Old New Zealand Part 4

After this, regular trading began. The great madness then was for muskets and gunpowder. A furious compet.i.tion was kept up. Should any tribe fail to procure a stock of these articles as soon as its neighbours, extermination was its probable doom. We may then imagine the excitement, the over-labour, the hardship, the starvation (occasioned by crops neglected whilst labouring to produce flax or other commodity demanded in payment)--I say imagine, but I have seen at least part of it.

After the demand for arms was supplied, came a perfect furor for iron tools, instruments of husbandry, clothing, and all kinds of pakeha manufactures. These things having been quite beyond their means while they were supplying themselves with arms, they were in the most extreme want of them; particularly iron tools. A few years ago the madness ran upon horses and cattle; now, young New Zealand believes in nothing but money, and they are continually tormenting themselves with plans to acquire it in large sums at once, without the trouble of slow and saving industry; which, as applied to the acc.u.mulation of money, they neither approve of nor understand: nor will they ever, as a people, take this mode till convinced that money, like everything else of value, can only be procured as a rule by giving full value for it, either in labour or the produce of labour.

Here I am, I find, again before my story. Right down to the present time, talking of "young New Zealand," and within a hair's-breadth of settling "the Maori difficulty" without having been paid for it; which would have been a great oversight, and contrary to the customs of New Zealand. I must go back.

There were in the old times two great inst.i.tutions, which ruled with iron rod in Maori land--the _Tapu_ and the _Muru_. Pakehas who knew no better called the _muru_ simply "robbery," because the word _muru_, in its common signification, means to plunder. But I speak of the regular legalized and established system of plundering, as penalty for offences; which in a rough way resembled our law by which a man is obliged to pay "damages." Great abuses had, however, crept into this system--so great, indeed, as to render the retention of any sort of movable property almost an impossibility, and in a great measure, too, discourage the inclination to labour for its acquisition. These great inconveniences were, however, met, or in some degree softened, by an expedient of a peculiarly Maori nature, which I shall by-and-by explain.

The offences for which people were plundered were sometimes of a nature which, to a _mere_ pakeha, would seem curious. A man's child fell in the fire and was almost burnt to death. The father was immediately plundered to an extent that almost left him without the means of subsistence: fishing-nets, canoes, pigs, provisions--all went. His canoe upset, and he and all his family narrowly escaped drowning--some were, perhaps, drowned. He was immediately robbed, and well pummelled with a club into the bargain, if he was not good at the science of self-defence--the club part of the ceremony being always fairly administered one against one, and after fair warning given to defend himself. He might be clearing some land for potatoes, burning off the fern, and the fire spreads farther than he intended, and gets into a _wahi tapu_ or burial-ground. No matter whether any one has been buried in it or no for the last hundred years: he is tremendously robbed. In fact, for ten thousand different causes a man might be robbed; and I can really imagine a case in which a man for scratching his own head might be legally robbed.

Now as the enforcers of this law were also the parties who received the damages, as well as the judges of the amount--which in many cases (such as that of the burnt child) would be everything they could by any means lay hands on--it is easy to perceive that under such a system, personal property was an evanescent sort of thing altogether. These executions or distraints were never resisted. Indeed in many cases (as I shall explain by-and-by), it would have been felt as a slight, and even an insult, _not_ to be robbed; the sacking of a man's establishment being often taken as a high compliment, especially if his head was broken into the bargain: and to resist the execution would not only have been looked upon as mean and disgraceful in the highest degree, _but it would have debarred the contemptible individual from the privilege of robbing his neighbours_; which was the compensating expedient I have alluded to. All this may seem a waste of words to my pakeha Maori readers, to whom these things have become such matters of course as to be no longer remarkable; but I have remembered that there are so many new people in the country who don't understand the beauty of being knocked down and robbed, that I shall say a few more words on the subject.

