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Polynesian Mythology and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race

[Appendix No. II.] On New Zealand and Polynesian Ethnology

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[Appendix No. II.] On New Zealand and Polynesian Ethnology.

Sir George Grey read the following paper at a meeting held on 8th May, 1869, at the Museum of Practical Geology, London, Prof. Huxley, President, in the chair:—

XXII.—On the Social Life of the Ancient Inhabitants of New Zealand, and on the National Character it was likely to form. By Sir George Grey, K.C.B.

I propose this evening to try to show what was the nature of the social life of the ancient inhabitants of New Zealand, and what kind of national character it was likely to create.

In my attempt to do this, I shall make the New Zealanders themselves describe their social life; and for this purpose I will read portions of an historical legend which I have translated, which contains a clear and, I think, in many respects a not unpleasing picture of the life which the New Zealanders passed. By this mode of dealing with the subject, it is true, it will lose attractions which an argumentative and imaginative manner of treating it might have imparted to it; but, on the other hand, it will immeasurably again in reality. We shall be travelling in the paths of truth, not of fancy; for although the historical facts of page 245 the legend might be questioned (I think wrongly) by the sceptical, all those who knew the New Zealanders when first they came into contact with Europeans, will at once recognise and admit the truth and fidelity of the picture it contains of their social life.

With regard to the New Zealand legends generally, I have laid on the table, for the inspection of the Society, some books written by natives, showing the manner in which those natives who collected them for me wrote them down, and supplied them to me.

I have also laid upon the table a printed volume of many of the native legends in the Maori language, as also a printed volume of Maori poems; and I would especially call attention to a manuscript commentary upon this volume of poems, which a native, who had formerly been one of their priests, spent several years in writing. The labour he thus undertook was entirely a work of love on his part. He had never seen a European commentary on any work. The conception of such an elucidation of their ancient poetry and customs was an entirely original one on his part. I was absent from New Zealand when he entered on the task. On my return there, I accidentally heard of the existence of this commentary, and obtained it from the writer, who had then completed his elucidation of about one-half of the volume of poems which lies on the table; and he is now engaged in elucidating and explaining the latter half of the volume. The labour thus bestowed on these poems shows in what high estimation they are held by the natives.

The legend to which I am about to call your attention is the history of the Chief Paoa, the ancestor of the Natipaoa tribe, who inhabit the country lying on the rivers Piako and Waihou, now called the Thames, not far distant from Auckland. It is a simple narrative of every-day life, of which it is replete with minute descriptions. Could we now obtain such a record of our ancient British forefathers, such a document would be regarded as the most precious of our historical possessions. Yet there are strong grounds for believing that the social life of our British ancestors closely resembled that of the ancient New Zealanders, and that scenes not much differing from one another were in remote ages page 246 occurring on the Thames in England and the Thames in New Zealand.

I also feel confident that the legend I am about to submit to you will show that the social life of the New Zealanders was likely to form a national character distinguished for hospitality, courteousness, and courage—that it was likely to develop some heroic qualities, and to render it a matter of duty on the part of the chiefs to set their people a good example in all those occupations and pursuits which were esteemed amongst them. Altogether the life the New Zealanders led was not devoid of many graces and of many charms; under it as high a degree of happiness might be enjoyed as was possible in a country where a system of worship of false gods prevailed. It is probable that many races of men have, for a vast number of centuries, led a precisely similar life; and when one hears it described in their own simple language, it is easy to understand how many of them dreaded the evils and wants of civilization, and clung with desperate tenacity to a mode of life and manners which long custom and immemorial tradition had endeared to them. Hence has sprung much of that heroic and well nigh invincible resistance which mountaineers and imperfectly civilized or barbarous races have so often opposed to the occupation of their country by foreign and more civilized nations.

