358 Essays. 
offspring ; their belief that barrenness always proceeded from the female ; and 
their rule of a brother always taking the widow of his deceased brother ; were 
among the main causes of polygamy. Politically speaking, had polygamy 
and divorce not been too early and rudely ecclesiastically interfered with 
and prohibited, the New Zealanders as a nation would, in all probability, 
have now been very much more numerous and better off. 
(7.) Death was always gloomy to a New Zealander, and yet they often 
met the “king of terrors” bravely." Whether they slowly died from 
disease, or from barbarous cruelties practised by their enemies ;—whether 
suddenly from unlooked-for casualty, or the excited anger of a superior, or 
in the battle-field, they all, young and old, of either sex, died bravely, though 
not willingly. This is the more striking, from the fact of their belief, that, 
whether they died at home from disease, or at sea from a canoe upsetting, 
or from a fall from a lofty tree, or through a house taking fire, or in the 
battle-field, or as a captive,—such was invariably owing to the anger of the 
atua (or man-destroying demon). Often did they, when sinking, calmly 
give their last words (alas! too frequently of deadly revenge) to their 
weeping relatives ; which burning words the hearers treasured up never to 
be forgotten. They rarely ever died in a good house; mostly in the open 
air, or under some wretched shed ; this was done because the house in which 
any one died would have to be forsaken as tapu. At death there was much 
loud lamentation, accompanied with gashing themselves on their arms, chests, 
and foreheads, through which the blood flowed profusely. They also further 
disfigured themselves by cutting their hair close on one side ; sometimes a 
few locks of long hair were left untouched, and these were seldom after- 
wards trimmed, but allowed to grow and mat together as a constant and ever 
present memento of the departed. The whole place was very sad; several 
of the principal resident mourners have been known to die from sheer ex- 
haustion. Such miserable wailing continued for a long time; as fresh 
parties of mourners kept continually arriving. Some came before the body 
was removed ; some not till long after; but this made no difference. All 
sang and wailed with much gesticulation and lacerating of themselves, with 
their faces towards the deceased, or his tomb, or the place where he had 
breathed his last; the burden of their lament invariably being, “ Go, go, 
depart, depart; go before us to thy people: we follow.” The body was 
sometimes tied up in a sitting posture, and clothed, and placed with its 
greenstone mere,* &c., in a small house, or mausoleum, prepared for 
it. Sometimes, though not frequently, it was boxed up in the corner of 
the veranda of the house in which it had lived; oftener it was placed 
‘on a small canoe or bier, and taken to a gloomy forest, anciently set 
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