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OLD NEW ZEALAND,
A TALE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES;
and
A HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE
NORTH AGAINST THE CHIEF
HEKE, IN THE YEAR
1845.
TOLD BY AN OLD CHIEF OF THE NGAPUHI TRIBE.
BY A PAKEHA MAORI.
with an introduction
BY THE EARL OF PEMBROKE.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen,
NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
1876.
CHISWICK PRESS: C. WHITTINGHAM, TOOKS COURT,
CHANCERY LANE.
CONTENTS.
Page
Introduction ix
Preface to the Original Edition xxiii
CHAPTER I.
Introductory -- First View of New Zealand -- First Sight of the
Natives, and First Sensations experienced by a mere Pakeha -- A
Maori Chief's notions of trading in the Old Times -- A
dissertation on "Courage" -- A few words on Dress -- The Chief's
Soliloquy -- The Maori Cry of Welcome 1
CHAPTER II.
The Market Price of a Pakeha -- The value of a Pakeha "as such"
-- Maori Hospitality in the Good Old Times -- A Respectable
Friend -- Maori Mermaids -- My Notions of the value of Gold --
How I got on Shore 14
CHAPTER III.
A Wrestling Match -- Beef against Melons -- The Victor gains a
loss -- "Our Chief" -- His Speech -- His _status_ in the Tribe
-- Death of "Melons" -- Rumours of Peace and War -- Getting the
Pa in fighting order -- My Friend the "Relation Eater" --
Expectation and Preparation -- Arrival of Doubtful Friends --
Sham Fight -- The "Taki" -- The War Dance -- Another Example of
Maori Hospitality -- Crocodile's Tears -- Loose Notions about
Heads -- Tears of Blood -- Brotherly Love -- Capital Felony --
Peace 24
CHAPTER IV.
A Little affair of "Flotsam and Jetsam" -- Rebellion Crushed in
the Bud -- A Pakeha's House Sacked -- Maori Law -- A Maori
Lawsuit -- Affairs thrown into Chancery 52
CHAPTER V.
Every Englishman's House is his Castle -- My Estate and Castle
-- How I purchased my Estate -- Native Titles to Land, of what
Nature -- Value of Land in New Zealand -- Land Commissioners --
The Triumphs of Eloquence -- Magna Charta 60
CHAPTER VI.
How I kept House -- Maori Freebooters -- An Ugly Customer -- The
"Suaviter in Modo" -- A single Combat to amuse the Ladies -- The
true Maori Gentleman -- Character of the Maori People 67
CHAPTER VII.
Excitement caused by first Contact with Europeans -- The Two
Great Institutions of Maori Land -- The Muru -- The Tapu --
Instances of Legal Robbery -- Descriptions and Examples of the
Muru -- Profit and Loss -- Explanation of some of the Workings
of the Law of Muru 81
CHAPTER VIII.
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 92
CHAPTER IX.
The Tapu Tohunga -- The Maori Oracle -- Responses of the Oracle
-- Priestcraft 116
CHAPTER X.
The Priest evokes a Spirit -- The Consequences -- A Maori
Tragedy -- The "Tohunga" again 122
CHAPTER XI.
The Local Tapu -- The Taniwha -- The Battle on Motiti -- Death
of Tiki Whenua -- Reflections -- Brutus, Marcus Antonius, and
Tiki Whenua -- Suicide 129
CHAPTER XII.
The Tapa -- Instances of -- The Storming of Mokoia -- Pomare --
Hongi Ika -- Tareha -- Honour amongst Thieves 137
CHAPTER XIII.
"My Rangatira" -- The respective Duties of the Pakeha and his
Rangatira -- Public Opinion -- A "Pakeha Kino" -- Description of
my Rangatira -- His Exploits and Misadventures -- His Moral
Principles -- Decline in the numbers of the Natives -- Proofs of
former Large Population -- Ancient Forts -- Causes of Decrease 140
CHAPTER XIV.
Trading in the Old Times -- The Native Difficulty -- Virtue its
own Reward -- Rule Britannia -- Death of my Chief -- His Dying
Speech -- Rescue -- How the World goes Round 165
CHAPTER XV.
Mana -- Young New Zealand -- The Law of England -- "Pop goes the
weasel" -- Right if we have Might -- God save the Queen -- Good
Advice 174
HISTORY OF THE WAR IN THE NORTH OF NEW ZEALAND AGAINST THE CHIEF
HEKE 181
INTRODUCTION.
In the good old times of Conquest and Colonization (I like to be
particular about my dates and places), the civilized nations of the
day followed a simple policy in regard to the savage races with whom
they came in contact, which may be roughly described as going their
own way, and punishing the natives if they didn't conform to it,
without troubling themselves much about what the aforesaid natives
thought or felt on the subject. If they understood the meaning of it
so much the better for them, if they did not it could not be helped.
