ORIGIN, AS TRACED BY LANGUAGE. 
395 
bouring island there were beasts which carried men on 
their backs, and in some of those islands there were axes 
haying holes in them, through which the handles were 
thrust, and so did not require tying on, as their native 
stone hatchets did ; that in one island in their vicinity 
A MAORI ADZE. 
AN AUSTRALIAN AXE. 
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN ADZE. 
there were men whose skins were perfectly black, who went 
without clothing, and did not so much as wear an apron 
before them ; and also in another isle, there were men who 
had sandy hair; they had nuts, with oil in them (cocoa), 
and had cloth made of the bark of trees, ante , tapa ; 
they brought the tapu with them ( i.e ., their religion), 
and it grew with them, formerly they were not cannibals ; 
this horrid custom being only of recent origin, having 
commenced when he was a little boy, it arose from anger, 
and not from extreme hunger ; it began with his tribe, 
which was thence called patu ; they did not tattoo their 
faces when they first came, but used to mark them with 
charcoal, * and this was done several generations after 
their arrival, tattooing being a late invention. This was 
the substance of the information f we received from the 
old chief relative to his forefathers ; he likewise said that 
he remembered the coming of Captain Cook, who stood off 
Doubtless Bay, and sent a boat on shore for fire-wood ; they 
* Even now, when they go to war, the young men thus disfigure their faces 
with charcoal. 
f Rev. Joseph Matthews. 
