VICISSITUDES 389 



construed otherwise than as a slight on Tutira, a tacit denial of its full 

 incorporation of him, body and soul. That sharp discipline was required 

 to recall him to his former docility, that a wholesome reminder was 

 necessary to let him understand that his reinstatement was no common 

 transaction of everyday life, that the transference of such a run as 

 Tutira for such a length of years was not to be consummated without 

 the initiatory rites of fasting, scourge, and penance, provided, not 

 gratis, by the legal fraternity, were all, I believe, ideas subconsciously 

 at work in the native mind. 



There is, I believe, in medicine a term metastasis signifying the 

 transference of evil to which flesh is heir from one part of the human 

 frame to another, suppression in one place leading to reappearance in 

 another. There are racial analogues. Amongst the Maori tribes, the 

 pax Britannica has stayed feuds which heretofore had found vent on the 

 battlefield. Desire to war is still strong in the blood, but since it is no 

 longer possible to slay each other decently in the open with mere and 

 spear, the chiefs and elders of the tribes are constrained to bludgeon one 

 another in the native Land Courts. 1 



The approaching litigation about the new lease of Tutira bore in 

 its essentials no little resemblance to the famous cause between Jock 

 o' Dawston Cleugh and Dandie Dinmont. The natives were apparently 

 resolved that the land should have its rights, one of the most important 

 of which was an appearance in court, vicariously represented by its 

 owners. They were spoiling for a fight with some person or some 

 Board. I am bound to confess, however, that they spared me to 

 the last that they took me on only when more legitimate game had 

 failed. 



The first attempt was made on the Conservation of Forests Board, 

 who had, shortly after my departure, purchased from the native owners 

 all of whom were Tutira men a scenic reserve around the picturesque 

 Falls of Tangoio. This transaction, they now claimed, had been carried 

 out without adequate explanation, the sum paid per acre had been in- 

 sufficient, the lease had not been signed by every native entitled to sign, 

 any stick would do to beat the dog. They wished, in fact, to upset the 

 deal ; not a bit because they did not wish the amenities of the fall pre- 



1 R. L. Stevenson declares that the natives in certain Melanesian groups have died off 

 chiefly from want of amusement that the missionaries have killed them with decorum. If the 

 true function of native Land Courts is to preserve the Maori race, to keep it alert, bright and 

 happy, the writer can no longer regret his own involuntary contribution towards so good a cause. 