Holding themselves to be morally and intellectually far superior to
the savages, they maintained that it was the savage's business to
understand and conform to their notions, and not their business to
regard the savage's. As for giving savages the rights of civilized men
it was seldom thought of; savages were to be treated as such.
I do not exactly know when this sort of native policy was first
practised, but I know that it has lasted, with modifications, even to
our day, and is to be seen in full working order in more than one part
of the globe.
And let me remark (pace the Philanthropists) that it is not always the
unwisest or cruellest policy that can be followed, for this reason,
that it is simple, consistent, and easily understood. The man or the
nation that consistently follows its own path, turning aside for no
consideration, soon becomes at least thoroughly known if not
intelligently understood. And misconceptions and misunderstandings are
the most fruitful of all causes of bloodshed between civilized and
savage races.
Let me confess, moreover, that there have been moments when I have
felt certain carnal hankerings after that same old native policy.
When, for instance, I had just left the French colony of New
Caledonia, where amicable relations with the natives were preserved,
and the country made as safe as Italy from end to end by the simple
expedient of regularly and invariably executing a certain number of
natives for every white man that they disposed of, without much
inquiry into the motives of the murderers; and had returned to New
Zealand to hear of a most lively massacre at Poverty Bay, perpetrated
by three hundred Maori gentlemen, very well up in their Old Testaments
and extremely practical in the use of the New,[1] who having satisfied
the more pressing demands of their appetite upon the field of their
exploit, had shown the sacred light of civilization that was burning
within them by _potting the remainder of the corpses in tins_ and
sending them as presents to their friends in the country, and had then
departed to the mountains, filled with the comfortable conviction that
nothing worse than imprisonment would follow the improbable event of
their capture, that after a year or two of most enjoyable skirmishing
the matter would be allowed to drop, and that they would most of them
go to their graves well-honoured and unhung.[2]
[Footnote 1: They made cartridges of them. These were the Hau Haus, a
sect of Maories who, when the prestige of Christianity first began to
wane in the native mind, abolished the New Testament, retained the
Old, which was more to their taste, and by mixing with it a large
quantity of their old heathenism, produced a religion entirely devoted
theoretically and practically to plunder and blood.]
[Footnote 2: I regret to say that the strict propriety (according to
the received code of that day) with which the Poverty-Bay massacre,
and the fighting which followed it, were prosecuted on both sides, was
marred by the scandalous behaviour of a settler whose name I forget;
this man's wife and child were mutilated, killed, &c., at the
massacre; it was done in a most correct way, but somehow made him most
unaccountably and unreasonably angry. He joined the expedition that
was sent in pursuit of the murderers, and in one of the first
engagements some dozen of them were made prisoners. At night he
approached them, and, taking treacherous advantage of their guileless
confidence, asked them if they had participated in the massacre,
feast, &c.; and they, never dreaming that they had anything to fear
from the admission, innocently answered in the affirmative, whereon
this monster, knowing well that the poor fellows would escape capital,
or even very serious, punishment, on the grounds that they were
prisoners of war, or had brown skins, or excellent motives, or a
deficient moral sense, or a defective education, deliberately shot the
whole lot with his revolver. I need hardly mention that had this act
been performed by a Maori upon white men by way of "utu" (revenge,
payment) for some of his tribe that had been killed, it would have
been quite "tiku" (correct, proper); but for a white man so to behave
was scandalous. I forget what punishment was awarded him: let us hope
he got what he deserved; and may this story be a warning to those who
let their angry passions rise.
The leader of the Hau Hau expedition was a ruffian called Te Kooti.
The chief of the native contingent that joined in their pursuit was a
Maori, of the old-fashioned sort, named Ropata. A friend of mine asked
him one day what he thought would be done with Te Kooti if he were
taken. "Oh, you'll make him a judge," answered Ropata, coolly. "What
do you mean?" asked my friend. "Well," said Ropata, "the last two
rebels you caught you made native assessors, and Te Kooti's a much
greater man than either of them; so I don't see how you can do less
than make him a judge. But you won't if _I_ catch him," he added, with
a grin.]
At moments like these I have had ideas on native policy that I dare
not utter in the latitude of Exeter Hall, and the era of the
nineteenth century.
But when New Zealand was colonized the feeling of the English public
was distinctly philanthropical towards native races (especially at a
distance), and the old policy was thoroughly discarded, for one, in
its general theory and intention at least, more enlightened and more
humane. Speaking broadly, I think one can see all through the
chequered course of our Maori policy an earnest desire to treat the
native as a man and a brother; to give him the status of a civilized
man whenever it was possible to do so; and when not possible to
consider and make due allowance for the fact of his being uncivilized,
and to guide and lead him towards civilization by just and generous
treatment, and appeals to his moral and intellectual faculties.
