, some people have thought that
mesmeric influence had a part in it.
Hau-hau became a political movement, being inseparably connected with
the "king" rebellion. The Kingite Maori have given a good deal of
trouble in former years, but have now been quiescent for long. Their
territory occupies Kawhia county on the West Coast, being bounded by
the Waikato, Waipa, and Mokau rivers, and the sea. Their numbers are
but few.
Till lately these rebels held themselves wholly aloof from intercourse
with the outside world, and threatened any one who should enter their
territory. At last they began to bring produce to the nearest Pakeha
market, and to buy stores, though still maintaining their reserve. In
1881 there arose some dispute about land that had been confiscated
after the war, but that had not been taken possession of. There was
talk of a furious row between the rebels and the settlers. This was
magnified by English newspapers into a "threatened Maori war," an
absurd piece of ignorance, truly!
The "war" was put an end to the other day, by a few policemen arresting
the "King," in the midst of his dominions and surrounded by his
subjects, and conveying him off to durance vile at Wellington. A
demonstration of Taranaki volunteers was enough. No blood was spilt; no
violence offered.
Maori wars are things of the past entirely. When are British
journalists going to awake to that fact? Now, settlers outnumber Maori
everywhere ten to one. There are roads and railways and steamers,
sufficient to convey constabulary to any riotous neighbourhood pretty
quickly. But the great point is that the Maori of the present day are
decent, quiet, and orderly folk. They are intelligent, and possess as
much civilization as would be found in many rural districts of England,
Scotland, and Wales—I will not add of Ireland, too, for fear I should
be Boycotted! Maori and settler are on perfectly equal terms, and the
former know it; moreover, they are not an homogeneous people, but
live scattered in small communities. The Kingites, who are the least
civilized, and who profess not to acknowledge our authority, showed
what they thought of the possibilities of war by their submission to
a party of constables the other day. There is no strength among them
to make a war if they wished it, which they are much too sagacious to
do. Riots, or brigandage, even, in isolated localities, are less to be
feared than similar outbreaks in Lancashire or Staffordshire.
To read, as we did a short while ago, in influential London newspapers,
that war with the Maori was again imminent, strikes us as excessively
ludicrous. "Our shanty" even regards it as a dire insult, and there was
some talk among us of going to war ourselves—with the fourth estate in
England. Anyhow, it shows how little our friends at home really know
about this land of the blest and the free. Have there not been books
enough written about it _yet_?
There are, it is true, a good many Maori who adhere to primitive
custom. Here and there you may find a kainga, containing from a score
to a hundred souls, where there is not much apparent advance from the
state of things fifty years back. But even here you will find that men
and women turn out in European clothes, on occasions of state; that
the children receive schooling of some sort; that there is a surprising
degree of intelligence and knowledge of the great world and its ways;
and that there is a fervent, and often dogmatic, Christianity among the
inhabitants.
On the other hand, there are Maori of a more cultivated condition,
and these have no small influence with their less sophisticated
compatriots. Maori members sit in both houses of the Legislature;
Maori have votes at elections; there are some comparatively wealthy
Maori; there are Maori farmers, store-keepers, hotel-keepers, artisans,
policemen, postmen, teachers, and clergymen. There are two or three
Maori newspapers, partly written by Maori, for Maori to buy and read.
They are no longer to be regarded as savages, or as a distinct race,
even. They are but one of the classes of our community.
The present total Maori population is no more than 42,819; and the
European population is 463,729. In 1874 the Maori numbered 46,016, so
they have decreased considerably since then. But it is probable that
the numbers six years ago were not taken with the same accuracy as at
the last census, so that it would, perhaps, be too hasty to say that
the race has decreased by 3000 during the last six years; yet this
estimate cannot be very far from the truth.
There is no doubt that the Maori race are dying out, and that with
great rapidity. At the beginning of this century—about 1820—the
missionaries estimated their numbers to be 100,000, a guess that most
likely fell far short of the truth. The frightful slaughtering that
followed the introduction of fire-arms had, no doubt, much to do with
the diminution of the population, but evidently that can have no effect
at the present day; nor have the wars we have fought with certain
tribes, subsequent to 1840, been of such a bloody nature as to be set
down among the immediate causes of decrease.
