Chap. XI. WHALERS— SOCIAL ARRANGEMENTS. 317 
making fast to the calf has a right to the cow, because 
she will never desert her young. A boat demanding 
assistance from the boat of a rival party shares equally 
with its assistant on receiving the required help. 
These and many other regulations are never written 
down, but are so well-known that a dispute rarely 
arises, and if so, is settled according to precedent by 
the oldest " headsmen." The only instance I ever 
knew of going to law on the subject occurred in 1843, 
when a boat had seized a whale that drifted from her 
anchorage, and returned the harpoon remaining in her 
to its owner. The whale was nearly ten miles from 
the place where she was killed ; but universal indigna- 
tion was expressed against the man who insisted on 
appealing to a court of justice against the " laws of the 
" bay." 
The season for which the men engage themselves 
begins with the month of May, and lasts till the be- 
ginning of October, thus extending over five months 
which include the winter. It is during this season 
that the female or cow whales resort to the coasts of 
New Zealand with their young calves ; and this in 
such numbers during some years, that whaling- ships 
were accustomed to anchor at Kapiti, Port Underwood, 
and the ports in Banks's Peninsula, and thus to carry 
on a fishery subject to less hardship than in the open 
seas. 
The men are enrolled under three denominations : — 
headsman, boat-steerer, and common man. The heads- 
man is, as his name implies, the commander of a boat ; 
and his place is at the helm except during the moment 
of killing the whale, which task falls to his lot. The 
boat-steerer pulls the oar nearest the bow of the boat, 
fastens to the whale with the harpoon, and takes his 
name from having to steer the boat under the heads- 