I do not wish to dwell upon the dangerous extravagances into which
such a policy might and did occasionally run--such as letting off one
native cut-throat by treating him as a civilized prisoner of war, and
reprieving the next on the ground that he was a poor untutored savage
who knew no better, to the utter destruction and confusion of all
sense of power, justice, and security--great as was the amount of
mischief that they did, but will confine myself to what I believe was
the main cause of the almost total failure of this noble and, in the
main, plausible policy.
It is quite evident that to give it a chance of success it must have
been founded on a thorough understanding of the native character. It
is no use making signs to a man who cannot understand them, it is no
use uttering the most lovely moral precepts in language that is sure
to mislead him. It was in this first necessary step that I hold that
we failed, with brilliant individual exceptions no doubt, who,
however, only served to make the confusion worse with their gleams of
light.
Narrow-minded Enthusiasm, Ignorance, and Carelessness all contributed
their quota to the mischief, and their favourite blunder consisted in
jumping at conclusions concerning native character from certain
analogies with our own. It did not occur to many of us that actions
which marked the presence of certain qualities in the English
character, might mark the presence of very different ones in the
Maori, and _vice versa_, or that qualities which marked the presence
of certain other qualities in the Englishman might be very differently
accompanied in the native; we did not realize the fact that the Maori
reflected, argued, and acted in a way that was often as
incomprehensible to us as our way was to him.
When we observed a band of native converts singing a hymn before
advancing to battle we were filled with admiration at their piety,
without perceiving that those deeper religious feelings which alone
could have produced such a manifestation amongst Englishmen were
entirely absent.[3] When Christianity spread through the tribes with
amazing rapidity, we rejoiced over their capability for accepting the
doctrines of high and pure religion, never perceiving that they
accepted it simply because they thought from our superiority in ships,
arms, tools, and material prosperity in general, that the "Mana"
(_i.e._, luck, power, prestige) of Christianity must be greater than
that of their old superstition, and would be quite ready to leave it
again when they found out this was a mistake, their minds being as
void of the higher religious elements as those of many savages far
below them in intellectual powers. When we heard of a native chief
supplying his enemy with food or ammunition to enable him to carry on
the war we were charmed with his generous chivalry, and immediately
endowed him with all the virtues that usually accompany such behaviour
in an Englishman, blind to the fact that the chief simply liked
fighting as we might like eating or sleeping, and furnished his enemy
with arms and ammunition just as we might furnish one's cook with
money to buy meat with.[4]
[Footnote 3: The Maori notion of prayer reaches no higher than the
thing we call an incantation. One day I was talking to the old Pakeha
Maori (_i.e._ a white man who lives amongst the Maories) on the
subject of missionary labour. At last he said, "I'll tell you a story
that will establish your name for ever at Exeter Hall, only you musn't
tell it quite the same way that I do. I was here at the time when both
the Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries were first beginning to
make their way in the country; and the Maories of my tribe used to
come to me and ask me which had the greatest 'mana' (_i.e._ fortune,
prestige, power, strength)--the Protestant God or the Romanist one. I
was always a good Churchman, and used to tell them that the Protestant
God could lick the other into fits. There was an old Irish sailor
about five miles from me who used to back up the Roman Catholic God,
but I had a long start of him, and moreover _was the best fighting
man_ of the two, which went a long way. In a short time I had about
two hundred of the most muscular, blood-thirsty, hard-fighting
Protestants you could wish to see.
"Well; it so happened that one day we had a little difference with
some of our neighbours, and were drawn up on one side of a gully all
ready to charge. I liked the fun of fighting in those days, and was
rigged out in nothing but a cartridge-box and belt, with a plume of
feathers in my hair, and a young woman to carry my ammunition for me;
moreover, I had been put in command of the desperate young bloods of
the tribe, and burned to distinguish myself, feeling the commander of
the Old Guard at Waterloo quite an insignificant person in regard to
myself in point of responsibility and honour.
"Lying down in the fern, we waited impatiently for the signal to
charge; had not we, on the last occasion worth speaking of, outrun our
elders, and been nearly decimated in consequence? Shall it not be
different now? See! there is the great war-chief, the commander of the
'Taua,' coming this way (he was a real 'toa' of the old stamp, too
seldom found among the degenerate Maories of the present day). Little
cared he for the new faith that had sprung up in the last generation;
his skill with the spear, and the incantations of his 'Tohungas'
(_i.e._ priests or magicians), had kept him safe through many a bitter
tussle; his 'mana' was great. Straight to me he came and addressed me
thus:--'Look here, young fellow! I've done the incantations and made
it all square with my God; but you say that you've got a God stronger
than mine, and a lot of our young fellows go with you; there's nothing
like having two Gods on our side, so you fellows do the proper
business with him, and then we'll fight.' Could anything have been
more practical and business-like than this? But I was quite stuck up;
for though I could have repeated a prayer from the liturgy myself, my
worthy converts, who philosophically and rightly looked upon religion
merely as a means to an end (_i.e._ killing the greatest possible
quantity of enemies), were unable to produce a line of scripture
amongst them.