It has been too hastily assumed that the Maori were lessening before
the advent of Europeans. It has been erroneously supposed that they
were half-starved, and that they had no option but to resort to
cannibalism. Both conclusions are certainly mistaken ones, I feel
convinced.
In the first place, when the Maori came to New Zealand, four or five
centuries ago, only a very limited number could have arrived. A long
and hazardous voyage must have been undertaken in frail canoes,
and it is not to be supposed that an entire nation could have so
migrated. Moreover, it is probable that the immigrants were driven
here accidentally, by stress of weather, possibly. Otherwise, if they
were able to voyage about so successfully in the open ocean, at will,
surely they would have kept up communication with "Hawaiiki," or other
islands, which we know they did not.
It seems clear, therefore, that but a few people originated the Maori
inhabitants of New Zealand, and as these were certainly at one time
very numerous, it is apparent that after their coming they had gone on
increasing and multiplying. At what period, and for what reason, did
this process of increase become checked, and change to one of decrease?
When Europeans first became acquainted with the country, the Maori had
by no means occupied the whole of it, or even nearly so, nor had they
exhausted its resources for the support of life. They were cannibals;
but it has been abundantly proved that they were not so from necessity.
Cannibalism was a part of the ceremonial of war and victory—nothing
more. It was never looked upon as a mere means of livelihood.
It is true, that the Maori had no animals except dogs and rats, both of
which they ate; but flesh is not an absolute necessity of existence.
They had fish of many kinds in marvellous profusion; they cultivated
assiduously the kumera and taro, alone sufficient for the support of
life. Such crops as these hardly ever fail in this climate. Then there
was the fern-root everywhere, a regular article of diet with them,
and sundry other roots and herbs. Some writers have assumed that when
the moa had been hunted down and destroyed, there was no other food
available, and so the tribes turned on each other. This is monstrously
absurd. There is no evidence to show that moa were ever so plentiful as
to have been a principal part of the food-supply. There is plenty of
traditional evidence to prove that other and smaller birds were more
generally used as diet. There is no proof that the Maori were ever in
want of means of subsistence. As matter of fact they were not. They
never knew what famine was, in the sense in which it has at times been
understood in Western Ireland or the Hebrides.
Now war, at that prehistoric period, was a very different thing from
what it afterwards became, when fire-arms were introduced. From the
very earliest time, according to their legends, war was the main
employment of the Maori. But their wars were not of a kind to cause
large devastation. Usually they were Homeric combats, where one or two
persons were slain on either side. Vast preparations were made for an
event of this kind. Rival tribes mustered all their strength; and, with
much ceremony, the taua of each came together at some appointed place.
Then for days there was much talking and boasting, and various single
duels, resulting in little or nothing. Eventually a general engagement
would ensue. Hundreds might take part in it, but rarely were there a
dozen or a score of casualties. So we gather from such accounts as have
reached us. Incessant though the inter-tribal conflicts were, they
were not of such a murderous sort as to cause large general decrease.
Extreme old age was a very frequent thing, among even prominent
fighting-men, just as now there are numerous very aged Maori.
So, it would seem that neither war nor want were destroying the race
before the coming of the Pakeha; consequently it is not surprising to
find that the fact of their decreasing at all at that period is no
fact, and is but an opinion, a theory, an assumption that appears to be
devoid of any foundation whatsoever.
When fire-arms were introduced, general butcheries commenced. Hongi
initiated this era. But other tribes eventually obtained the coveted
weapon, and then there was a carnival of blood all through the land.
Here we find the first real cause for general decrease. These fearful
wars must have enormously diminished the numbers of the race.
