250 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND cuap.x 
by the tribe to whom they belong, and who probably 
administer justice to them, though we never saw an instance 
of it, except in the case of theft on board the ship, when 
upon our complaint the offender received kicks and blows 
from the chief with whom he came on board. 
These chiefs were generally old men: whether they had 
the office of chief by birth or on account of their age, we 
never learnt; but in the other parts, where Teratu was not 
acknowledged, we plainly learnt that the chiefs whom they 
obeyed, of which every tribe had some, received their dignity 
by inheritance. In the northern parts their societies seemed 
to have many things in common, particularly their fine 
clothes and nets; of the former they had but few, and we 
never saw anybody employed in making them. It might be 
that what they had were the spoils of war. They were 
kept in a small hut erected for that purpose in the middle 
of the town. The latter seemed to be the joint work of 
the whole society. Every house had in it pieces of netting 
upon which they were engaged; by joining these together it 
is probable that they made the large seines which we saw. 
' The women are less regarded here than in the South 
Sea Islands, so, at least, thought Tupia, who complained of 
it as an insult upon the sex. They eat with the men, how- 
ever. How the sexes divide labour I do not know, but I 
am inclined to believe that the men till the ground, fish in 
boats, make nets, and take birds, while the women dig up 
fern roots, collect shell-fish and lobsters near the beach, 
dress the victuals, and weave cloth. Thus, at least, have 
these employments been distributed, when I had an oppor- 
tunity of observing them, which was very seldom; for our 
approach generally made a holiday wherever we went, men, 
women, and children flocking to us either to satisfy their 
curiosity or trade with us for whatever they might have. 
They took in exchange cloth of any kind, especially linen 
or the Indian cloth we had brought from the islands, paper, 
glass bottles, sometimes pieces of broken glass, nails, etc. 
‘We saw few or no signs of religion among these people ; 
they had no public places of worship, as the inhabitants of 