"There was an awkward pause; our commander was furious. Suddenly one
discovers that he has a hymn-book in his pocket. General exultation!
'Now!' cries the old chief, foaming at the mouth with excitement, 'go
down upon your knees (I know that's the custom with your God) and
repeat the charm after him. Mind you don't make a mistake, now, for if
one word is wrong, the whole thing will be turned topsy-turvy, and we
shall be thrashed.'
"And then, having repeated one hymn word for word on our knees, I and
my converts charged, and walked into the Amorites no end; but whether
it was the hymn or the fighting that did it is of course an open
question to this day."]
[Footnote 4: Of the Maori's passion for fighting for its own sake,
with the chivalrous appearance that it somewhat misleadingly bore, I
will give an instance. A certain chief had a missionary whom he
desired to get rid of. Whether he was tired of his sermons, disliked
his ritual, or what, I cannot say. However, he forwarded him on to
another chief, with his compliments, as a present. Chief number two
not being in need of a chaplain, having no living vacant, and having
perhaps, too, a suspicion that the missionary was unsound in some
respect from the careless way he was disposed of, declined him, and
returned him untried. Chief number one was insulted, and declared that
if chief number two had not known his superiority in arms and
ammunition, he would not have dared to behave in such manner. When
this came to the ears of number two, he divided his arms, &c., into
two halves, and sent one to the enemy, with an invitation to war.
A distinguished friend of mine in New Zealand once asked a Maori chief
who had fought against us on the Waikato, why, when he had command of
a certain road, he did not attack the ammunition and provision trains?
"Why, you fool!" answered the Maori, much astonished, "If we had
stolen their powder and food, how could they have fought?"
Sometimes two villages would get up a little war, and the inhabitants,
after potting at each other all day, would come out of their "pas" in
the evening and talk over their day's sport in the most friendly
manner. "I nearly bagged your brother to-day." "Ah, but you should
have seen how I made your old father-in-law skip!" and so on. After
one or two had been really killed, they would become more in earnest.
I have heard old Archdeacon ----, of Tauranga, relate how in one of
these petty wars he has known the defenders of a pa send out to their
adversaries to say they were short of provisions, who immediately sent
them a supply to go on with. Also how he has performed service on
Sunday between two belligerent pas, the inhabitants of which came out
to pray, and met with the most perfect amity, returning to their pas
when service was over, to recommence hostilities on Monday morning.
The fact is, that they were, as the Pakeha Maori says, a race so
demoralized by perpetual war that they had got to look instinctively
upon fighting as the chief object in life. How difficult it was for
the average Englishman to see this at first, and how misleading traits
such as I have mentioned might be to him, it is not hard to imagine.]
By radical misconceptions, such as these, we succeeded in creating in
our imaginations an ideal Maori about as true to the life as a
Fenimore Cooper Indian. And then we proceeded to impress the real
Maori with moral lessons that he could not understand, and with
practical examples that he interpreted all wrong, to appeal to
qualities and ideas that he did not possess, and ignore those that he
did possess, till in spite of our patience and goodwill we became
puzzled by and disgusted with him, and he contemptuous of and utterly
bewildered by us. I have heard several comments upon us and our policy
from intelligent natives, none of them very flattering to our sagacity
or consistency, but I will only give one which struck me as being a
most striking comment upon a policy that aimed at conciliation,
forbearance, and patient improvement of the Maori.
"You are a good people, but you have no fixed plan and no
understanding either in matters of peace or war. No man can tell when
you will fight or when you will give presents to buy peace, or at what
sudden moment you will stop doing one and begin the other. No man can
tell your reasons nor the meaning of what you do." This man had
evidently caught some vague glimmerings of the meaning of our policy
which only confused him the more. A little knowledge is a dangerous
thing.
From the faithful pictures of Maori character, ideas, and feelings
contained in these two little books, the observant reader will easily
perceive how mistakes and misconceptions as to what they were, and
might become, and as to how they should be treated, sprang up in the
English mind. It is true that the Maori question, with all its hopes
and fears, has practically come to an end. The bubble of Maori
civilization has burst, the idea, that seemed at one time not unlikely
to become an actual fact, of a native race becoming truly
Christianized and civilized, and prospering side by side with their
white brothers, has gone where many a noble and well-fought-for idea
has gone before. The true level of the Maori, intellectually and
morally, has become tolerably well known; moreover, his numbers are
diminishing year by year.
