232 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND cuap. x 
quantity every year of his life, so that some of the 
elders were almost covered with it. Their faces are the 
most remarkable; on them, by some art unknown to me, 
they dig furrows a line deep at least, and as broad, the 
edges of which are often again indented, and absolutely 
black. This may be done to make them look frightful in 
war, indeed it has the effect of making them most enor- 
mously ugly ; the old ones especially, whose faces are entirely 
covered with it. The young, again, often have a small 
patch on one cheek or over one eye, and those under a 
certain age’(maybe twenty-five or twenty-six) have no more 
than their lips black. Yet ugly as this certainly looks, it is 
impossible to avoid admiring the extreme elegance and just- 
ness of the figures traced, which on the face are always 
different spirals, and upon the body generally different 
‘figures, resembling somewhat the foliages of old chasing 
upon gold or silver. All these are finished with a masterly 
taste and execution, for of a hundred which at first sight 
would be judged to be exactly the same, no two on close 
examination prove alike, nor do I remember ever to have 
seen any two alike. Their wild imagination scorns ‘to 
copy, as appears in almost all their works. In different 
parts of the coast they varied very much in the quantity 
and parts of the body on which this amoca, as they call it, 
was placed; but they generally agreed in having the spirals 
upon the face. I have generally observed that the more 
populous a country the greater was the quantity of amoca 
used; possibly in populous countries the emulation of 
bearing pain with fortitude may be carried to greater 
lengths than where there are fewer people, and conse- 
quently fewer examples to encourage. The buttocks, which 
in the islands were the principal seat of this ornament, in 
general here escape untouched; in one place only we saw 
the contrary. 
Besides this dyeing in grain, as it may be called, they 
are very fond of painting themselves with red ochre, which 
they do in two ways, either rubbing it dry upon their 
skins, as some few do, or daubing their faces with large 
