# Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks/Chapter 10

CHAPTER X
GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND
Its discovery by Tasman—Mountains—Harbours—Cultivation—Trees—Suitability of Thames River for colonisation—Climate—Absence of native quadrupeds—Birds—Insects—Fish—Plants—Native and introduced vegetables—Absence of fruits—New Zealand flax—Population—Qualities of the natives—Tattowing and painting—Dress—Head-dresses—Ear- and nose-ornaments—Houses—Food—Cannibalism amongst men—Freedom from disease—Canoes—Carving—Tools—Cloth fabrics—Nets—Tillage—Weapons—Spontoons—War and other songs—Human trophies—Heppahs—Chiefs—Religion—Burial—Language.
As we intend to leave this place to-morrow, I shall spend a few sheets in drawing together what I have observed of the country and of its inhabitants, premising that in this, and in all other descriptions of the same kind which may occur in this journal, I shall give myself liberty to conjecture, and draw conclusions from what I have observed. In these I may doubtless be mistaken; in the daily Journal, however, the observations may be seen, and any one who refers to that may draw his own conclusions from them, attending as little as he pleases to any of mine.
This country was first discovered by Abel Jansen Tasman on the 13th of December 1642, and called by him New Zealand. He, however, never went ashore on it, probably from fear of the natives, who, when he had come to an anchor, set upon one of his boats and killed three or four out of the seven people in her.
Tasman certainly was an able navigator; he sailed into the mouth of Cook's Straits, and finding himself surrounded, to all appearance, by land, observed the flood tide to come from ​the south-east; from thence he conjectured that there was in that place a passage through the land, which conjecture we proved to be true, as he himself had certainly done, had not the wind changed as he thought in his favour, giving him an opportunity of returning the way he came in, which he preferred to standing into a bay with an on-shore wind, upon the strength of conjecture only. Again, when he came the length of Cape Maria Van Diemen he observed hollow waves to come from the north-east, from whence he concluded it to be the northernmost part of the land, which we really found it to be. Lastly, to his eternal credit be it spoken, although he had been four months absent from Batavia when he made this land, and had sailed both west and east, his longitude (allowing for an error in that of Batavia, as he has himself stated it) differs no more than from ours, which is corrected by an innumerable number of observations of the moon and sun, etc., as well as of a transit of Mercury over the sun, all calculated and observed by Mr. Green, a mathematician of well-known abilities, who was sent out in this ship by the Royal Society to observe the transit of Venus. Thus much for Tasman; it were too much to be wished, however, that we had a fuller account of his voyage than that published by Dirk Rembrantz, which seems to be no more than a short extract, and that other navigators would imitate him in mentioning the supposed latitudes and longitudes of the places from whence they take their departures; which precaution, useful as it is, may almost be said to have been used by Tasman alone.
The face of the country is in general mountainous, especially inland, where probably runs a chain of very high hills, parts of which we saw at several times. They were generally covered with snow, and certainly very high; some of our officers, men of experience, did not scruple to say as ​much as the Peak of Teneriffe: in that particular, however, I cannot quite agree with them, though that they must be very high is proved by the hill to the northward of Cook's Straits, which was seen, and made no inconsiderable figure, at the distance of many leagues.
The sea coast, should it ever be examined, will probably be found to abound in good harbours. We saw several, of which the Bay of Islands, or Motuaro, and Queen Charlotte's Sound, or Totarra-nue, are as good as any which seamen need desire to come into, either for good anchorage or for convenience of wooding and watering. The outer ridge of land which is open to the sea is (as I believe is the case of most countries) generally barren, especially to the southward, but within that the hills are covered with thick woods quite to the top, and every valley produces a rivulet of water.
