NEW ZEALAND A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 212, 4 September 1920, Page 19

NEW ZEALAND A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

MAORI LIFE AND CUSTOMS IN 1820. (Prom the Journal of Major Richard A. Cruise, of the 84th Regiment Foot.) CHAPTER lll.—Continued. HUMANE MAORI EXECUTION. The manner of inflicting death is perhaps one of the most humane customs of tne country. The existence of the sufferer is terminated by a blow on the head, struck with a stone club, called a mere. The executioner, who us selected by the tribe, cannot decline his office'; and the unsuspecting victim falls without previous intimation of his intended fate. When we were getting into our boat, we met Hongi's mother on a lonely part of the beach; she was very old, and her hair was perfectly white. In consequence of the departure of her son she was tabbooed; and a? among other restrictions of this superstition, the persons under its influence are forbidden to touch food with their hands, a woman sat beside her with a basket of potatoes, and put them into her mouth as ehe required them. ■\7 c lT nd Te Tuhi ' B dder brother Korokoro on board, and waiting lor, Mr. Marsden, who was one of our party. Korokoro was an"elderly man, and far from prepossessing in his appearance. He sat in the cabin until a late hour: and upon our expressing a wish to see the body of his friend, which he had brought from the North Cape, he promised to show it to us, and proposed that we should visit his residence the next day. CHAPTER IV. Excursion Ashore at the Bay of Islands—Description of an Old Time Pa.— Murder of the French Explorer, Marion dv Fresne, and Some of his Men.—The Secret of the Preparation of "Baked" Heads. On March 3, 1820. some of the gentlemen accompanied Korokoro to his pa, or fort, where he then which was about a rtfile from the ship, then at anchor in Parua Bay, in the Bay of Islands. The pas are situated on high, steep, and generally conical hills, ascended by a narrow winding pathway, so rugged that the European climbs it with personal danger; while the New Zealander, from-custom and being barefooted, seems to experience neither inconvenience nordifficulty. (See Note 6.) As near the top of the pa as possible, is the public store-house; the huts of the people are scattered on the declivity; and to augment the natural strength of the place, it is fortified by ope or more ditches and lines of palisades firmly fixed in the ground. These New Zealand forts have been described with accuracy by Captain Cook: no tribe is without one: and, though in times of peace the people generally prefer scattering themselves over the low grounds and close to the seaside, at the moment of alarm they retire to the pa, as the place of safety and concentration. .. During the time the gentlemen were rowing to the shore, Korokoro pointed out the place where Captain Cook had been attacked by the natives; and gave a minute detail of the massacre of part of the crew of Marion's ship. He said that the natives, exasperated against the French mptain for having burned two of their villages, determined on revenge; and, concealing every hostile disposition towards him and his people, , pointed out a place to haul the seine, and offered to assist the sailors in doing so. The arrangement of 'the plot accorded with the treachery of the proffered kindness. Next to every White man was placed a New Zealaljder;.and when all hands were busy pulling the net, a sudden and furious attack was made upon the unsuspecting and defenceless Europeans, and every one of them was murdered. ',' "," ; [Marion dv Fresne commanded the Mascarin, one of two ships sent out by the French Government to explore the South Pacific and learn all , possible about New Zealand. In June. 1772, while the, ships were at the Bay of Islands, Marion dv Fresne and a number of men who had gone ashore were attacked and murdered by the natives.—Editor.l NATIVE BURIAL. On the arrival of the gentlemen at the foot of the pa Korokoro took them to see the body of his friend, which was laid in a canoe, and watched by two old women, who sat on cither side of it. When Korokoro mentioned to them his intention of showing it to the strangers, there was an evident opposition on their part, which was overcome with apparent difficulty by the authority of their chief; and so tenacious are the people of this island of the approach of Europeans near their dead, or even their burying-places, that subsequent observation gave ample proof of how. far Korokoro had disregarded the prejudices of his countrymen in the present instance. ,

The body was at first enveloped in mats, but Korokoro raised it out of the canoe and stripped it. The temples were bound with a chaplet of leaves, a"nd the hair was ornamented with the feathers of the albatross; the knees were gathered up and the head rested upon them • the abdomen had collapsed, and the intestines had been evidently removed, though no mark of an incision was visible; and the limbs were much shrivelled from the process that had been adopted to prevent putrefaction, of which, though the person had been dead for a considerable time, there was not the slightest appearance. When the body was replaced in the canoe, the women resumed their ■tation on either side of it; and Korokoro remarked, that it was that Bight to be deposited in its final resting place. * The gentlemen from the ship then ascended nearly to the top of the pa where the house of*the chief stood: it was about nine feet long, six feet wide, and four feet high, with a small sliding door, through which the chief could creep with some difficulty. The huts of his people were •mallerBAKTEgING BAKED HEADS. , He now produced two human heads, in the same state of preservation as the .one mentioned on a former occasion, and offered to sell them for some gunpowder. As the manner of preserving heads so effectually as to prevent decay for many years, must be a subject of curiosity, perhaps it may not be amiss hereto detail it.

When the head has been separated from the the interior of it extracted, it is rolled up m leaves, into ajund of oven, made of heated stones laid m a hole in the ground, ana over with earth. The temperature is very moderate,Jnd the head is baked or steamed until all the moisture, which is J J J has exuded; after which it is left in a current of euruntil.lJ™g a > Some of these preserved heads were brought to EnglandJhe feat , hair, and teeth were as perfect as in life; nor have they since shown y symptoms of decay. . . , * _„ ai,,, Maoris. The custom of preserving heads » as a trophy, They bring them back frbm their ware, in the first P £ and/in the event of peace, to restore them to the party from whom tney

had taken them: an interchange of heads being a common article in their treaties of reconciliation. They now barter them to the Europeans for a trifle. When the officers took their leave, Korokoro presented them with a basket of potatoes, and permission to shoot a few pigs, that ran <rild upon a neighbouring island. In the afternoon some persons went thither and killed seven. On the 4th of March the ship was surrounded with canoes, and great quantities of fish were procured in exchange for fish-hooks. The following day it was determined to explore the banks of the Hokianga, on which the kauri tree was reported to grow in great abundance. This river empties itself into the sea on the western coast of the island, and was described by tKe inhabitants to be navigable for some miles from its mouth. " (To be Continued.) Note 6. Being bare-footed. Such is the hardness of their feet that they run over the sharn«=t rocks and the most rugged ground without the slightest inconvenience. When going through the woods they use no protection against the numerous thorns and brambles, which we found a serious annoyance and impediment; and those, to whom we gave shoes were bo crippled in them that they could scarcely walk.