Chap. IV. RELIGIOUS RESPECT AND LANDED RIGHTS. 115 
" in with Captain Symonds and Dr. DiefFenbach, who 
" were exploring the neighbourhood for scientific pur- 
" poses. JLeaving these gentlemen, who had been to 
" Tonga Riro, Mr. Brown next day proceeded thither 
" himself, and states : — ' Captain Symonds and his 
" ' party were very anxious to ascend the mountain-top ; 
" * but the natives opposed it, on the ground of its 
" ' having been made sacred by their forefathers ; and 
" * that if the tapu were violated, some evil would befall 
** * them. The?/ offered us gold, remarked the old chief 
" * to me ; had they brought some Testaments, we would 
*' ' have consented to their going up the mountain. Tell 
" * the strangers f when you see them again, that if tJiey 
" ' return in the summer, and bring: Testaments with 
" * them, the tapu shall he removed from the mountain.' 
" I do not now dwell," says Mr. Coates, " upon the 
•' evidence which this passage incidentally affords of the 
" value which the natives set upon the Scriptures, and 
" their strong desire to obtain copies of them : / adduce 
*' it as affording a strong presumption of the unii'ersal 
** ownership of land in New Zealand by some chief or 
" tribe ; for if the crater of a volcano, or a mountain 
" covered with snow, be private property , it is difficult 
** to suppose any spot on the island which is not so." 
This is, to my mind, a most fantastic conclusion, 
made by a person totally ignorant of the ideas and cus- 
toms and imaginations which influence the native. Mr. 
Brown expressly says that the natives had forbidden 
the travellers from ascending, — not because the crater, or 
the snowy mountain, was private or public property, — 
but " on the ground of its having been made sacred 
" by their forefathers ; and that, if the tapu vjere vio- 
" lated, some evil would befall them ;" because, in short, 
it was the property of legend, and awe, and the mys- 
teries of their only religion, the tapu : apparently 
I 2 
