Tales of a young traveller

Press, 16 October 1976, Page 15

Tales of a young traveller

New Zealand: Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures during a Residence in that Country between the years 1831 and 1837. By J. S. Polack. Capper Press. Two volumes, 403 pp. and 441 pn. Map, appendices, illustrated. $2B. (Reviewed by Jenny Murray)

Joel Samuel Polack was 24 when he arrived in this country by way of a wandering path through California, South Africa and Australia. He was a young man of good education, and from a well-off family in London; not a fugitive, or social outcast, or simple adventurer of the sort that spent a few months on these shores, with their wild reputation, outside the power of European laws. Setting himself up as a flax trader and storekeeper, Polack stayed on. He invested in land without becoming a land shark. He spent long periods living with the Maoris without becoming a pakeha Maori. Altogether he strikes one as an odd figure. When he returned to England for a period at the end of the 1830 s, Polack published two substantial works, “New Zealand” in 1838, and “Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders” in 1840. The first has been republished by the Capper Press, and we can look forward to the appearance of the second before the end of the year. Polack begins “New Zealand" conscientiously with two chapters on voyages of exploration of the South

Pacific, and the first experiences if the European captains and their crews with the Maoris. This thorough and well - informed, but impersonal, approach gives way to an engaging narrative of his own travels, with Maori companions, from the Hokianga district to kaipara. All manner of incidents take place en route: marriages and funerals, war parties and grand feasts. Though wellsupplied with anecdotes about treacherous murder, revenge and cannibalism, Polack seems to have held no apprehension for his own life, making light of alarming incidents.

Thomas Hocken’s comment on this work was that it "abounds in curious information.” Polack was conscious of the duty of adding “some contribution towards the general treasury of knowledge.” As well as masses of information about the traditions and customs of the Maoris, he provided detailed notes on a range of subjects, including topography, natural history (with the names of plants, birds, shellfish, etc., in Latin as well as Maori, where possible), and the European activities of the period. He gives a list of numerals in 60 languages, from island peoples in the North and South Pacific, Indian and African (sic) Oceans. In the appendices, there are notes on New Zealand’s outlying islands, some thought on the usefulness of native timbers, and a lengthy description of whales and whaling. One of Polack’s principle objects, stated in his preface, was to draw the attention of his fellow-countrymen to New Zealand. At a point when there was some official hesitation, he believed that it was in Britain’s best interests to colonise this country, and that it would be best for the Maoris too.

His tone towards many of the native customs is one of lofty superiority. Cut off as they were from contact with, a wider world, the Maoris seemed to him to be “benighted” in their superstitious practices, comparable in many wavs to the Britons in the days of Julius Caesar. Admiring the natural intelligence of the Maoris, he considered that they were sharp enough and tough enough to benefit from European contact, that was proving so destructive elsewhere. In this he was a patriot and an optimist. In Polack’s eyes, “a handsomer race does not exist” than the children of Maori-pakeha marriages. The reader becomes accustomed to the peculiarities of Polack’s writing. He is excessively wordy, and fond of a mock high-flown literary style, which he uses successfully to describe amusing encounters with offended tohungas, enraged chiefs, and so on. He was a young man of decided opinions, freely expressed, and while one may not agree with all of these, we have reason to be grateful that he was interested in so much and that he wrote it all down.

We should be grateful too to the Capper Press for making this work readily available. It is a handsome production, printed offset from the copy in the Canterbury Public Library, with clear, readable type, complete with the reproduced engravings and woodcuts from Polack’s own drawings.