122 Transactions. 
“ Like many other savage tribes they were very indolent, seldom seeking 
food until pressed by hunger. They had no canoes, there being no timber 
on the islands sufficiently large for constructing them; but they formed 
rafts of the flower stalks of the Phormium tenax lashed together, and having 
an upright wooden stem ingeniously carved. The paddles were shaped like 
a spade, and were used at the stern, very much in the same manner as a 
spade would be used in digging. They made stone axes, similar to those of 
the New Zealanders, and these, with clubs, &c., constructed from the 
harder woods growing on the islands, formed their weapons. In their own 
quarrels it was understood that the first blood drawn terminated the battle. 
Such fights were uncommon, and were generally for the possession of a seal 
carcass, or of some mass of whale-blubber which happened to be cast ashore, 
both of which were esteemed choice luxuries. They had no hereditary 
chiefs, the most successful fisherman, or bird-catcher, or any member of the 
tribe distinguished by extraordinary stature, being looked upon as an 
authorized leader. They had no idea of a God in our sense of the term, 
nor, so far as I could learn, of evil spirits; but they looked upon a good 
fishing or birding ground as being the gift, or rather under the charge, of 
an “ Atua,” or good spirit. Their mode of disposing of their dead had 
special reference to the particular vocation or fancy of the living subjects. 
Jf the dead person had been a good fisherman, for example, his body was 
lashed in a sitting posture to a raft, and sent adrift with a baited line in 
his hand. If he had been a noted bird-catcher, he was fixed in a stooping 
position between two trees facing the particular hill or other spot which he 
usually frequented. If he had no particular vocation, he was put, in a 
sitting posture, into an open hole in the ground, generally about as 
inches deep, with any favourite piece of carved wood stuck up before 
Mr. Alexander Shand, son of the late Collector of Customs at Waitangi, is, 
I believe, well acquainted with their traditions and customs, and will no 
doubt be able to give you full information upon the various subjects to which 
I have thus shortly referred. 
“So far as I could learn, their chronology, unlike that of the New 
Zealanders, is very defective, and consequently they are unable to fix, even 
proximately, the date of their first arrival in the islands. They say, however, 
t they came in two canoes, one of which drifted to sea again, but the 
other was preserved for a considerable period. They are quite in the dark 
as to where they came from originally; but as they resemble the Mangaia 
. Kanakas, who form a large proportion of the crews of the American whaling 
. vessels, I conceive it not improbable that they have the same origin. 
. “The islands were invaded in 1832 or 1833 by the New Zealanders, by 
om — of the ehem were killed and eaten. In fact, their 