But the English nation is, and I hope always will be, in contact with
many nations of different blood and various forms and degrees of
civilization, and as long as this is the case it cannot be too much
impressed upon that extremely powerful and somewhat hasty and
headstrong body, the British public, that human nature is not the same
all over the world, that one man's meat is another man's poison, that
there is no code either of logic or of feeling or of morals
universally accepted by humanity, that every difference in custom
makes some difference in mind; so that (if that public wishes, as I
believe it does, to manage the races with whom England comes in
contact, not so much by force as by intelligent and beneficial moral
influence) the first thing to be done is to gain an unwarped,
accurate, and thorough knowledge of the customs, character, and
opinions of the races in question.
If these two little books should suggest to any careless Englishman
that foreigners of dark complexion are not all like either those white
men who seem to have got into brown or black skins by mistake, whom
one reads about in anti-slavery books and some missionary reports, or
those equally tiresome black dummies whom one reads about in another
sort of book who have no marked characteristic or intelligible custom
except shooting spears and arrows at people for no apparent reason, I
shall be glad to have introduced them to an English public; and let me
assure those who care more for amusement than instruction that they
will be amply repaid by their perusal.
I hope the Pakeha Maori will pardon my impertinence in giving a
personal sketch of him to his English readers on the plea that his
writing would not be complete without one.
He was, I believe, sixty years old when I first saw him, but, in spite
of his age, looked the finest man for strength, activity, and grace I
had ever seen. Six feet three in height and big in proportion, with a
symmetry of shape that almost disguised his immense size, I felt I
could well understand the stories I had heard of his popularity and
his feats amongst the Maories, especially when I watched the keen,
bright expression of his humorous Irish face.
In manner and conversation he was the very opposite of what one would
expect of a man who had lived since his boyhood among savages. With a
real love, and a considerable knowledge of literature, a keen
appreciation of all intellectual excellence, and a most delightful
humour, I think I never came across so charming a talker as the man
whom I may not inaptly christen the "Lever" of New Zealand.
PEMBROKE.
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION.
To the English reader, and to most of those who have arrived in New
Zealand within the last thirty years, it may be necessary to state
that the descriptions of Maori life and manners of past times found in
these sketches owe nothing to fiction. The different scenes and
incidents are given exactly as they occurred, and all the persons
described are real persons.
Contact with the British settlers has of late years effected a marked
and rapid change in the manners and mode of life of the natives, and
the Maori of the present day are as unlike what they were when I first
saw them as they are still unlike a civilised people or British
subjects.
The writer has therefore thought it might be worth while to place a
few sketches of old Maori life on record before the remembrance of
them has quite passed away; though in doing so he has by no means
exhausted an interesting subject, and a more full and particular
delineation of old Maori life, manners, and history has yet to be
written.
OLD NEW ZEALAND;
A TALE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES.
BY A PAKEHA MAORI.
"Of Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow BETWEEN their shoulders."
OLD NEW ZEALAND.
Chapter I.
Introductory. -- First view of New Zealand. -- First sight of the
natives, and first sensations experienced by a mere Pakeha. -- A
Maori chief's notions of trading in the old times. -- A
dissertation on "courage." -- A few words on dress. -- The
chief's soliloquy. -- The Maori cry of welcome.
Ah! those good old times, when first I came to New Zealand, we shall
never see their like again. Since then the world seems to have gone
wrong somehow. A dull sort of world this now. The very sun does not
seem to me to shine as bright as it used. Pigs and potatoes have
degenerated; and everything seems "flat, stale, and unprofitable." But
those were the times!--the "good old times"--before Governors were
invented, and law, and justice, and all that. When every one did as he
liked,--except when his neighbours would not let him, (the more shame
for them,)--when there were no taxes, or duties, or public works, or
public to require them. Who cared then whether he owned a coat?--or
believed in shoes or stockings? The men were bigger and stouter in
those days; and the women,--ah! Money was useless and might go a
begging. A sovereign was of no use except to make a hole in and hang
it in a child's ear. The few I brought went that way, and I have seen
them swapped for shillings, which were thought more becoming. What
cared I? A fish-hook was worth a dozen of them, and I had lots of
fish-hooks. Little did I think in those days that I should ever see
here towns and villages, banks and insurance offices, prime ministers
and bishops; and hear sermons preached, and see men hung, and all the
other plagues of civilization. I am a melancholy man. I feel somehow
as if I had got older. I am no use in these dull times. I mope about
in solitary places, exclaiming often, "Oh! where are those good old
times?" and echo, or some young Maori whelp from the Three Kings,
answers from behind a bush,--No HEA.