But when Christianity laid hold of the Maori, and when colonization
came after it, there was no longer any reason left for a decrease
among the native population, at least, so one would have thought; yet
the numbers of the Maori have been growing less and less with startling
rapidity. The decrease that is going on now, and that has been going on
since 1840, is evidently not owing to war or to want. Other causes for
it must be sought for. The first Maori census was taken in 1874, and
now another enumeration has been made, showing a considerable falling
off since the other. Scarcely an old settler but will tell of districts
he knows, where years ago there was a much larger native population
than there is to-day. It is evident that, as civilization advances, and
as Pakeha grow more numerous in the country, the Maori are disappearing
faster and faster.
Many causes have been assigned for this. The anti-alcoholists—of whom
we have many eminent and enthusiastic professors in the colony—of
course, put drink down as the chief reason. I do not think it is,
myself. Some Maori may drink themselves to death, but, so far as my
experience goes, I have found them to be remarkably abstemious as a
rule. Many Maori will not touch liquor at all; many more will take a
little, but decline to drink excessively. As one such remarked to me
once—
"Little rum good. Makee jolly, dance, sing! Much rum bad. Makee
sleepy, makee head sore, belly sore, all sore!"
A drunken Maori is comparatively rare in the North, at least, as far
as my observation goes. I am rather inclined to take medical evidence
on the subject of Maori decrease. Certain diseases, introduced by
the Pakeha, have spread among them extensively, and work fatally to
their constitutions. The women are thereby rendered less capable of
maternity, and the children fewer and more sickly.
A good deal of sentiment has been unnecessarily wasted upon this
matter. We do not need to raise a cry of lamentation over the departing
Maori. Let him go; we shall get on well enough without him! When the
ordinary Englishman refers to the matter, he says—
"They're a splendid race, those _Maries_! and it's a thousand pities
they should be dying out so fast!"
With this commonly begins and ends the sum of his knowledge of the
matter. Now, the Maori is not altogether such an absolutely superior
person. Relatively to some other aboriginal races—the Australian
black, for instance, and perhaps most of the North American tribes—the
Maori may truly be described as a splendid race; but compared with
the Anglo-Saxon, the Maori is nowhere. He cannot match our physical
development nor our intellectual capacity, average compared with
average.
So, let the Maori go. We do not wish him to, particularly. We are
indifferent about the matter. We would not hurry him on any account.
Nay, we will even sympathize with him, and sorrow for him—a little. We
are content to know that he will make room for a superior race. It is
but the process of Nature's sovereign law. The weaker is giving way to
the stronger; the superior species is being developed at the expense of
the inferior.
In appearance, the Maori strike you favourably. Their features are
good, being quite in Caucasian mould, though inclining a little to
coarseness. Their heads are well shaped, their bodies and limbs well
developed and muscular. They are somewhat long in the back and short in
the leg, as compared with Europeans; and both men and women are able to
pikau (hump, or carry on the back and shoulders) great weights for long
distances.
The colour of the skin varies. In some it is almost a coppery brown, in
others a dusky olive. The hair is black or brown, occasionally reddish.
The faces are open and intelligent, capable of much expression, and
pleasing when in repose. The eyes are large and full, and the teeth
naturally of dazzling whiteness and regularity. Some of the young
girls are comely and pretty, but as they grow old they often get
repulsively ugly.
The average height is perhaps a little over that of Englishmen; but
the Maori are seldom over six feet, and not often below five feet six
inches. Deformed persons are to be seen in every kainga, where they are
looked upon as, to some extent, privileged by their misfortune.
The moku (tattooing) has gone out of fashion, and is seldom seen on
young men now, except among very conservative communities. Plenty of
the older men, however, show it, and are still proud of it. The women
were never marked much, a line or two about the mouth, and on the chin,
was all they were allowed.
The moku was not mere ornament or disfigurement. It had a distinct
heraldic meaning, and the practice had attained to quite high art. The
designs are most elaborate, and were traced with exceeding care. They
consist of concentric lines and geometric devices, each pattern having
its peculiar signification. The markings are of a blue colour; they are
principally displayed on the face and breast; and they are so deeply
set that the skin is ridged and furrowed, looking as if carved.
