Dec. 1835. 



EXCURSION TO WAIMATE. 



505 



the platforms which are raised on four posts ten or twelve 

 feet above the ground, and on which the produce of the 

 fields is kept secure from all accidents. 



On coming near one of the huts, I was much amused by 

 seeing in due form the ceremony of rubbing, or as it should 

 more properly be called, pressing noses. The women, on 

 our first approach, began uttering something in a most 

 dolorous voice; they then squatted themselves down and 

 held up their faces ; my companions standing over them, 

 placed the bridge of their own noses at right angles to 

 theirs, and commenced pressing. This lasted rather longer 

 than a cordial shake of the hand would with us ; and as we 

 vary the force of the grasp of the hand in shaking, so do they 

 in pressing. During the process they uttered comfortable 

 little grunts, very much in the same manner as two pigs do, 

 when rubbing against each other. I noticed, that the slave 

 would press noses with any one he met, indifferently either 

 before or after his master the chief. Although among 

 savages the chief has absolute power of life and death over 

 his slave, yet there is an entire absence of ceremony between 

 them. Mr. Burchell has remarked the same thing in 

 Southern Africa with respect to the rude Bachapins. Where 

 civilization has arrived at a certain point, as among the 

 Tahitians, complex formalities are soon instituted between 

 the different grades of society. For instance, in the above 

 island, formerly all were obliged to uncover themselves as 

 low as the waist in presence of the king. 



The ceremony of pressing noses having been completed 

 with all present, we seated ourselves in a circle in the front 

 of one of the houses, and rested there half-an-hour. All the 

 native hovels which I have seen, have nearly the same form 

 and dimensions, and all agree in being filthily dirty. They 

 resemble a cow-shed with one end open, but having a par- 

 tition a little way within, with a square hole in it, which 

 thus cuts off a part, and makes a small gloomy chamber. In 

 this the inhabitants keep all their property, and when the 



