NEW ZEALAND A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 206, 28 August 1920, Page 19

NEW ZEALAND A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

MAORI LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN 1820. (From the Journal of Major R.ch.rd A. Cru l% _, of tho Mth Reglme * t Foot . } CHAPTER 111. ' Experiences nt the Bay of Islands u/«« »._•.. _. NoaDuhis' _t_rJ ««,_.TT? P rty r « tu ™>« from the Thames. l-gapuhls story of the .laughter they Inflicted. The Chief Hongl leave* f o p England. !ribe A ?f C^"Mo f i r el anCh ? rCd S C B t y ° f Islands we lear «ed that the tribes f c Moienga and some other chiefs were upon a fighting expediIZnifL^h 1 VOr i Tha T' 3nd their return and °ear approach were Z 3_S _2 •" " 7' f 0 Ca T ° n b ° ard this mornin g' * ndwh ° * first excited some curiosity: he was dressed in a blue coat, trousers, and boots, ZLo «7 K a . cockod h ?ir\\ a lons white feather ' From the circumstance of being very little tattooed, he was not unlike a foreign officer; and when he ascended the deck, he addressed the persons around him in English At breakfast he conducted himself quite like a gentleman, and told us hat his name was Te Tuki, and that he was the younger brother of the chief korokoro, to whom the greater part of Partia Bay belonged he excused himself for not visiting us sooner on account of his having returned late the preceding evening from the North Cape, whither he and Korokoro had gone to perform the customary ceremonies of lamentation over a uear relation who had died there, and whose remains they had brought back with them.

As soon as the River Thames expedition entered the head of the bay, some of tho gentlemen went to meet it. The fleet was composed of about fifty canoes, many of them seventy or eighty feet long, and few less than sixty. Their prows, sides, and stern posts were handsomely carved, and ornamented with a profusion of feathers: and they generally carried two sails made of straw matting. They were filled with warriors, who stood np and shouted as they passed our' boat, and held up several human heads as trophies of their success.

SAVAGE HABITS CLING. The barter of powder and muskets, carried on by the whalers, had Hlready distributed some hundred stand of arms among the inhabitants of this bay; and. as the natives of the River Thames were unprovided with similar weapons, they made little opposition to their more powerful invaders, who, in the present instance, told us they had killed 200, while they returned with the loss of only, four men. Before we met the canoes we had pretty well learned the result of the erpedition from Te Tuhi, who, notwithstanding his long residence in England, and his having returned to New Zealand under the immediate charge of one of the missionaries, still scrupulously adhered to the barbarous prejudices of his country, and gave a striking proof of the difficulty of eradicating the habits of savage life in a person of mature age.

His conversation during breakfast'was a continued boast of the atrocities he had committed during an excursion, which he and Korokoro had made two months before, to the River Thames; and he dwelt with marked pleasure upon an instance of his generalship, when having forced a small party of his enemies into a narrow- place, whence there was no egress, he was enabled successively to shoot two-and-twenty of them, without their having the power of making the slightest resistance. Tq qualify this story he remarked, that though all the dead bodies were' devoured by his tribe, "neither he nor his brother ate human flesh, nor did they fight on Sundays.'' When asked why he did not try to ttini the minds of his people to agriculture, he said it was impossible; "that if you told a Xew Zealander to work, he fell asleep; but if you spoke:offighting, he opened his eyes as wide as a teacup; that the whole bent of his mind was war, and that he looked upon fighting as fun."'

SALUTE IN HONOUR OF HONGI. The New Zealander whale ship saiftd for England in the morning; Bnd while she was beating out of the bay we went on board to take leave of Hongi; but as he was at that moment preparing to go through the last farewell ceremony with his immediate relations, and as the deck was crowded, with them, we were glad to get into our boat before it began. Hongi's friends pushed off soon after, and the master of the Xew Zeajander saluted them with a gun and three cheers; the compliment was received with marked satisfaction, and when w.e met them on shore some time afterwards, every appearance of sorrow had vanished. We now rowed towards the missionary settlement at Te Puna, whither fhe greater part of the River Thames expedition directed its course. On one side of a ravine, through which runs a rivulet, is a high steep hill, called Rangihoua, upon the top of which stands a .very extensive native village in all its barbarity; while on the opposite eminence are the cottages of our countrymen, built in the English style, of wood, and as neat and comfortable as their remote situation from the civilised world could admit of.

The beach was crowded with natives, waiting the return of the expedition; and, as the canoes approached, they waded out to meet them, and assisted in hauling them on shore and in landing the prisoners and the baggage.

"WOE TO THE VANQUISHED." The warriors were in full dress, their hair tied up in a bunch on their heads and ornamented with white feathers, and their faces and bodies besmeared with oil and red ochre. They recounted to the groups that surrounded, them, the different events of their excursion, with much gesture and energy ; while the captives sat patiently upon the beach, awaiting the lot which was to consign them.to their respective masters. They consisted of men, women, and children; some of the latter not two years old; and forlorn as their situation was, they seemed to have paid as much attention to the ornamenting of their persons, as those who were placed in more fortunate circumstances. Among the women there was one who excited particular interest: she was young and handsome; and though the other prisoners occasionally talked among themselves, she sat silent and alone, and appeared lost in affliction. We learned that her father, who had been a chief of some consequence at the River Thames, was killed by the man whose prisoner she now was; and we observed him sitting at no great distance from her during the greater part of the day. He was the brother of Toi, the principal person at Eangihoua, and was a singularly fine-looking youth. The extraordinary scenes that we witnessed detained us in the neighbourhood of Te Puna until evening; and, as we were preparing to return to the ship, we were drawn to that part of the beach where the prisoners were, by the most doleful cries and lamentations. Here was the interesting young slave in a situation that ought to have softened the heart of the most unfeeling.

MOURNER CUTS HER BODY WITH SHELL. The man who had slain her father, having cut off his head, and preserved it by a process peculiar to these islanders, took it out of a basket where it had hitherto been concealed, and threw it into the lap of the unhappy daughter. At'once she seized it with a degree of frenzy not to be described, pressed its inanimate nose to her own, and held it in this position until her te__s ran over every part of it. She then laid it down, and with a bit of sharp shell disfigured her person m so shocking a manner that in a few minutes not a vestige of her former beauty remained. She first began by cutting her arms, then her breasts, and latterly her face. Every incision was so deep as to cause a gush of blood; but she seemed "quite insensible to pain, and performed tha operation with heroic resolution. ~, ■ • •_ _i He whose cruelty had caused this frightful exhibition, was evidently amused at the horror with which we viewed it; and, laying hold of the head by the hair, which was long and black, offered to sell it to us for an axe turned it in various ways to show it off to the best advantage and when no purchaser was to be found, replaced it in the basket from whence he had taken it. The features were as perfect as when in rife, and though the daughter was quite grown up, the head.of her father appeared to be that of a youthful and handsome man.

THE SAD LOT OP THE SLAVE. A few yards from the scene of distress was a prisoner whom the lot of nartition'had separated from his captive family. He pressed the nose of an infant child to his own. while his wives, who sat around and joined in hL CmSSom performed with a shell the same operations upon heir nerSn, which has just been described in the case of the young em shves are condemned by their masters to hard labour ,Jey are fed like the rest of the family, °ot having of course the prmle^ot eating with those that are free; and they hold their hws upon almost precarious tenure (see Note 5) When a member o' *c clue£ ™g dies, a certain number of the slaves,. w« pertKjn, *re Eacrificed to appease the .pint of the deceased, a wuw_