But what it especially becomes those to observe who contemplate the various vicissitudes to which the human race is subject in its march from degree of civilization to degree of civilization is this, that, in such a system of society as we shall have to consider, the entire wealth of a nation is upon the whole distributed with a great degree of equality. A fair degree of comfort, and an ample amount of subsistence are the property of all. There are no startling inequalities in dwelling, in clothing, in any of the conveniences that belong to man. All amusements are in common, the property of the chief subserves for the comfort and happiness of all; and although a chief be poor, if he sprang from truly illustrious ancestors, his poverty does not impair his princely power. When, therefore, a race which has lived for centuries in such a social state becomes, to a great extent, comparatively page 247 civilized, when its civilization has reached such a condition that those evils which are inseparably mingled with the blessings of civilization become apparent, when poverty oppresses a considerable portion of the population, when the unequal distribution of lands and of the general wealth is oppressively evident and want is endured by many, when mere wealth begins to give a power which previously belonged to rank and worth, and the chiefs feel their power fading from them, it is easy to conceive that a remembrance of the former state of society, preserved in such legends as the one I am to bring before you, would constantly be present in many minds, until a general yearning for benefits lost, and a too faint recollection of the ills with which those benefits were accompanied, would take general possession of a large portion of the public mind, and a revolt would take place against the new system which had recently sprung up, and a large party would endeavour at all risks and at all hazards to restore the state of affairs which prevailed in the time of their forefathers. In truth, such a revolt against innovations has almost invariably taken place under circumstances such as I have above stated; and too often such a revolt, instead of being attributed to its natural causes, has been ascribed to an absolute incapacity for civilization in the barbarous race, and has even been held to afford a legitimate plea in justification of its extermination, instead of which only that which was to have been anticipated had occurred, and a temporary difficulty had taken place, which was certain soon to be followed and checked by a natural reaction.*

I have alluded to the strong probability that the social state of our British ancestors in many respects closely resembled that of the New Zealanders. In the pride of rank, station, and power, nations, like individuals, are too apt to forget the humble origin from which they sprang. In our own case, we have but few materials for adequately realising the former state of the English nation. The notices we find scattered throughout the earliest page 248 missionary letters relating to the conversion of Britain are our best guides to its former social state, as documents of exactly the same character are our best guides in the present day as to the state of New Zealand when Christianity was introduced into this country.

However humbling it may be to our pride, we shall find that, when the Pope was a powerful, honoured, and benignant prince, and the city of Rome a civilized and beneficent power in the world, our own ancestors must have been in a state in many respects not very different from that of the New Zealanders when British missionaries established themselves in this country—that is, within a period which living men can well remember.

In the year 625, Pope Boniface thus concluded a letter which he sent through the missionaries to the glorious Edwin, king of the English: “We have moreover sent you the blessing of your Protector, the blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles; that is, a shirt, with one gold ornament, and one garment of Ancyra, which we pray your Highness to accept with the same good will as is intended by us.” And to the queen of King Edwin Pope Boniface wrote thus: “To the glorious Lady his daughter, Queen Ethelberga, Boniface, Bishop, servant of the servants of God,” etc. And then, after giving the Christian queen the most admirable and touching advice, how, by the display of Christian graces, she should strive to win the unconverted king to the true faith, the Pope goes on to say: “We have moreover sent you the blessing of your Protector, St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; that is, a silver looking-glass and a gilt ivory comb, which we beg your Highness to accept with the same good will as it is known to be sent by us.”

It is difficult for us now, travelling back over the space of more than twelve hundred years, and all the varying phases of civilization which have passed in that time, to realise to ourselves the king of England sitting in one part of a kind of hut, awkwardly trying on so novel a garment as a shirt in the presence of his admiring chieftains, whilst in another corner sat our scantily clad queen, coyly aud shyly peeping at her royal face in a mirror, which her laughing maids of honour and her female attendants afterwards page 249 passed from one to the other with strange ejaculations of wonder and surprise.

Let me give one illustration more to show the almost grotesque fidelity with which, in somewhat corresponding stages of society, the same images are produced in races wide as the poles asunder. Taking up Caxton's “Golden Legend,” published in 1483, and turning to the “Life of St. Patrick,” we find the following event recorded as having occurred in Ireland:—

“After it happed on a tyme that a man of that contre stole a shepe which bylonged to his neyghbour, where upon Saynt Patryke admonished the peple, that who somever had taken his shold delyuer it ageyn whythin seven dayes. When al the peple were assembled wythin the chyrche; and the man whiche had stolen it made no semblaunce to render or delyuer agayn thys shepe, thenne Saynt Patryke commanded by the virtu of God, that the shepe shold blete and crye in the belly of hym that had eten hit; and so happed it, that in the presence of all the peple the shepe cryed and bleted in the belly of hym that had stolen hit; and the man that was culpable repented hym of his trespace, and the other fro thenne forth on kepte them fro stelyng of shepe fro ony other man.”

If now we turn to the New Zealand legends, we shall find that a dog was stolen from a chief named Whakaturia, and eaten; that the dog was in vain sought for, and that all denied having been guilty of the theft. At last Whakaturia, accompanied by his relation, Tama-te-Kapua, who was a renowned priest, entered the village where the thief resided, and the priest then, in the presence of all the people, called on the dog, commanding it to howl in the belly of the thief who had eaten it. The dog accordingly howled in the belly of a chief named Toi. In vain Toi held his mouth closely shut, pressing his hand over it. The dog continued to howl away till Toi cursed it, saying, “Oh! hush, hush! I thought I had hid you in the big belly of Toi; and there you are, you cursed thing, still howling away.” Thus the theft was discovered, the thief was punished, and an end put to dog-stealing.

