356 Ussm/s. 



or bent considerably outwards, to enable the woman the better to bold, 

 scrape, weave, and plait flax. At an early period, tbe little ears of tbe 

 infant were bored witb a sharp fragment of stone, or bit of obsidian ; an 

 operation generally performed by its mother. 



(2.) Betrothal often took place at, or shortly after, birth (if not indeed, 

 mentally, and conditionally, before) . This was almost certain to ensue in 

 the case of simultaneous births of opposite sexes among friends of equal 

 rank, or distant relatives. If not then arranged by the parents or uncles, 

 it was generally done during the early childhood of the children. While, 

 no doubt, all such affiances arose from both good and political motives, 

 nothing the New Zealanders ever did caused them more misery, and yet 

 they could never be brought to see it. 



(3.) " Naming " of the child also followed soon after its birth. This 

 ceremony was always performed by a " priest " (cunning wright, or skilled 

 man, who managed all such secret and mysterious matters, of exorcism, 

 objurgation, or incantation) ; it has been called by Europeans, the " naming " 

 of the child, but it does not mean that ; it has also been called " baptism," 

 and compared with Christian baptism, and the term iriiri adopted, rather 

 unwisely, to express that ordinance. No doubt it was a high ceremony in 

 the eyes of a New Zealander ; but it was nothing else than a removal of the 

 tapu (restraint, or prohibition) under which the child and mother lay — 

 more a rite of purification than anything else. If the child was a boy, 

 the "priest " expressed his wish that he should be brave and manly; if a 

 girl, that she should be efficient in all those peculiar duties pertaining to 

 her sex. 



(4.) About the age of puberty the tattooing operation was begun on 

 both sexes, as, in the case of the man, it took several years to complete, 

 and in that of the woman it was necessary, at least, that her lips should be 

 finished ere she could have a husband ; red lips in women being abhorred, 

 and llaclc ones being considered the perfection of beautiful feminine lips. 

 Regular tattooing in the onale was confined to the whole face and to the 

 breech, and sometimes to the thighs : certainly some were very hand- 

 somely done. In the female it was confined to the lips, chin, between 

 the eyes, and a little up the forehead, and on the back part of the 

 leg, from the heel to the calf ; the three last-mentioned being always 

 indicative of rank. The women, also, often got themselves irregu- 

 larly marked on the hands, arms, breast, and face, with small crosses, 

 short lines, and dots. A very few women the writer has seen with 

 tattooed faces just as a man ; these belong to southern tribes ; some of 

 whom formerly had a very different style of tattooing (such as is shown in 

 Cook's Voyages, plate 13, 4to edition). The chiefs wore their hair long, 



