4 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



For my own part I may again repeat (what, I believe, I have said to you 

 before), that it is to such sources we have primarily and mainly to look for 

 much that relates to the manners and customs of the ancient New Zealander. 

 In those old narrations we get to know what they really were ; and even 

 then more, perhaps, from casual or incidental matters than from the main 

 subject itself. But then such must have been related by the ancient men 

 themselves, chiefs and priests (tolmngas) of the olden time, and not by the 

 present loquacious and mendacious generation, be their position what it 

 may, — for all such are not only grossly ignorant of the past, but are also 

 more or less vitiated concerning the same, through their intercourse with 

 Europeans, both willingly and unwillingly. And when, in addition to all 

 this, what they may have to say is frequently taken down and translated by 

 "free and easy" young interpreters, — often ignorant of the first principles 

 of the noble Maori language, and too much inclined to dress up what they 

 hear, as if writing a novel or romance, — the result may be easily guessed. 



And here, perhaps, I may be permitted briefly to mention that — (as it is 

 pretty well known I have collected, during my long residence among the 

 Maoris, very much of their old history, traditions, etc.) — I have been often 

 requested to publish, in a separate form, what I have so amassed and 

 known ; but that I have hitherto refused to do so, for I seek neither pelf nor 

 fame (as a book-maker), but merely to relate, in plain words, what I believe 

 to be genuine and authentic, leaving it for those who may come after me to 

 " make the book," — to fuse together the ores I may have laboriously sought 

 out, and collected, and brought to the sm*face. 



In all those historical traditions we shall find much of war, — of bloody, 

 desolating wars, with all their hideous and savage accompaniments ! far 

 more indeed than we could wish.* But war, as Cook early and sagaciously 

 detected, was the very life and genius of the people ; hence, too, they did not 

 fear death. Not, however, but that it might have been better among them, 

 for it will be found that, in almost all cases, their wars arose from some 

 thoughtless or gross infringement of common rights. Yet even here we 

 shall meet with much of extreme courtesy, and of fine feelings, which would 

 have adorned a chivalrous European age ; and that, too, in the midst of 

 dreadful harrowing recitals of burning revenge for wrongs, — of extreme 

 cruelty, — of great, yet simple superstition, — and of hair-breadth and 

 marvellous escapes. 



* But the most famed and civilized nations of antiquity were, in this respect, quite 

 as bad, — e.jf., the Assyrian and Egyptian "Eecords;" and Polybius, (who had himself 

 seen the savage doings of the Eomans), says, "when a town is taken by storm by the 

 Eomans, not only human beings are massacred, but even dogs cut in two, and other animals 

 hewn limb from limb," (x. 15.) Note, also, Saul's slaying of the Amalekites, (1 Sam. xv.) 