The soil is in general light, and consequently admirably adapted to the uses for which the natives cultivate it, their crops consisting entirely of roots. On the southern and western sides it is the most barren, the sea being generally bounded either by steep hills or vast tracts of sand, which is probably the reason why the people in these parts were so much less numerous, and lived almost entirely upon fish. The northern and eastern shores make, however, some amends for the barrenness of the others; on them we often saw very large tracts of ground, which either actually were, or very lately had been, cultivated, and immense areas of woodland which were yet uncleared, but promised great returns to the people who would take the trouble of clearing them. Taoneroa, or Poverty Bay, and Tolago especially, besides swamps which might doubtless easily be drained, sufficiently evinced the richness of their soil by the great size of all the plants that grew upon them, and more especially of the timber trees, which were the straightest, cleanest, and I may say the largest I have ever seen, at least speaking of them in the gross. I may have seen several times single trees larger than any I observed among these; but it was not one, but all these trees, which were enormous, and doubtless had we had time and opportunity to search, we might have ​found larger ones than any we saw, as we were never but once ashore among them, and that only for a short time on the banks of the river Thames, where we rowed for many miles between woods of these trees, to which we could see no bounds. The river Thames is indeed, in every respect, the most proper place we have yet seen for establishing a colony. A ship as large as ours might be carried several miles up the river, where she could be moored to the trees as safely as alongside a wharf in London river, a safe and sure retreat in case of an attack from the natives. Or she might even be laid on the mud and a bridge built to her. The noble timber of which there is such abundance would furnish plenty of materials for building either defences, houses, or vessels; the river would furnish plenty of fish, and the soil make ample returns for any European vegetables, etc., sown in it.
I have some reason to think from observations made upon the vegetables that the winters here are extremely mild, much more so than in England; the summers we have found to be scarcely at all hotter, though more equally warm.
The southern part, which is much more hilly and barren than the northern, I firmly believe to abound with minerals in a very high degree: this, however, is only conjecture. I had not to my great regret an opportunity of landing in any place where the signs of them were promising, except the last; nor indeed in any one, where from the ship the country appeared likely to produce them, which it did to the southward in a very high degree, as I have mentioned in my daily Journal.
On every occasion when we landed in this country, we have seen, I had almost said, no quadrupeds originally natives of it. Dogs and rats, indeed, there are, the former ​as in other countries companions of the men, and the latter probably brought hither by the men; especially as they are so scarce, that I myself have not had opportunity of seeing even one. Of seals, indeed, we have seen a few, and one sea-lion; but these were in the sea, and are certainly very scarce, as there were no signs of them among the natives, except a few teeth of the latter, which they make into a kind of bodkin and value much. It appears not improbable that there really are no other species of quadrupeds in the country, for the natives, whose chief luxury in dress consists in the skins and hair of dogs and the skins of divers birds, and who wear for ornaments the bones and beaks of birds and teeth of dogs, would probably have made use of some part of any other animal they were acquainted with, a circumstance which, though carefully sought after, we never saw the least signs of.
Of birds there are not many species, and none, except perhaps the gannet, are the same as those of Europe. There are ducks and shags of several kinds, sufficiently like the European ones to be called the same by the seamen, both which we eat and accounted good food, especially the former, which are not at all inferior to those of Europe.
Besides these there are hawks, owls, and quails, differing but little at first sight from those of Europe, and several small birds that sing much more melodiously than any I have heard. The sea coast is also frequently visited by many oceanic birds, as albatrosses, shearwaters, pintados, etc., and has also a few of the birds called by Sir John Narbrough penguins, which are truly what the French call a nuance between birds and fishes, as their feathers, especially on their wings, differ but little from scales; and their wings themselves, which they use only in diving, by no means attempting to fly or even accelerate their motion on the surface of the water (as young birds are observed to do), might thence almost as properly be called fins.
Neither are insects in greater plenty than birds; a few butterflies and beetles, flesh-flies very like those in Europe, mosquitos and sand-flies, perhaps exactly the same as those ​of North America, make up the whole list. Of these last, however, which are most justly accounted the curse of any country where they abound, we never met with any great abundance; a few indeed there were in almost every place we went into, but never enough to make any occupations ashore troublesome, or to give occasion for using shades for the face, which we had brought out to protect us from such insects.