I shall not state the year in which I first saw the mountains of New
Zealand appear above the sea; there is a false suspicion getting about
that I am growing old. This must be looked down, so I will at present
avoid dates. I always held a theory that time was of no account in New
Zealand, and I do believe I was right up to the time of the arrival of
the first Governor. The natives hold this opinion still, especially
those who are in debt: so I will just say it was in the good old
times, long ago, that, from the deck of a small trading schooner in
which I had taken my passage from somewhere, I first cast eyes on
Maori land. It _was_ Maori land then; but alas! what is it now?
Success to you, O King of Waikato. May your _mana_ never be
less!--long may you hold at bay the demon of civilization, though fall
at last I fear you must. Plutus with golden hoof is trampling on your
landmarks. He mocks the war-song; but should _I_ see your fall, at
least one Pakeha Maori shall raise the _tangi_; and with flint and
shell as of old shall the women lament you.
Let me, however, leave these melancholy thoughts for a time, forget
the present, take courage, and talk about the past. I have not got on
shore yet; a thing I must accomplish as a necessary preliminary to
looking about me, and telling what I saw. I do not understand the
pakeha way of beginning a story in the middle; so to start fair, I
must fairly get on shore, which, I am surprised to find, was easier to
_do_ than to describe.
The little schooner neared the land, and as we came closer and closer,
I began in a most unaccountable manner to remember all the tales I had
ever heard of people being baked in ovens, with cabbage and potato
"fixins." I had before this had some considerable experience of
"savages," but as they had no regular system of domestic cookery of
the nature I have hinted at, and being, as I was in those days, a mere
pakeha (a character I have since learned to despise), I felt, to say
the least, rather curious as to the then existing demand on shore for
butchers' meat.
The ship sailed on, and I went below and loaded my pistols; not that
I expected at all to conquer the country with them, but somehow
because I could not help it. We soon came to anchor in a fine harbour
before the house of the very first settler who had ever entered it,
and to this time he was the only one. He had, however, a few Europeans
in his employ; and there was at some forty miles distance a sort of
nest of English, Irish, Scotch, Dutch, French, and American runaways
from South Sea whalers, with whom were also congregated certain other
individuals of the pakeha race, whose manner of arrival in the country
was not clearly accounted for, and to enquire into which was, as I
found afterwards, considered extremely impolite, and a great breach of
_bienseance_. They lived in a half savage state, or to speak
correctly, in a savage and-a-half state, being greater savages by far
than the natives themselves.
I must, however, turn back a little, for I perceive I am not on shore
yet.
The anchoring of a vessel of any size, large or small, in a port of
New Zealand, in those days, was an event of no small importance; and,
accordingly, from the deck we could see the shore crowded by several
hundreds of natives, all in a great state of excitement, shouting and
running about, many with spears and clubs in their hands, and
altogether looking to the inexperienced new-comer very much as if they
were speculating on an immediate change of diet. I must say these at
least were my impressions on seeing the mass of shouting,
gesticulating, tattooed fellows, who were exhibiting before us, and
who all seemed to be mad with excitement of some sort or other.
Shortly after we came to anchor, a boat came off, in which was Mr.
----, the settler I have mentioned, and also the principal chief of
the tribe of natives inhabiting this part of the country. Mr. ---- gave
me a hearty welcome to New Zealand, and also an invitation to his
house, telling me I was welcome to make it my home for any unlimited
time, till I had one of my own. The chief also--having made some
enquiries first of the captain of the schooner, such as whether I was
a _rangatira_, if I had plenty of _taonga_ (goods) on board, and other
particulars; and having been answered by the captain in the most
satisfactory manner,--came up to me and gave me a most sincere
welcome. (I love sincerity.) He would have welcomed me, however, had I
been as poor as Job, for pakehas were, in those days, at an enormous
premium. Even Job, at the worst (a _pakeha_ Job), might be supposed to
have an old coat, or a spike nail, or a couple of iron hoops left on
hand, and these were "good trade" in the times I speak of; and under a
process well understood at the time by my friend the chief, were sure
to change hands soon after his becoming aware of their whereabouts.
His idea of trade was this:--He took them, and never paid for them
till he took something else of greater value, which, whatever it might
be, he never paid for till he made a third still heavier haul. He
always paid just what he thought fit to give, and when he chose to
withdraw his patronage from any pakeha who might be getting too
knowing for him, and extend it to some newer arrival, he never paid
for the last "lot of trade;" but, to give him his due, he allowed his
pakeha friends to make the best bargain they could with the rest of
the tribe, with the exception of a few of his nearest relations, over
whose interests he would watch. So, after all, the pakeha would make a
living; but I have never heard of one of the old traders who got rich
by trading with the natives: there were too many drawbacks of the
nature I have mentioned, as well as others unnecessary to mention just
yet, which prevented it.
