614 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



have been quite exceptional. As before remarked, it was only 

 the heads of chiefs that were preserved ; and, as their restora- 

 tion to the tribes from whom they had been taken was the in- 

 dispensable preliminary to the conclusion of a peace, they were 

 far too precious to be traded away even for the coveted trea- 

 sures of the pakehas. 



But circumstances alter cases, and before very long an un- 

 expected train of events brought an unlimited stock into the 

 market. The terror of the great Hongi, who was the first New 

 Zealand chief to obtain firearms, hung like a storm-cloud 

 ready to burst over the tribes of the south, and every attempt 

 must be made to meet him on equal terms. For a ton of 

 dressed flax, laboriously scraped with a pipi-shell, a gun was 

 purchased from the skippers of the Sydney schooners, or from 

 the traders who early in the century began to establish them- 

 selves along the coast ; but this process of armament was far 

 too slow, and it was found that the preserved head offered 

 just the ready means of barter that was required ; and, as the 

 purchasers were not particular so long as they obtained a 

 good specimen, the honour of the mokomokai was no longer 

 confined to the chiefs, but was extended to every man whose 

 head would pass muster. Old grudges were raked up and 

 small local wars undertaken to keep up the supply ; and it is 

 even stated that a good-looking slave was often elaborately 

 tattooed so that as soon as it was required his head might be 

 passed off as that of a distinguished rangatira.' ]: 



To such an extent did this trade extend that it attracted 

 the notice of the Government of New South Wales, and an 

 ordinance was published by which the possession of a pre- 

 served head was made a penal offence. And to this, less, 

 perhaps, than to the fact that the Maoris gradually became 

 possessed of the weapons by which they were able eventually 

 to turn the tables upon their northern enemies, is to be 

 ascribed the discontinuance of a practice that must have been 

 most repulsive to their strongest instincts, and which would 

 only have been adopted as a desperate measure for preserving 

 their tribes from annihilation. In any case we find that the 

 trade rapidly declined, and the custom itself has long since 

 died out. so that for many years past the only means of ob- 

 taining a specimen has either been by exchange among the dif- 

 ferent museums or at the sale of some private collection of curios. 



Mode of Pkepakation. 

 Of the mode of preparation of the ?nokovwkai we have 

 several accounts, none of which, as before observed, is com- 

 plete, and most of them differing a good deal in detail. It is 

 very probable, however, that the various artists purposely 



* Compare ManiDgs " Old New Zealand." 