The tract of country inhabited by a single tribe might be, say, from forty to a hundred miles square, and the different villages of the different sections of the tribe would be scattered over this area at different distances from each other. We will by way of ill.u.s.trating the working of the _muru_ system, take the case of the burnt child. Soon after the accident it would be heard of in the neighbouring villages; the family of the mother are probably the inhabitants of one of them, and have, according to the law of _muru_, the first and greatest right to clean out the afflicted father; a child being considered to belong to the family of the mother more than to that of the father--in fact, it is their child, which the father has the rearing of. The child was, moreover, a promising lump of a boy, the makings of a future warrior, and consequently very valuable to the whole tribe in general; but to the mother's family in particular. "A pretty thing to let him get spoiled." Then he is a boy of good family, a _rangatira_ by birth, and it would never do to let the thing pa.s.s without making a noise about it: that would be an insult to the dignity of the families of both father and mother. Decidedly, besides being robbed, the father must be a.s.saulted with a spear. True, he is a famous spearsman, and for his own credit must "hurt" some one or another if attacked. But this is of no consequence: a flesh wound more or less deep is to be counted on; and then think of the plunder! It is against the law of _muru_ that any one should be killed, and first blood ends the duel. Then the natural affection of all the child's relations is great. They are all in a great state of excitement, and trying to remember how many canoes, and pigs, and other valuable articles, the father has got: for this must be a clean sweep.

A strong party is now mustered, headed probably by the brother of the mother of the child. He is a stout chap, and carries a long tough spear. A messenger is sent to the father, to say that the _taua muru_ is coming, and may be expected tomorrow, or the next day. He asks, "Is it a great _taua_?" "Yes; it is a very great _taua_ indeed." The victim smiles, he feels highly complimented; he _is_ then a man of consequence. His child is also of great consideration; he is thought worthy of a large force being sent to rob him! Now he sets all in motion to prepare a huge feast for the friendly robbers, his relations.

He may as well be liberal, for his provisions are sure to go, whether or no. Pigs are killed and baked whole, potatoes are piled up in great heaps, all is made ready; he looks out his best spear, and keeps it always ready in his hand. At last the _taua_ appears on a hill half a mile off; then the whole fighting men of the section of the tribe of which he is an important member, collect at his back, all armed with spear and club, to show that they could resist, if they would: a thing, however, not to be thought of under the circ.u.mstances.

On comes the _taua_. The mother begins to cry in proper form; the tribe shout the call of welcome to the approaching robbers; and then with a grand rush, all armed, and looking as if they intended to exterminate all before them, the _kai muru_ appear on the scene. They dance the war dance, which the villagers answer with another. Then the chief's brother-in-law advances, spear in hand, with the most alarming gestures. "Stand up!--stand up!--I will kill you this day," is his cry.

The defendant is not slow to answer the challenge. A most exciting, and what to a new pakeha would appear a most desperately dangerous, fencing bout with spears, instantly commences. The attack and defence are in the highest degree scientific; the spear shafts keep up a continuous rattle; the thrust, and parry, and stroke with the spear shaft follow each other with almost incredible rapidity, and are too rapid to be followed by an unpractised eye. At last the brother-in-law is slightly touched; blood also drops from our chief's thigh. The fight instantly ceases; leaning on their spears, probably a little badinage takes place between them, and then the brother-in-law roars out, "_Murua! murua!

murua!_" Then the new arrivals commence a regular sack, and the two princ.i.p.als sit down quietly with a few others for a friendly chat, in which the child's name is never mentioned, or the inquiry as to whether he is dead or alive even made.

The case I have just described would, however, be one of more than ordinary importance; slighter "accidents and offences" would be atoned for by a milder form of operation. But the general effect was to keep personal property circulating from hand to hand pretty briskly, or indeed to convert it into public property; for no man could say who would be the owner of his canoe, or blanket, in a month's time. Indeed, in that s.p.a.ce of time, I once saw a nice coat, which a native had got from the captain of a trading schooner, and which was an article much coveted in those days, pa.s.s through the hands, and over the backs, of six different owners, and return, considerably the worse for wear, to the original purchaser; and all these transfers had been made by legal process of _muru_. I have been often myself paid the compliment of being robbed for little accidents occurring in my family, and have several times also, from a feeling of politeness, robbed my Maori friends; though I can't say I was a great gainer by these transactions.