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You must pardon me delaying you whilst I say a few words which at the present time may be very useful to a race in whose welfare I have for many years taken the deepest interest.

I have called your attention to the period of revolt against the further encroachments of civilisation which invariably takes place, in some form or other, in the history of every barbarous race in its progress from barbarism to civilization. Now, such revolt, in most instances with which we are acquainted, takes at the same time the form of a revolt against Christianity, and culminates in an attempt to overthrow the Christian faith.

When such an event takes place, the cry is too generally raised, that truly barbarous races are incapable of receiving the truths of Christianity—that its pure doctrines were only intended for certain races which were capable of receiving them, of appreciating them, and of profiting by them; and, forgetful of all the teachings of history, men are too ready to conclude that a race is incapable of becoming a Christian nation, which, after years of acquaintance with Christianity, and after all the leading chiefs and the great bulk of the nation have apparently embraced the Christian religion, can suddenly renounce its truths, turn upon its Christian teachers, and expel them from amongst them, and set up a religion which mingles, in grotesque confusion, Christian and pagan rites and doctrines. Another reason is thus found for alleging that it is only in the extermination of such a race that we can look for the attainment of permanent peace, Christianity, and progress in the country which it inhabits.

Now, in truth, as Christianity and civilization have gone hand in hand, as those who were becoming civilized had generally accepted the Christian doctrines, as those who had remained barbarous had for the most part clung to their pagan faith, the revolt against civilization, involved in itself, as an almost necessary consequence, a revolt against Christianity.

That the occurrence of such a circumstance in the history of a semi-barbarous race need not fill us with despair, the history of our own country fully shows. No country has more thoroughly embraced and held by the Christian faith than Britain; no country page 251 has made greater efforts to spread a knowledge of Christian doctrines amongst mankind; no country has been benefited more largely by its steadfast adherence to the Christian faith. Yet no country in its early history afforded more astounding examples of such revolts against Christianity as I have alluded to; for example, such revolts took place in 616, 633, and 635, as well as at other periods. I will confine my observations to the first of them.

Ethelbert, King of the English, had, about the 597, embraced the Christian faith. Gregory was at that time the Pope; and he not only corresponded with King Ethelbert, but sent him also a few small presents, not, apparently, of such value as the shirt and woollen garment which Pope Boniface subsequently sent to King Edwin.

Ethelbert, after gloriously governing his kingdom for fifty-six years, died in 616, the Christian bishops expressing their full belief that so good and Christian a king had entered into the eternal joys of the kingdom which is heavenly.

Yet no sooner was King Ethelbert dead than such a revolt against Christianity as I have spoken of broke out; his son and successor, Eadbald, led astray by evil influences, and the popular wish, joined in it; a form of paganism was again firmly established, apparently much resembling in its general features the Hauhau faith, which has suddenly risen in New Zealand. Bishop Mellitus was driven out of the kingdom, and, a conference of Bishops having been held, it was unanimously agreed that it was better for them all to return to their own country, where they might serve God in freedom, than to continue without any advantage among those barbarians who had revolted from the faith.

Any one who has watched the course of recent events in New Zealand, will see the remarkable parallelism between these events and the similar ones in Britain in A.D. 616. It only remains for us to remember that one faithful teacher lingered in Britain in 616 when all the others withdrew; and he was ultimately able to send over into France to his brother bishops, to tell them that their former flocks were returning to Christianity, and that they might safely come back to govern their churches, which they page 252 accordingly did, finding indeed how unwise and premature had been their conclusion that their teaching had been without any advantage among these barbarians who had revolted from the faith.

It was upon such successes as these Christian teachers enjoyed, and upon such revolts against Christianity as appalled them and staggered their imperfect faith, that was built up that glorious and wide-spread Christian freedom in the midst of which we are all assembled here to-night.

Mr. Lecky, in his recent most brilliant work on the History of Morals, has given his reasons for concluding that fairy tales are the normal product of a certain condition of the imagination, and that the belief in fairies will invariably be found to exist in companionship with a certain form of society—that is, wherever there is an ignorant and rustic population. This is an undoubted ruth in the case of the ignorant and rustic population of New Zealand, whose fairy tales closely resemble those of Europe: but it is only a partial truth; for it holds good of a belief not only in fairies but in dragons, and of all similar delusive beliefs which the human mind is capable of conceiving. The real law which governs this subject would seem to be, that the human imagination is only capable of much more restricted flights than we are in the habit of attributing to it, and that, whatever may be the race or people, the limits to which it can reach in each stage of civilization are soon attained, and that consequently, instead of having new images presented to our minds as we explore the poetry, legends, and works of imagination of newly-discovered races, we find the same beliefs recurring with an almost monotonous and tedious uniformity, and only so slightly varied as the features of the country and the kind of animals inhabiting it, or the circumstances of the society resident there render absolutely unavoidable.

