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. Yery 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 Grod 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 ta/pu system. They commenced with the 

 birth of the ISTew 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 tapii 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, jDerhaps, 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 

 seizing and spearing tame pigs, and devouring and carrying them off ; and 

 if by any chance the family Avere not so stripped, they would be sure deeply 

 to resent the neglect, as much on account of their being lowered (i.e. not 