I think the greatest haul I ever made was about half a bag of shot, which I thought a famous joke, seeing that I had sold it the day before to the owner for full value. A month after this I was disturbed early in the morning, by a voice shouting "Get up!--get up! I will kill you this day. You have roasted my grandfather. Get up!--_stand_ up!" I, of course, guessed that I had committed some heinous though involuntary offence, and the "stand up" hinted the immediate probable consequences; so out I turned, spear in hand, and who should I see, armed with a bayonet on the end of a long pole, but my friend the late owner of the bag of shot. He came at me with pretended fury; made some smart bangs and thrusts, which I parried, and then explained to me that I had "cooked his grandfather;" and that if I did not come down handsome in the way of damages, deeply as he might regret the necessity, his own credit, and the law of _muru_, compelled him either to sack my house, or die in the attempt. I was glad enough to prevent either event, by paying him two whole bags of shot, two blankets, divers fish-hooks, and certain figs of tobacco, which he demanded. I found that I had really and truly committed a most horrid crime. I had on a journey made my fire at the foot of a tree, in the top of which the bones of my friend's grandfather had once been deposited, but from which they had been removed ten years before. The tree caught fire and had burnt down: and I, therefore, by a convenient sort of figure of speech, had "roasted his grandfather," and had to pay the penalty accordingly.

It did not require much financial ability on my part, after a few experiences of this nature, to perceive that I had better avail myself of my privileges as a pakeha, and have nothing further to do with the law of _muru_--a determination I have kept to strictly. If ever I have unwittingly injured any of my neighbours, I have always made what I considered just compensation, and resisted the _muru_ altogether: and I will say this for my friends, that when any of them have done an accidental piece of mischief, they have, in most cases without being asked, offered to pay for it.

The above slight sketch of the penal law of New Zealand I present and dedicate to the Law Lords of England; as it might, perhaps, afford some hints for a reform in our own. The only remark I shall have to add is, that if a man killed another, "malice prepense aforethought," the act, in nineteen cases out of twenty, would be either a very meritorious one, or of no consequence whatever; in either of which cases the penal code had, of course, nothing to do in the matter. If, however, a man killed another by _accident_, in the majority of cases the consequences would be most serious; and not only the involuntary homicide, but every one connected with him, would be plundered of everything they possessed worth taking.

This, however, to an English lawyer, may require some explanation, which is as follows:--If a man thought fit to kill his own slave, it was n.o.body's affair but his own; the law had nothing to do with it. If he killed a man of another tribe, he had nothing to do but declare it was in revenge or retaliation for some aggression, either recent or traditional, by the other tribe; of which examples were never scarce.

In this case, the action became at once highly meritorious, and his whole tribe would support and defend him to the last extremity. If he, however, killed a man by accident, the slain man would be, as a matter of course, in most instances, one of his ordinary companions--_i.e._, one of his own tribe. The accidental discharge of a gun often caused death in this way. Then, indeed, the law of _muru_ had full swing, and the wholesale plunder of the criminal and family was the penalty.

Murder, as the natives understood it: that is to say, the malicious destruction of a man of _the same tribe_, did not happen so frequently as might be expected; and when it did, went in most cases unpunished: the murderer, in general, managed to escape to some other section of the tribe where he had relations; who, as he fled to them for protection, were bound to give it, and always ready to do so; or otherwise he would stand his ground and defy all comers, by means of the strength of his own family or section, who all would defend him and protect him as a mere matter of course: and as the law of _utu_ or _lex talionis_ was the only one which applied in this case, and as, unlike the law of _muru_, nothing was to be got by enforcing it but hard blows, murder in most cases went unpunished.

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.

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 inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tution, 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 sc.r.a.pes.

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 t.i.tle 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 circ.u.mstances.

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 circ.u.mstances.

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 circ.u.mstances, 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 gla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sion, to the great astonishment of the native; who considered as a matter of course, that the cup or gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstance, 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, c.o.c.ked 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 n.o.body, 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 pa.s.sing 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 _k.u.mera_ or sweet potato field, and as the k.u.mera 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 h.o.m.o_, 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 circ.u.mstances 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 "lackl.u.s.tre 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 pa.s.s, 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 pract.i.tioner, 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, sc.r.a.ped 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, d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sed, 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 _k.u.mera_, 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.