I positively vow and protest to you, gentle and patient reader, that
if ever I get safe on shore, I will do my best to give you
satisfaction; let me get once on shore, and I am all right: but unless
I get my feet on _terra firma_, how can I ever begin my tale of the
good old times? As long as I am on board ship I am cramped and
crippled, and a mere slave to Greenwich time, and can't get on. Some
people, I am aware, would make a dash at it, and manage the thing
without the aid of boat, canoe, or life preserver; but such people
are, for the most part, dealers in fiction, which I am not: my story
is a true story, not "founded on fact," but fact itself, and so I
cannot manage to get on shore a moment sooner than circumstances will
permit. It may be that I ought to have landed before this; but I must
confess I don't know any more about the right way to tell a story,
than a native minister knows how to "come" a war dance. I declare the
mention of the war dance calls up a host of reminiscences,
pleasurable and painful, exhilarating and depressing, in such a way as
no one but a few, a very few, pakeha Maori, can understand.
Thunder!--but no; let me get ashore; how can I dance on the water, or
before I ever knew how? On shore I will get this time, I am
determined, in spite of fate--so now for it.
The boat of my friend Mr. ---- being about to return to the shore,
leaving the chief and Mr. ---- on board, and I seeing the thing had to
be done, plucked up courage, and having secretly felt the priming of
my pistols under my coat, got into the boat.
I must here correct myself. I have said, "plucked up courage," but
that is not exactly my meaning. The fact is, kind reader, if you have
followed me thus far, you are about to be rewarded for your
perseverance. I am determined to make you as wise as I am myself on at
least one important subject, and that is not saying a little, let me
inform you, as I can hardly suppose you have made the discovery for
yourself on so short an acquaintance. Falstaff, who was a very clever
fellow, and whose word cannot be doubted, says--"The better part of
valour is discretion." Now, that being the case, what in the name of
Achilles, Hector, and Colonel Gold (_he_, I mean _Achilles_, was a
rank coward, who went about knocking people on the head, being himself
next thing to invulnerable, and who could not be hurt till he turned
his back to the enemy. There is a deep moral in this same story about
Achilles which perhaps, by and bye, I may explain to you)--what, I
say again, in the name of everything valorous, can the worser part of
valour be, if "discretion" be the better? The fact is, my dear sir, I
don't believe in courage at all, nor ever did; but there is something
far better, which has carried me through many serious scrapes with
_eclat_ and safety; I mean the appearance of courage. If you have this
you may drive the world before you. As for real courage, I do not
believe there can be any such thing. A man who sees himself in danger
of being killed by his enemy and is not in a precious fright, is
simply not courageous but mad. The man who is not frightened because
he cannot see the danger, is a person of weak mind--a fool--who ought
to be locked up lest he walk into a well with eyes open; but the
appearance of courage, or rather, as I deny the existence of the thing
itself, that appearance which is thought to be courage, that is the
thing will carry you through!--get you made K.C.B., Victoria Cross,
and all that! Men by help of this quality do the most heroic actions,
being all the time ready to die of mere fright, but keeping up a good
countenance all the time. Here is the secret--pay attention, it is
worth much money--if ever you get into any desperate battle or
skirmish, and feel in such a state of mortal fear that you almost wish
to be shot to get rid of it, just say to yourself--"If I am so
preciously frightened, what must the other fellow be?" The thought
will refresh you; your own self-esteem will answer that of course the
enemy is more frightened than you are, consequently, the nearer you
feel to running away the more reason you have to stand. Look at the
last gazette of the last victory, where thousands of men at one
shilling _per diem_, minus certain very serious deductions, "covered
themselves with glory." The thing is clear: the other fellows ran
first, and that is all about it! My secret is a very good secret; but
one must of course do the thing properly; no matter of what kind the
danger is, you must look it boldly in the face and keep your wits
about you, and the more frightened you get the more determined you
must be--to keep up appearances--and half the danger is gone at once.
So now, having corrected myself, as well as given some valuable
advice, I shall start again for the shore by saying that I plucked up
a very good appearance of courage and got on board the boat.
