232 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND CHAP, x 



quantity every year of his life, so that some of the 

 elders were almost covered with it. Their faces are the 

 most remarkable ; on them, by some art unknown to me, 

 they dig furrows a line deep at least, and as broad, the 

 edges of which are often again indented, and absolutely 

 black. This may be done to make them look frightful in 

 war, indeed it has the effect of making them most enor- 

 mously ugly ; the old ones especially, whose faces are entirely 

 covered with it. The young, again, often have a small 

 patch on one cheek or over one eye, and those under a 

 certain age (maybe twenty -five or twenty-six) have no more 

 than their lips black. Yet ugly as this certainly looks, it is 

 impossible to avoid admiring the extreme elegance and just- 

 ness of the figures traced, which on the face are always 

 different spirals, and upon the body generally different 

 figures, resembling somewhat the foliages of old chasing 

 upon gold or silver. All these are finished with a masterly 

 taste and execution, for of a hundred which at first sight 

 would be judged to be exactly the same, no two on close 

 examination prove alike, nor do I remember ever to have 

 seen any two alike. Their wild imagination scorns to 

 copy, as appears in almost all their works. In different 

 parts of the coast they varied very much in the quantity 

 and parts of the body on which this amoca, as they call it, 

 was placed ; but they generally agreed in having the spirals 

 upon the face. I have generally observed that the more 

 populous a country the greater was the quantity of amoca 

 used ; possibly in populous countries the emulation of 

 bearing pain with fortitude may be carried to greater 

 lengths than where there are fewer people, and conse- 

 quently fewer examples to encourage. The buttocks, which 

 in the islands were the principal seat of this ornament, in 

 general here escape untouched ; in one place only we saw 

 the contrary. 



Besides this dyeing in grain, as it may be called, they 

 are very fond of painting themselves with red ochre, which 

 they do in two ways, either rubbing it dry upon their 

 skins, as some few do, or daubing their faces with large 



