382 Essays. 
may now appear to us to have been, it was certainly the source of order to 
them, and was of great use to conserve them as a race, and to sharpen their 
intellectual and moral faculties. Having no written language, it is not at 
all unlikely but that the observances of the tapu institution were much more 
simple and charitable at the first; seeing, too, that its observances and modes 
of working varied in different districts and under oral directions. Very likely 
the more the tribes, sub-tribes, and “priests” increased, the more varied 
became the taboo. How greatly would the Mosaic code of laws have been 
changed or added to had they not been written! As it was, two thousand 
years ago the Jews were charged with having “ made the word of God of no 
effect through their traditions ;’ and how much have some of the early 
Christian churches departed from what was written through non-attention to 
that writing, and that continual inseparable desire of the human breast to be 
always adding something new. A good-sized book might be written about all 
the numerous requirements of the tapu system. They commenced with the 
birth of the New Zealander, continued with him throughout life in all its 
varied scenes, and did not leave him until long after he was in the grave. 
The tapu regulated, or pretended to regulate, all his movements. It certainly 
enabled him to accomplish many heavy and useful works, which without it he 
could not have done. Through it their large cultivations, their fisheries, 
their fine villages and hill forts, their fine canoes, their good houses, their 
large seine nets, their bold carvings, and a hundred other things were accom- 
plished without their possessing either iron or metal. Through it their fowl 
and fish and forests were preserved. Through it the crimes of murder, theft, 
sorcery, and adultery were less common, and when committed sure not to go 
long unpunished, and through it fornication and other errors were lessened, 
and the headstrong passions of the New Zealander were in a great measure 
controlled. It had great influence over them: the stoutest and fiercest of the 
New Zealand chiefs bowed like an infant before it, and dared not disobey its 
behests. In all their changes, they held it to the last, and only relinquished 
it by slow degrees;—(have they done so yet?) Notwithstanding, they 
certainly never liked it. No man, or body of men, has ever yet liked a 
coercive law, however beneficial. If through it (or rather, perhaps, owing 
to its being broken or neglected) much blood was shed, many lives were 
also through it saved. Several of its requirements were certainly very 
peculiar and abnormal, and bear the appearance, at least, of being very cruel ; 
—e.g., at the death of a chief, a taua, or stripping party, came and stripped 
the family of all eatables and other movables, digging up root crops, and 
oem and jeans = pigs, and devouring and carrying them off ; and 
Cd by : y were not so tripped, eS 
et. z d (ew 
2.6. not 
~ 