In illustration of this I will quote one or two passages from Spenser's “Faery Queen,” together with corresponding passages from New Zealand dragon legends. These quotations from Spenser contain descriptions of dragons so apparently natural, and expressed with such minute grandeur of language, that for two centuries and page 253 a half they have justly claimed the admiration of all who love English poetry and the English tongue; yet their strict verbal and poetical conformity with the corresponding New Zealand legends are such as at first to lead to the impression, either that Spenser must have stolen his images and language from the New Zealand poets, or that they must have acted unfairly by the English bard—the truth being that Spenser has simply recorded images which had their existence given to them long before his time, and in a certain state of civilization in England, and that under similar circumstances in New Zealand the human imagination, giving reins to its fancy, had, of very necessity, fallen upon exactly similar images.

These are some of the passages to which I allude:—

“Eftsoons that dreadful dragon they espied,
Where stretched he lay upon the sunny side,
Of a great hill, himself like a great hill.”

—Spenser.

“Hardly had Hotupuku (the dragon) scented a smell like the scent of men, ere he came creeping out of his den; the war party were still hidden by the slope of the hill and the bushes from him, and he from them. Before they saw him, alas! alas! he had stolen down upon them; and ere they could break and fly when they did see him, he was so large and near that he looked like a great hill!”—New Zealand Legend.

“With that they heard a roaring hideous sound,
That all the air with terror filled wide,
And seemed un'neath to shake the stedfast ground;
Eftsoons that dreadful dragon they espied!”

—Spenser.

“Like the crashing and rumbling of thunder was the loud roaring sound made by the dragon in rushing forth from its den!”—N. Z. Legend.

“But all so soon as he from far descryed
Those glistring arms, that heaven with light did fill,
He roused himself full blythe, and hastened them untill.”

—Spenser.

“The huge dragon when it saw its favourite food (the warriors) all ready, as it were a meal prepared for it, joyed exceedingly, and, page 254 opening wide its vast mouth, stretched forth its tongue to lick them in, and hastened out of its den.”—N. Z. Legend.

“As for great joyaunce of his new-come guest,
Eftsoons he 'gan advance his haughty crest,
As chaffed boar his bristles doth uprear,
And shook his scales to battle ready dress'd.”

—Spenser.

“By the power of these prayers and incantations, the large-pointed spines of the crest of the dragon sank down flat again upon its back, although just now they had been all standing erect, as he joyed to think he should devour the men he smelt.”—N. Z. Legend.

“But stings and sharpest steel—did far exceed
The sharpness of his cruel rending claws.”

“But his most hideous head to tell
My tongue does tremble.”

“And over all with brazen scales was armed;
His large long tail, wound up in hundred folds,
Does overspread his long brass-scaly back.”

—Spenser.

“It lay there in size large as a monstrous whale, in shape like a hideous lizard; for in its huge heads, its limbs, its tail, its scales, its tough skin, its sharp spines, yes, in all these it resembled a lizard.”—N. Z. Legend.

“His blazing eyes, like two bright shining shields,
Did burn with wrath and sparkle living fire.”

“So flamed his eyes with rage and ravenous ire.”

“But far within, as in a hollow glade,
Those glaring lamps were set that made a dreadful shade.”

—Spenser.

“They soon saw the terrible monster crouching there, with its fierce large eyes, round and flaming as the full moon, as it shoots up above the horizon. Whilst they watched those eyes they seemed to flash with various colours; and from the sun's bright rays playing through the green leafy places into the creature's covert, its eyes seemed to shine with a fierce green, as if a clear green jadestone had been set for a pupil in the dark black part of each of its eyes.”—N. Z. Legend.

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Without pursuing this subject into many other similar details, I will add one other quotation from the “Faery Queen.”

“I wot not whether the revenging steel
Were hardened with that holy-water dew,
Wherein he fell, or sharper edge did feel,
Or his baptized hands now greater grew,
Or other secret virtue did ensue,
Else never could the force of fleshly arm,
Nor molten metal, in his blood embrue.”

—Spenser.

The New Zealand legends regarding dragons generally equally assert that it was only by some secret virtues, obtained by prayer or supernatural means, that their heroes were enabled to destroy dragons.

* For the Legend of Paoa see p. 194.