Exhibition of a war dance and 

 feast dance. 



NEW ZEALAND. 



Natives of Chatham Island. 

 Chart of the Bay of Islands. 



173 



ward and parrot-toed. His height and manner of 

 walking make this defect more apparent, and he 

 wants that dignity which is sometimes seen in a 

 savage of our country. The New Zealanders, how- 

 ever, struck us as having a closer resemblance to 

 our North American Indians than any others we 

 had yet met with among the Polynesian nations. I 

 was surprised to see how little respect was paid to 

 the orders of Pomare by his followers, and was 

 told that there is little authority acknowledged by 

 those who are free. His slaves and wives are 

 those who must sustain the burden of his wrath ; 

 their lives are at his disposal, and with them his 

 will is law ; they seem, however, to be treated 

 kindly. Pomare is said to be entirely under the 

 control of his favourite wife, of whom I have hereto- 

 fore spoken. She is a far more respectable person 

 than her husband, and was the most intelligent 

 native I met with. 



Wishing to see their war-dances, I requested 

 Pomare to gratify us with an exhibition, which he 

 consented to do. The ground chosen was the hill- 

 side of Mr. Clendon, our consul's place, where be- 

 tween three and four hundred natives, with their 

 wives and children, assembled. Pomare divided 

 the men into three parties or squads, and stationed 

 these at some distance from each other. Shortly 

 after this was done, I received a message from 

 him, to say that they were all hungry, and wanted 

 me to treat them to something to eat. This was 

 refused until they had finished their dance, and 

 much delay took place in consequence. Pomare 

 and his warriors were at first immoveable: but they 

 in a short time determined they would unite on the 

 hill-top, which was accordingly ordered, although 

 I was told they were too hungry to dance well. 

 Here they arranged themselves in a solid column, 

 and began stamping, shouting, jumping, and shaking 

 their guns, clubs, and paddles in the air, with vio- 

 lent gesticulations, to a sort of savage time. A 

 more grotesque group cannot well be imagined ; 

 dressed, half-dressed, or entirely naked. After 

 much preliminary action, they all set off, with a 

 frantic shout, at full speed in a war-charge, which 

 not only put to flight all the animals that were 

 feeding in the neighbourhood, but startled the 

 spectators. After running about two hundred and 

 fifty yards, they fired their guns and halted, with 

 another shout. They then returned in the same 

 manner, and stopped before us, a truly savage 

 multitude, wrought up to apparent frenzy, and 

 exhibiting all the modes practised of maiming and 

 killing their enemies, until they became exhausted, 

 and lay down on the ground like tired dogs, pant- 

 ing for breath. One of the chiefs then took an old 

 broken dragoon-sword, and began running to and 

 fro before us, flourishing it, and at the same time 

 delivering a speech at the top of his voice. The 

 speech, as interpreted to me, ran thus : " You are 

 welcome, you are our friends, and we are glad to see 

 you;" frequently repeated. After tlu-ee or four 

 had shown off in this way, they determined they 

 must have something to eat, saying that I had 

 promised them rice and sugar, and they ought to 

 have it. Mr. Clendon, however, persuaded them 

 to give one of their feast-dances. The performers 

 consisted of about fifteen old, and as many young 

 persons, whom they arranged in close order. The 

 young girls laid aside a part of their dress to ex- 

 hibit their forms to more advantage, and they 



commenced a kind of recitative, accompanied by 

 all manner of gesticulations, with a sort of guttural 

 husk for a chorus. It was not necessary to under- 

 stand their language to comprehend their meaning, 

 and it is unnecessary to add, that their tastes did 

 not appear very refined, but were similar to what 

 we have constantly observed among the heathen na- 

 tions of Polynesia. Their impatience now became 

 ungovernable, and hearing that the rice and sugar 

 were being served out, they retreated precipitately 

 down the hill, where they all set to most heartily, 

 with their wives and children, to devour the food. 

 This to me was the most entertaining part of the 

 exhibition. They did not appear selfish towards 

 each other; the children were taken care of, and 

 all seemed to enjoy themselves. I received many 

 thanks in passing among them, and their coun- 

 tenances betokened contentment. Although they 

 were clothed for the occasion in their best, they 

 exhibited but a squalid and dirty appearance, both 

 in their dress and persons. 



No native music was heard by any of our officers, 

 and they seem to have little or none in their com- 

 position. In their attempts to sing the hymns, 

 chants, or old psalm-tunes, they entirely failed to 

 produce any thing like a resemblance. The pitch 

 of their voices when speaking, is higher than that 

 of Europeans, (the French excepted,) and that of 

 the women was not a tone above, which gives 

 additional coarseness to their character. Both 

 sexes have but little intonation in conversation, 

 and there are no tones heard which would indicate 

 sympathy of feeling. 



Chatham Island, which will probably soon be 

 connected with the English colony of New Zealand, 

 is now considered as a nest of rogues, and several 

 vessels have been robbed there. Its inhabitants 

 have a tradition that they are derived from New 

 Zealand, whence their progenitors came about a 

 century since, having been driven off in their 

 canoes by a storm, and that on landing they had 

 changed their language. The change consisted in 

 reversing the ordinary construction of their phrases, 

 and the syllables of words, as, for Hare-mai, Mai- 

 hare ; and for Paika, Ka-pai. The natives of 

 Chatham Island are not tattooed, do not wear 

 clothing, and are said to be more intelligent than 

 their progenitors. They were conquered a few 

 years ago by a party of New Zealanders from Port 

 Nicholson, who had been driven out by the Kapiti 

 tribes, under the celebrated R-auparaka. 



An examination of the charts of the Bay of 

 Islands was made, and some additional soundings 

 added ; the meridian distance, measured by our 

 chronometers from Sydney, gave the longitude of 

 the point opposite Mr. Clendon 's wharf, 174 7' E.; 

 its latitude was found to be 35 17' S. The dip 

 and intensity observations were also made here, 

 and will be found registered with those results in 

 the volume on physics. 



Mr. Couthouy, who was left sick at Sydney, took 

 passage in a vessel to Tahiti, and passed 'through 

 Cook's Straits, touching at several of its anchorages. 

 To his observations I am indebted for the following 

 information relative to the southern part of these 

 islands. 



The first point they made was the Sugar Loaf 

 Islands and Mount Egmont. The charts published 

 by Clintz at Sydney, give also the height of this 

 mountain as fourteen thousand feet, but this was 