The lower classes had but little moku, the more intricate and elaborate
patterns being reserved for men of rank. The higher a chief was, the
more elaboration did his moku display. When a man rose in rank, he
received additional decoration; just as civilized governments confer
orders, crosses, and stars upon distinguished generals or statesmen.
Often the face was so covered that even the nostrils, eyelids, and
lobes of the ears were adorned with minute tracery.
The operator who was entrusted with the making of the moku, was a
man of great importance, though he might be of the lowest rank. The
possession of a skilled artist on skin was thought so much of in the
old days, that wars were sometimes waged to determine who should
benefit by his talent. He was a sort of R.A., and M.R.C.S., and
king-at-arms in combination.
This individual had his cases of instruments, little hoe-shaped chisels
and gouges and knives, made of sharks' teeth, flint, bone, and wood.
Very neat and beautifully finished weapons they were. The pigments
consisted of charcoal, a prepared red earth, and the juice of the hinau
tree.
The proud and happy patient was laid down on his back, and forcibly
held in position by assistants. Then the operator sketched out the
pattern on his face with charcoal. Each line or dot was chiselled in
with a suitable tool, a wooden hammer being used to send the blade
well into the flesh. The blood of course gushed freely forth, and was
scraped off with an implement made for the purpose. The pigments were
rubbed into the incisions as these were proceeded with. As may well
be supposed, the pain was simply excruciating, but it was considered
unmanly to flinch from it.
Subsequent inflammation was generally severe, and might last for weeks,
while the whole operation would have to be effected bit by bit, over
possibly a year or two. To add to the hero's misery, all this while he
was tapu, or unclean, and could not touch food with his hands, or live
in a wharè (house). Unless he was sedulously attended to by the ladies
of his family, as was the proper thing, he would undergo no trifling
amount of inconvenience.
The moku served a curious purpose at one time. Clumsy though Maori
fingers are, they seem to have a natural aptitude for sketching and
carving. So, when the earliest missionaries and others called upon
certain chiefs to sign the title-deeds of estates they had bought from
them, the Maori did so by drawing little sketches of the moku that
adorned their faces. Each said, "That is me, and no one else." These
curious autographs are still preserved by the Societies in London.
It was the practice in the old days to preserve the heads of
distinguished men who were slain in battle. This was done by smoking
and drying them in such a way as to keep the emblazoned skin intact. As
soon as traders began to come from Sydney, they were ready to barter
valuable commodities for these relics, which commanded high fancy
prices among the museums and curio-hunters of Europe.
Great inducements were, therefore, offered to trading Maori to bring
heads into market. The product seemed to be going to bring wealth into
the country, and industrial enterprise in this direction speedily
quickened. Trading tribes went to war on all sides, in order that the
supply of heads might be fully up to the demand for them.
When this resource failed, some ingenious and business-like potentate
hit upon a splendid device. Procuring the services of a first-class
artist, he caused him to adorn a number of slaves with the most
elaborate and high-art designs. Nothing was to be spared; they were to
be decorated in the grandest style.
When a ship came that way again, and inquiry was made by her captain
as to the ruling prices and possible supply of heads, among other
commodities, the new commercial scheme of these simple people was at
once propounded to him. The chief caused a row of emblazoned slaves
to be marshalled before the trader, and told that gentleman to pick
out those he admired. Further, he was assured that such as he deigned
to choose should be at once decapitated, their heads cured _secundem
artem_, and delivered on board his ship with promptitude and dispatch,
at the usual market rates.
The new plan was pronounced kapai (good), and gave universal
satisfaction. Not only did it encourage a noble and national art, but
the revenue of the kingdom was thereby largely increased. We can hardly
realize, perhaps, the intense chagrin of these merry folk when they
found that the missionaries discouraged their laudable efforts in this
direction, not to mention that those teachers also interdicted the
time-honoured custom of anthropophagy. I have often fancied I heard
some ancient Maori sighing and lamenting for the good old times, the
merry days when he was young!
But, possibly, it is as well that the moku and the head-curing process
should be now among the number of lost and vanished arts.