For the honour and glory of the British nation, of which I considered
myself in some degree a representative on this momentous occasion, I
had dressed myself in one of my best suits. My frock coat was, I
fancy, "the thing;" my waistcoat was the result of much and deep
thought, in cut, colour, and material--I may venture to affirm that
the like had not been often seen in the southern hemisphere. My tailor
has, as I hear, long since realized a fortune and retired, in
consequence of the enlightenment he at different times received from
me on the great principles of, not clothing, but embellishing the
human subject. My hat looked down criticism, and my whole turn-out
such as I calculated would "astonish the natives," and cause awe and
respect for myself individually and the British nation in general, of
whom I thought fit to consider myself no bad sample. Here I will take
occasion to remark that some attention to ornament and elegance in the
matter of dress is not only allowable but commendable. Man is the only
beast to whom a discretionary power has been left in this respect: why
then should he not take a hint from nature, and endeavour to beautify
his person? Peacocks and birds of paradise could no doubt live and get
fat though all their feathers were the colour of a Quaker's leggings,
but see how they are ornamented! Nature has, one would say, exhausted
herself in beautifying them. Look at the tiger and leopard! Could not
they murder without their stripes and spots?--but see how their coats
are painted! Look at the flowers--at the whole universe--and you will
see everywhere the ornamental combined with the useful. Look, then, to
the cut and colour of your coat, and do not laugh at the Maori of past
times, who, not being "seized" of a coat because he has never been
able to seize one, carves and tattoos legs, arms, and face.
The boat is, however, darting towards the shore, rapidly propelled by
four stout natives. My friend ---- and the chief are on board. The
chief has got his eye on my double gun, which is hanging up in the
cabin. He takes it down and examines it closely. He is a good judge of
a gun. It is the best _tupara_ he has ever seen, and his speculations
run something very like this:--"A good gun, a first-rate gun; I must
have this; I must _tapu_ it before I leave the ship [here he pulls a
piece of the fringe from his cloak and ties it round the stock of the
gun, thereby rendering it impossible for me to sell, give away, or
dispose of it in any way to anyone but himself]; I wonder what the
pakeha will want for it! I will promise him as much flax or as many
pigs as ever he likes for it. True, I have no flax just now, and am
short of pigs, they were almost all killed at the last _hahunga_; but
if he is in a hurry he can buy the flax or pigs from the people, which
ought to satisfy him. Perhaps he would take a piece of land!--that
would be famous. I would give him a piece quite close to the _kainga_,
where I would always have him close to me; I hope he may take the
land; then I should have two pakehas, him and ----. All the inland
chiefs would envy me. This ---- is getting too knowing; he has taken
to hiding his best goods of late, and selling them before I knew he
had them. It's just the same as thieving, and I won't stand it. He
sold three muskets the other day to the Ngatiwaki, and I did not know
he had them, or I should have taken them. I could have paid for them
some time or another. It was wrong, wrong, very wrong, to let that
tribe have those muskets. He is not their pakeha; let them look for a
pakeha for themselves. Those Ngatiwaki are getting too many
muskets--those three make sixty-four they have got besides two
_tupara_. Certainly we have a great many more, and the Ngatiwaki are
our relations, but then there was Kohu, we killed, and Patu, we stole
his wife. There is no saying what these Ngatiwaki may do if they
should get plenty of muskets; they are game enough for anything. It
was wrong to give them those muskets; wrong, wrong, wrong!"
After-experience enabled me to tell just what the chief's soliloquy
was, as above.
But all this time the boat is darting to the shore, and as the
distance is only a couple of hundred yards, I can hardly understand
how it is that I have not yet landed. The crew are pulling like mad,
being impatient to show the tribe the prize they have made,--a regular
_pakeha rangatira_ as well as a _rangatira pakeha_ (two very different
things), who has lots of tomahawks, and fish-hooks, and blankets, and
a _tupara_, and is even suspected to be the owner of a great many
"pots" of gunpowder! "He is going to stop with the tribe, he is going
to trade, he is going to be a pakeha _for us_." These last conclusions
were, however, jumped at, the "pakeha" not having then any notions of
trade or commerce, and being only inclined to look about and amuse
himself. The boat nears the shore, and now arises from a hundred
voices the call of welcome,--"_Haere mai! haere mai! hoe mai! hoe mai!
haere mai, e-te-pa-ke-ha, haere mai!_" mats, hands, and certain ragged
petticoats put into requisition for that occasion, all at the same
time waving in the air in sign of welcome. Then a pause. Then, as the
boat came nearer, another burst of _haere mai!_ But unaccustomed as I
was then to the Maori salute, I disliked the sound. There was a
wailing melancholy cadence that did not strike me as being the
appropriate tone of welcome; and, as I was quite ignorant up to this
time of my own importance, wealth, and general value as a pakeha, I
began, as the boat closed in with the shore, to ask myself whether
possibly this same "_haere mai_" might not be the Maori for "dilly,
dilly, come and be killed." There was, however, no help for it now; we
were close to the shore, and so, putting on the most unconcerned
countenance possible, I prepared to make my _entree_ into Maori land
in a proper and dignified manner.