166 



ZEALAND, NEW. 



the condition of some savage tribes. On the con- 

 trary, although full of sensibility and warmth of 

 heart, their chief enjoyment is in activity and enter- 

 prise in the toils, the dangers, and the other coarse 

 but stirring excitements of war. From this active, 

 restless, and ardent constitution of mind, however, 

 spring many of their vices, as well as their virtues 

 not only their hardihood, and exemption from 

 effeminacy, but their turbulence, their ferocity, 

 their love of blood, and whatever else is in the 

 popular sense of the word most savage in their dis- 

 position and manners. With less intellectual acute- 

 ness and energy, they would be in many respects 

 less revoltingly barbarous. Their cunning, also, 

 would be less refined and insidious; and they would 

 not be so much given to suspicion, jealousy, dissi- 

 mulation, lying, and calumny. On the other hand, 

 the New Zealanders owe to this quickness, pene- 

 tration, and flexibility of mind, some of their best 

 and most promising qualities. Instead of the stupid 

 indifference which many other rude nations show, 

 in regard to matters in which they have not been 

 accustomed to take an interest, curiosity is one of 

 the strongest passions of the people. Toils and 

 endurances of every description many of them have 

 undergone, in order to view with their own eyes 

 those wonders of distant lands, of which they had 

 merely heard in the relations of others. No greater 

 zeal, at least, and spirit of enterprise have been dis- 

 played by the travellers and voyagers of the most 

 enlightened nations. 



In New Zealand, it does not appear that the men 

 live in the habit, as in some barbarous countries, of i 

 devolving the common toils of life exclusively upon 

 the women. The latter seem to be far removed, 

 for example, from that state of subjection and 

 wretchedness which is described as their lot among 

 many of the African, and even among some of the 

 American savages. In most of their labours the 

 men take at least some share, although perhaps not 

 quite an equal one. Of one important duty, how- 

 ever, the husband relieves the wife almost com- 

 pletely namely, of the care of the children. As 

 soon as the infant is weaned, it is taught to twine 

 its arms round its father's neck ; and so completely 

 does it in a short time acquire the habit of trusting 

 to this support, that, asleep or awake, it remains 

 the whole day thus suspended, protected from the 

 weather by the same mat which covers its parent ; 

 and in his longest journeys as well as his most labo- 

 rious occupations, it is his constant companion. Al- 

 most all the chiefs have more than one wife, most 

 of them six or eight ; of these there is one who is 

 accounted the head wife. 



The head wives of the chiefs seem in many cases 

 to enjoy considerable consequence, and women are 

 sometimes chiefs themselves ; one in particular is 

 mentioned as queen of a large interior district to the 

 south of the Thames but still they are under many 

 restraints from which their husbands are free. 

 Among others they are not permitted to marry 

 again should their husbands die ; and if this regula- 

 tion is disregarded by them, as it sometimes is, they 

 are exposed to many indignities which render life 

 hardly endurable. They are generally given in 

 marriage, too, without their own consent being 

 even asked, many of them being in fact prisoners of 

 war ; and even the head wife, who is generally her 

 husband's equal in rank, is merely delivered over to 

 him by her father. Yet even in these unfavour- 

 able circumstances a warm attachment often grows 

 up between the parties ; and the death of one is 



lamented will) passionate sorrow. The wife is 

 not enjoined, as among the Hindoos, to devote 

 herself on the funeral pile of her husband by any 

 doctrine of the national religion, nor is it even 

 expected that she should give such a proof of her 

 affection ; yet it is by no means unusual for her 

 on occasion of her husband's death to commit 

 suicide, in order that her spirit may follow his. In 

 New Zealand, as in others of the South Sea islands, 

 it is only after a woman, by being married, be- 

 comes an article of property, that she is considered 

 as guilty of any impropriety in acting as licen- 

 tiously as she chooses. Yet it is said to be sur- 

 prising how few instances of misconduct occur on 

 the part of the females after marriage, notwith- 

 standing this extraordinary training. Both parents 

 are in general fondly attached to their children, and 

 treat them with great kindness and indulgence. 

 The children, indeed, are alleged to be in general 

 spoiled, and rendered unmanageable by the over- 

 indulgence of the parents ; and, doubtless, few of 

 them enjoy the benefit of a very wise corrective dis- 

 cipline. They have also, of course, by right of 

 birth, their share of the audacity and wildness of 

 the intrepid, turbulent, and reckless race to which 

 they belong. No wonder, therefore, that we find 

 them characterized as idle, unsteady, wilful, despis- 

 ing at times even the control of their parents, and, 

 of course, still more difficult to be managed by any 

 one else. But, on the other hand, this compara- 

 tive freedom from restraint in which they are 

 brought up, among its many evil effects, is not 

 without some advantages. Not only is their whole 

 bearing to an extraordinary degree frank and free 

 from embarrassment ; but, in many respects, their 

 intelligence at a very early age surpasses that of 

 the generality of European children. Almost as 

 soon as they leave their mother's breast, their 

 fathers take them with them to the public assem- 

 blies, and even on their military expeditions. Hence 

 they acquire a familiarity even with what may be 

 called affairs of state, at an age when children with 

 us are considered hardly more than ready to be sent 

 to school. Mr Marsden tells us that he has often 

 seen the sons of chiefs, at the age of four or five 

 years, sitting among the chiefs, and paying the 

 closest attention to what was said. At the age of 

 eight or ten years, he adds, they appear to be ini- 

 tiated in all the national customs and manners. 

 The first lessons taught them are to dance the war- 

 dance, to paddle the canoe, and to use the warlike 

 instruments of their country. The son of a great 

 chief is expected to show his prowess in battle at a 

 very early age, if he means to emulate his father's 

 renown ; and Captain Cruise mentions that Shun- 

 gie's son, Repero, had acquired no little ascendancy 

 in his tribe, by having shot a man before he attained 

 his fourteenth year. 



The language of the New Zealanders is radically 

 the same with that spoken in Otaheite, in the Sand- 

 wich group, and in many other islands of the South 

 sea. Its principal characteristic is the simplicity of 

 its grammatical forms : it has no distinction of gen- 

 der; declension and conjugation are effected, as in 

 English, by particles, and superlatives are made by 

 reduplication. A Grammar and Vocabulary of the 

 Language of New Zealand, compiled by professor 

 Lee of Cambridge, was published by the church 

 missionary society, in 1820. The English alphabet is 

 used in this work, but is much less suitable for that 

 purpose than the Indian alphabet of Mr Pickering (of 

 which an account is given in our article Writing"). 



