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Chapter III. A Clean-Shirt Day, a Courtship, and also a Wedding Day.

Both the naval and mercantile service of Great Britain, from early records, had one notable sanitary point in their favour, which was, in the institution of a clean-shirt day! Such an excellent system may possibly have got introduced (who knows?) under the puritanical and gallant Admiral, old Robert Blake, so as to bring, as it were, into fuller amplification, what was, owing to the sabbath, practically realising the old proverb, “of cleanliness taking the next position in the ethical gamut to Godliness.” The two canons in combination, constituting upon the high seas more strengthened support for the observance of what is enjoined in the Fourth Commandment. Why, really, had it not been for this most excellent custom of keeping up clean-shirt day, in many a vessel where masters were culpably lax, especially in matters pertaining to religion, it is just very likely that the sacred day would never have been so much as even thought of. Yea, it is all very well for conventional landsmen to screw up their noses and sneer at the bare idea of such an absurd-like aberration ever taking place, who are themselves well provided with such a convenience as sextons, to remind them of stated periods by jingling of bells, along with many indications besides that something is proceeding entirely different from any of the other days of the week. But, sooth, anyone with the least inkling of what it is like on the vast “briny,” knows full well that, barring fitfulness of weather, one day there—why, is just as like another as are two peas! It is only when the regulated time has been thought of, for appearing in a clean shirt, that the sanctity of the day is really recalled to mind. Putting here, Bill the Preacher aside—an old whaler who, may-be, had sat at the foot of John Wesley himself—it is strongly probable that, had it not been for this prescribed clean-shirt day, often, at Moturoa, at this particular epoch, Sunday would have glided away without a single thought being taken of what day it actually had been which had passed over them! But to a man here, at this time, be it said to their credit, whalers, sealers, and remnants of ships' crews, all knew when Sunday came round by their calling back the time at which they had last put on a page 22 fresh-smelling clean-shirt. Then, who will say the amount of civilising, if not also Christianising influence, such a regular punctuality to matters concerning cleanliness as well as tidiness, went, with the unsophisticated Maori? To say the least about it—was not it a diversion that must have made some impression upon them—so dissimilar in character from their accustomed total indifference to any division of time, excepting what they observed in planetary movements or in plant life? It was this clean-shirt day, most unquestionably, which first instilled the minds—more especially of the women—with an irresistible craving for wearing washable gaudy prints, upon that particular day, which were familiarly designated round-abouts, while their white friends flaunted their clean white moles, bandana necktics, and seventeen hundred underlinen. However, it remains a moot point, just a mere matter of opinion, whether these round-abouts, as they were titled, were, after all, any improvement on the Maori lady's former simple rush kilt. Albeit, the round-about, worn as a cassock, most certainly more conformed to modern ideas of propriety, by its concealing more of the lower limbs and trunk; and although not quite so classic-like, perhaps, as the short, home-manufactured, rush short-petticoat, still, it was not void of agreeable effect—an effect somewhat similar, barring garish colours, to some mediæval monastic representation. But at this early period of our contact with the Maori, excepting on very special occasions, even this round-about was seldom worn by the Maori female. It was put away carefully, as an article much too valuable for every-day use. The round-about and the blanket, were the two first articles upon which these dusky maidens tried their 'prentice hand upon by way of the scrubbing, stiffening, and pressing of wearing apparel. There was no such thing required in their old flax and rush coverings. As a matter of course, they were a bit awkward at it at first: but, what will not perseverance finally surmount?

