Mourning for the Dead.

The custom of mourning for the dead was similar to what has prevailed among most barbarous nations. Cannibalism greatly tends to destroy the natural repugnance felt at handling the dead. Nature would bury her dead out of her sight, and religion fosters the feeling; but heathenism and cannibalism familiarize men with scenes of blood and death; and hence the New Zealanders, with other savage nations, had such singular customs connected with the dead. They were accustomed to dress the corpse, paint the face, decorate the head with feathers, place it in a sitting posture to receive the last honours, and have the ceremony performed which was to secure the spirit a safe and speedy passage to the other world. Ten men were sent to catch and kill a certain bird which was presented as an offering to the gods; a line of the grass called toitoi was placed in the hand of the corpse; the relatives all holding the other end, and each saying “Climb to the first heavens!” then “Climb to the second.” They were accustomed to preserve their heads that they might mourn over them, and frequently placed them before visitors and relatives for this purpose: but the shameful practice introduced by some European sea captains of making them an article of traffic, led to the dis-page 49continuance of the custom. This custom is referred to in the fol lowing lament. It was uttered with the head of the deceased friend in view, placed on the “ata mira,” or stage erected for the purpose.

Lament of Tupaea for his brother Korohiko, killed at the Pa of Tumu, near Maketu.
The morning stars appear
Meremere and Kopu twinkle above me,
Harbingers of returning day,
Symbols of a brother beloved,
Who comes again to comfort me.
He was to me as a celestial companion,
Now I am left alone.
Our hearts were dark and gloomy
When we parted on the mountain side,
And he passed the lands of Tahua.
But he went to carry forth our wrath;
And nobly he stood in front of battle,
Cheering on to glorious victory
The trembling hosts of Ngatitaha.
Till, stretched on the ensanguined plain,
By fire which demons kindled,
And wrapt in flame by a powder from afar.
Proverbs shall hand thy fame to generations.
Alas! my heart bleeds, it breaks for thee.
With the knife that tortures, thou
Wert slaughtered; by the lake of Kaituna
Thy very flesh ran down like oil.
Sit there my friend, upon the “ata mira.”
Speak my beloved, salute my ears again,
Before the morning breaks,
Or night's shadows flee away.
Let me bear thee to the home of thy fathers,
By the muddy shoals of Tauranga,
On which we fished together.
That thy children may see thee,
And look on this side and on that,
As by canoe they carry thee
From place to place,
That friends may mourn thy fate.
Let me gaze upon thy features,
From which the bloom of youth
Had not yet passed away.
That face marked so beautifully
With the bone of albatross,
The great sea-bird from Karewa,
The ocean rock.

The custom of the ancients wailing over their departed friends, so often referred to in scripture, prevailed amongst them. It was considered in olden times a great discredit not to be wept. Job says, “His widows shall not weep.” The Psalmist says of Hophni and Phineas, “The priests fell by the sword, and their widows made no lamentation.” Women and men made it a profession, and were hired for the purpose among the Hebrews; and the New Zealander planted large quantities of food, and called his page 50 friends from distant places to come and weep with him over the departed. The weeping was often without sincerity. I have heard of instances where the weeping party have taken most out of a swamp, and leaning on their spears pressed the water out of the moss to supply tears for the occasion. In the case of near relatives, however, the grief was real, expressed by cutting the face and breast and body with a sharp stone till bathed in blood—another relic of ancient times. It was generally accompanied with poetry; a dirge, in which the virtues and valour of the dead were set forth. It was so in days of old. “Jeremiah lamented for Josiah, and all the singing men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations.” David, too, composed a dirge on the death of Absalom, and one on the death of his friend Jonathan. A specimen will illustrate the subject.

A Lament for chief of Ngatimaniapoto, by his wife.
Sorrow bites keen within me
For my beloved.
Thou hast left thy noble friends;
The great assembly of chiefs
Thou hast forsaken.
Thy tribes, the thousands of Timani
Have lost their friend.
Go, Pango, by the path that's free from storm.
Thou wert dear as my life.
War was thy food,
Sought where the south wind blows.
Thy eloquence was music,
As rare as talking birds.
When great men met for council.
Thy movements on the battle field
Were graceful as a hovering bird.
Enfold my beloved in attire
Beauteous as the setting sun.
Let him. be enshrouded
In a garment bright as flame.
Let my beautiful Toi^*
Be suspended from his ear,
By Rewa his friend,
My bird that sung so sweetly
Has fallen off the cliff.
The rock of our defence,
That broke the force of ocean waves,
Has taken his departure to the heavens.
Come to me in the visions of the night;
Stand again on the prow of thy canoe,
And listen to the sounds of the tides
That flow on Waikato's banks,
That come in booming waves
When the north wind blows.
Where, Ngoi, is the power of thy prayer?
Let it inspire him,
That he may arrive as one triumphant,
Since he has laid him in the dust,
And to this world is for ever lost.

page 51

Other subjects might be introduced, but our time is gone, and we must draw to a conclusion—which is this, that the New Zealander needed Christianity and the blessings of civilization. The idea has sometimes been entertained that savage life supplies greater happiness than civilized. But does a candid investigation of the facts establish this conclusion? To draw a popular picture of savage life is one thing; to see the savage in his spiritual darkness and social misery is another. It were easy to speak of roaming over woods and mountains, free as beasts or winds, in happy communion with nature, now bathing in the lake, or skimming over the sea, or wandering in shady groves, and at evening joining in the village dance and song. This is the poetry of savage life, but it has a reality. As we have viewed it, it presents man in the lowest wretchedness, worse than brutified. It is unnatural: God never intended man to exist a savage; he formed him a social being, for intelligent man social joys. And to rescue him from barbarism is the Gospel's design.

It has often been asserted that little has been effected among the New Zealanders; but we demur to this. Let calm and unprejudiced enquiry be made, comparing their condition thirty years ago with their present state, and the conclusion must be, that a mighty change has taken place. It was not to be expected that the land would emerge from barbarism to a high state of civilization in a day. To change a nation's laws, and uproot a nation's customs, and banish established prejudices, is a work of time. The Gospel, followed by the schoolmaster and the useful arts, will do its work. We have but to do our duty—to Christianize and educate—to show by our conversation and example the value of our religion and our laws; and the remnant of these tribes may grow with us side by side, worshipping the God we worship, and honouring the truth, by obeying its precepts; acknowledging the Sovereign we delight to honour, yielding obedience to the laws of our glorious constitution, and mingling in our commercial pursuits with equal success.

The old system is passing away; the country's regeneration is in progress; and we may adopt the sentiments of Cowper, and express his wish—

“That heavenward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restored.
So God hath greatly purposed; who would else
In his dishonoured works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wronged without redress.
Haste, then, and wheel away a shattered world,
Ye slow revolving seasons! We would see
A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet—
A world that does not hate and dread His laws,
And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what pleases Him.”

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