CANNIBAL ETIQUETTE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

CANNIBAL ETIQUETTE.

AFRICA AND NEW ZEALAND

BY AFALOFI,

What causes cannibalism ? Mr. W. B. Seabrook, who has written an unusually frank and fascinating book, "Jungle Ways," on his journeyings in French West Africa, has established that among the Guere tribe, at least, it is habitual. If anything, these tribes people are rather proud of their barbarity, and it is their unembellished admissions which draw attention in a striking manner to the vastly different beliefs of the Polynesians, including our New Zealand Maoris. Mr. Seabrook's conversation with these present-day cannibals is worth preserving. ' " When I said to them, 4 How is it that you are cannibal while neighbouring tribes are not?' their first useless answer, of course, was, ' The Guere have always been cannibal,' " Mr. Seabrook relates. "It was like asking a Georgia farmer why he eats corn-bread or a New Englander why he eats white. " But presently, in the course of a general talk, an old counsellor hushed tho others and said, ' We have attacked and fought a certain village. We have slain some men there with our spears. We have marched a long way, we have fought well, we are hungry, and we want to feast. Perhaps there are sheep and goats and chickens in the conquered village, perhaps not, bufc why slay them when there is already slain provision of good meat? Is it reasonable to let it. spoil and wastefully to kill other which is no better?'"

In Polynesian ears, this philosophy would have rung strangely even a hundred years ago, when the Pacific Islanders, and the Maoris in particular, had an unenviable reputation for cannibalism. There lingers to-day a general impression that the savagery of our own New Zealand natives was utterly, animal. What is not generally realised is that there are widely different causes of this barbarity, and it is really an injustice to regard all cannibalism as a natural practice. Reasons of Cannibalism. , A consideration of the reasons for the cannibalism of the Polynesian races takes an investigator far back into history for the fundamental causes. Mr. Seabrook has set out four principal reasons for cannibalism—religious sacrifices, sorcery, necessity and natural barbarity. These may bo accepted as true, though it seems that Polynesian cannibalism was caused by a medium of ceremonial or sacrificial rites and the beliefs of tohungaism. Tohungaism is used advisedly, in order to distinguish the priestly practices of the Polynesians from the sorcery of inferior races.

New Zealand's case is ordinarily misunderstood. Even Robert Louis Stevenson described the Maoris, with the Marquesas Islanders, as " inveterate cannibals."

The belief has actually been strengthened during the passing of the years and the consequently declining knowledge of the Maori as he was.' There is scarcely a New Zealander of the present day who would not say the early Maoris were utterly cannibalistic. A study of the Maori occupancy of Aotearoa since the original, settlement of. Toi te Huatahi's handful of followers in 1150 shows the natives, of this country in quite a different light. It becomes evident that the phase of sheer savagery in the early part of last century was not true of the Maoris.

Indeed, cannibalism in New Zealand, ■until European traders arms and so provided an unprecedentedly effective means of slaughter, was principally ceremonial. Its decline, if such a word can be used to describe degrees of cannibalism, began properly when Hongi Hika led his Ngapuhi legions on wholesale conquests. The bloodshed at Mokoia Island, where the Arawas were routed, at Tauranga, Tamaki and Kawhia, and in the Hauraki and Waikato districts, made history of the worst kind for the New Zealand Polynesians. Te Rauparaha's Atrocities.

To Bauparalia, the hawk of Kapiti Island, committed remarkable atrocities when his Ngati Awa tribesmen descended upon Canterbury and sackgd the Nga'i Tabu village of -Kaiapohia. It was these orgies which, by reason of their utter carnage, obscured the significance of the wholly different cannibalistic practices of earlier years.

A principal cause of cannibalism among the Maoris had been in the motive of degrading the soul of the victims. No greater reproach could bo made against a princely house than a reminder that one of it® chieftains had been eaten. The repulsive practice of swallowing a victim's eyes was ceremonial in spirit. The Maoris had the belief that the stars wero the eyes of chieftains. To destroy the eyes of a rangatira was to obscure his heavenly mana.

Sacrifices were known in New Zealand, just as they were among the Marquesans, the Rarotongans and the Paumotuans. There seems to have been no definite form of cannibalism in Samoa, and the barbarity was only slightly practised in Hawaii and Tahiti. There is a possibility that the Polynesians knew of their traditional sacrificial rites from their association with India and Indonesia. A more decisive assumption is that cannibalism was developed during the passage of the Polynesians through the islands of the Metanesians, who, however, as a lower race, were natural cannibals. The P re-Maori Peoples.

There is no conclusive evidence that the Mouriuri race which inhabited northern New Zealand before the arrival of the Tahitian Maoris was cannibalistic to any degreo. The Morioris,- the early Polynesian race which occupied the Chatham Islands and parts of New Zealand, were not barbarians. Tradition says they were once in danger of extinction because of inter-tribal fighting. Piealising the position, the high chieftain, Nunuku, issued an edict that no fight was to be to the death.

Probably the last sacrifice made by Maoris to their gods was in 1868, when fanatics under the rebel Te Kooti murdered the chieftain Karaitiana at Whatoroa. They roasted Karaitiana's heart and liver as a sacrifice to Whiro, the god of evil. A false impression, which, unfortunately, seems destined to remain, was created by the atrocities committed sinco European influences began in Now Zealand. Another aspect of the circumstances lead,ing to a somewhat .erroneous impression of the Maoris as a whole was' in the sordid traffic in dried heads carried on with New South Wales and England in the first part of last century. Not unnaturally, it was believed that the heacls were a result of cannibalism. Actually, Maori war parties severed the heads of their slain leaders and returned with them to the kaingas to prevent possession by an enemy.

Mr, Seabrook's observations on tho equanimity with which the Guere regard their barbarity serve more strikingly to emphasise the different attitude of tho Polynesians, who, even in savagery, wore governed by strict tapus. Another fact of importance arises. Mr. Seabrook has the distinction of being most probably tho only white man to bo a guest at a modern cannibal feast.

His description of his sensations, in consequence, is worth quotation. " Tho occasion was one which would probably never be repeated," he states, so that I felt in duty bound to make the most of it. I had been given a sizable rump steak, also a small loin roast . . . it was the meat of a freshly killed man, who seemed to be about thirty years old—and who had not been murdered. Neither then nor at any time since have I had any serious personal qualms, either of digestion or conscience."