Formerly, Bill, Jack, Joe, and Ned, by reason of their lot in life, had the heavy infliction cast upon them, of having, and often in awkward situations [gap — reason: unclear] to do their own washing. But, lo! happily, here the scene was quite changed. Yea, in respect to washing, they were put on a level with what they, at home, called their betters. For, since these brown wenches had acquired the operative science of cleansing and dressing wearing apparel, they began to, not infrequently, squabble among themselves about who should have the preferential right to do up so and so's washing! Ah! too; what pride in those early days inflated the dusky breasts of these female artizans when they regarded in the limpid pool their own handicraft in the clean, well-laundried round-ahout which swathed their anything but disagreeable persons. But, to go further, how very much more must their pride have been intensified when Bill or Jack, or whoever it was, gave one of them, with his flat palm, a really hard, but no less kindly smack, and asked her, in a seaman's characteristic blunt way, if she would like to become his wife? “God's fruth, I mean it, Epi! Now, do you understand?” page 23 Understand? What a flat you must be, Jack? O, you very verdant and simple-minded tar that you are. Does not the highest and the lowliest of her sex, all the world over, travel where one may, understand such a thing as that? No; no matter what language either the words are couched in: it is always understood: it is the facial expression, my unsophisticatad tar, and not the words at all, which is, in this case, the communicatory vehicle. Ay! indeed! Epi fully understands, and feels herself too, in such a rapturous flutter over it as to deprive her, for a little, entirely of any very coherent speech. When Epi partially comes round, she raises her bedewed speech-like eyes to his, without lifting her face, conveying thereby—oh! such a profundity of sweet contentment and abashed joy as might well have staggered a much better equipoised mind than honest Jack's, how best, under such luscious circumstances, to behave. The tacitly accepted suitor, quite incontinently throws his arms open, and Epi, dear girl, falls as naturally into them as a bird drops into its nest—and the same dumb pantomime follows with this artless twain as is usual with even this partial world's most favoured children. Ah! there are certain joys, and likewise there are as well certain sorrows, which partake of no differential sensation, some things truly, which “make all the world akin.”

But this, which has been told, is nothing mind, beyond an illustrative case. Some such similar scene may have occurred between Jerry Towser, A.B., and Toitu, the youngest daughter of old Piko, a sort of cousin germane to Te Puki, the head chief here. As at this juncture everyone became aware, by reason of certain unusual preparations, that a marriage between these two, Jerry and Toitu, was upon the tapis; but so far as to positive date, with a tantalizing uncertainty. However, at length, the momentous intelligence did come out, to the very great relief of all concerned, that this projected wedding was actually going to be consummated upon the ensuing Sunday. It is not an infrequent occurrence, more especially in the very best society, when contracts of this nature are first heard of, that all the antecedents of the respective engaged are diligently raked up, so that base scandal may be eliminated therefrom. But, towards this pair, there was no such thing put into practice. All seemed unmixed joy. In fine, there was not much else considered, to speak the truth, but the pleasure that everyone anticipated to share at the forthcoming important ceremony.

In the progress of time, this important and anxiously awaited for Sunday intervened. It had been arranged, should the weather be wet and unfavourable, to have the marriage rites gone through within the whari-nui [big shed]; but, if otherwise, then under the shades of the beautiful nikau trees, growing at the bottom of the hill beneath. The weather, as it auspiciously happened, turned out serene and cloudless. Verily, it was a pretty sight to witness, in this early balmy morning, small bands of men, women and children, even in this early era, many of the Pakehas and Natives garbed in their cleanest and most presentable habiliments, proceeding with cheerful faces to the appointed page 24 arbour, this “temple built without hands,” under the giant fern's swordleaves.

To Bill the Preacher was given the honour of tying the hymenal knot, by reason of his very great oratorical ability, and, also, his better acquaintance with matters pertaining to such ordinances. Bill, with all the staid gravity of a freshly-ordained Ecclesiastic, opened the proceedings with rather a prolixsome supplication, delivered in a measured and stentorian voice. Then oddly, and rather irrelevant—it must be admitted—commenced an harangue from the text in Genesis, “And Cain dwelt in the land of Nod, to the east of Eden, and knew his wife.” In the course of his dissertation, the Preacher got a little way beyond his depth in the matter of the pedigree of Mrs. Cain; but, for all that, succeeded marvellously well afterwards in surmounting the obvious difficulty of such a formidable stumbling-block, which he himself had inadvertently raised—which was, by his explaining, that there was a strong probability of Mrs. Cain's descent from the first man Adam—being purposely suppressed as a thing altogether unfitting to reveal to the children of the flesh. However, at the next cardinal point of this semi-extemporaneous ritual—namely, what is vulgarly phrased “the tying of the knot itself!” well, as if some malignant fiend or another had been determined to lead Bill a sorry dance, and operated for that purpose on the Preacher's brain, mischievousness could not have been more pronounced. In short, Bill, at this paramount juncture, got into a more intricate muddle than he had even done before, by commencing the acmeal section of the service, in quoting a passage from the service specially for the burial of the dead, instead of that for the quick about to be given away in marriage! But really, after all, there evidently was quite a marvellous aptitude in the said William for creditably recovering himself out of rather ticklish embarrassments. A most phenominal ready resource indeed, which many public speakers might well have much envied. Such a complete blunder, anyone should certainly have thought, could not well be rectified without going over the whole thing de noro. But, Bill had a spirit in him, which declined such detraction as a going-back of this kind was calculated to produce. He raked his thin locks composedly for a minute or two, with his fingers, and scraped therefrom an idea which he must have calculated would reputably get him triumphantly out of the awkward dilemma, which was by his directing each of the candidates to seize hold of one-another's hands, separate them, and each stoop down and lift a handful of sand: then, as he, the Preacher, repeated “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” they were to let fall, first the one and then the other, on the ground between them, in one heap, that which they had picked up. As soon as these instrnctions had been faithfully carried out, a self-complacent look, denoting the operating of inner satisfaction, came over the officiator's full rubicund face: then announced he, with a soaring voice, “Now, henceforth. He that can now separate these two handfuls of sand which you have, before living witnesses, dropped the one on the top of page 25 the other, alone can separate you. From this moment onward, you, Jeremiah Towser, and you, Toitu, are indivisible by all human power as husband and wife.”

The Preacher would have liked well to have closed the proceedings by some appropriate kind of exhortation, but, seeing that his memory so far had led him twice already into what is phrased a pickle, he judiciously concluded that it would now he more advisable to leave well alone, and abruptly bring the function to a speedy close by bestowing on the “Matrimones” a benediction, and after such, the usual doxology.

The happy pair—as such pairs all the world over are invariably assumed to be—were the first to leave the ground under the sheltering nikaus. Such seemed to be an arrangement quite en regle, as none of the others attempted to move until once those referred to took the initiative. Irregular, and everyway unorthodox, as this wedding indisputably had been, all, nathless, seemed full of it, and took it unquestioningly as having been the real, correct thing. They did not, care much about accuracy of form: well, and supposing that they did how were they to know whether it was proper or otherwise, who were as little conversant with these kinds of conventionalisms as they were with the mechanism of Spinning Jennies?

Later on in the day, in honour of the occasion, a general feast was provided and held just immediately outside of the whari-nui, when florid, grandiloquent speeches were made by several of the Native Chiefs, and all apparently were as sociable and courteous to one another as Aldermen are supposed to be at a city banquet! The brunt of all the aforesaid orations, it may as well herewith be noted, was the denouncing, with all the strength their voluble language yielded, the wily, inexorable, and cruel Waikato!

It is unthought-of, and hardly believable even when it is thought of, the civilizing influence which these sea-bred denizens exercised with the Maoris in those by-gone days. However, the indisputable Leader, in short, the master-mind, it may be asserted, of the combined races, here brought together, was he who must be regarded as the principal character in this story—the far, and long-popularly known, Mr. Richard Barrett, who was master-mariner, surveyor, land negotiator, and agent for the Australian Whaling Companies. Just at this spell, he was away in New South Wales, on mercantile duties. Many and frequent were wistful eyes, of both Europeans and Maoris, directed to the northern horizon, to see if they could catch a glimpse of any sail which, perchance, might be drifting their popular leader thither—the man indubitably after their own heart, and whom they familiarly styled Dickey Barrett! What a mighty motor in the concourse of mankind is—Tact!