For this scarcity of animals on the land the sea, however, makes abundant recompense; every creek and corner produces abundance of fish, not only wholesome, but at least as well-tasted as our fish in Europe. The ship seldom anchored in, or indeed passed over (in light winds), any place whose bottom was such as fish generally resort to, without our catching as many with hooks and line as the people could eat. This was especially the case to the southward, where, when we lay at anchor, the boats could take any quantity near the rocks; besides which the seine seldom failed of success, insomuch that on the two occasions when we anchored to the southward of Cook's Straits, every mess in the ship that had prudence enough salted as much fish as lasted them many weeks after they went to sea.
For the sorts, there are mackerel of several kinds, one precisely the same as our English, and another much like our horse-mackerel, besides several more. These come in immense shoals and are taken in large seines by the natives, from whom we bought them at very easy rates. Besides these there were many species which, though they did not at all resemble any fish that I at least have before seen, our seamen contrived to give names to, so that hake, bream, cole-fish, etc., were appellations familiar with us, and I must say that those which bear these names in England need not be ashamed of their namesakes in this country. But above all the luxuries we met with, the lobsters, or sea-crawfish, must not be forgotten. They are possibly the same as are mentioned in Lord Anson's voyage as being found at the island of Juan Fernandez, and differ from ours in England in having many more prickles on their backs and being red ​when taken out of the water. Of them we bought great quantities everywhere to the northward from the natives, who catch them by diving near the shore, feeling first with their feet till they find out where they lie. We had also that fish described by Frézier in his voyage to Spanish South America by the name of elefant, pejegallo, or poisson coq, which, though coarse, we made shift to eat, and several species of skate or sting-rays, which were abominably coarse. But to make amends for that, we had among several sorts of dogfish one that was spotted with a few white spots, whose flavour was similar to, but much more delicate than, our skate. We had flat fish also like soles and flounders, eels and congers of several sorts, and many others, which any European who may come here after us will not fail to find the advantage of, besides excellent oysters, cockles, clams, and many other sorts of shell-fish, etc.
Though the country generally is covered with an abundant verdure of grass and trees, yet I cannot say that it is productive of such great variety as many countries I have seen: the entire novelty, however, of the greater part of what we found recompensed us as natural historians for the want of variety. Sow-thistle, garden-nightshade, and perhaps one or two kinds of grasses, were exactly the same as in England, three or four kinds of fern were the same as those of the West Indies: these with a plant or two common to all the world, were all that had been described by any botanist out of about four hundred species, except five or six which we ourselves had before seen in Terra del Fuego.
Of eatable vegetables there are very few; we, indeed, as people who had been long at sea, found great benefit in the article of health by eating plentifully of wild celery and a kind of cress which grows everywhere abundantly near the sea-side. We also once or twice met with a herb like that which the country people in England call "lamb's-quarters" or "fat-hen," which we boiled instead of greens; and once only a cabbage-tree, the cabbage of which made us ​one delicious meal. These, with the fern roots and one vegetable (Pandanus) totally unknown in Europe, which, though eaten by the natives, no European will probably ever relish, are the whole of the vegetables which I know to be eatable, except those which they cultivate and have probably brought with them from the country from whence they themselves originally come.
Nor does their cultivated ground produce many species of esculent plants; three only have I seen, yams, sweet potatoes, and cocos, all three well known and much esteemed in both the East and West Indies. Of these, especially the two former, they cultivate often patches of many acres, and I believe that any ship that found itself to the northward in the autumn, about the time of digging them up, might purchase any quantity. They also cultivate gourds, the fruits of which serve to make bottles, jugs, etc., and a very small quantity of the Chinese paper mulberry tree.
Fruits they have none, except I should reckon a few kinds of insipid berries which had neither sweetness nor flavour to recommend them, and which none but the boys took the pains to gather.
The woods, however, abound in excellent timber, fit for any kind of building in size, grain, and apparent durability. One, which bears a very conspicuous scarlet flower made up of many threads, and which is as big as an oak in England, has a very heavy hard wood which seems well adapted for the cogs of mill-wheels, etc., or any purpose for which very hard wood is used. That which I have before mentioned to grow in the swamps, which has a leaf not unlike a yew and bears small bunches of berries, is tall, straight, and thick enough to make masts for vessels of any size, and seems likewise by the straight direction of the fibres to be tough, but it is too heavy. This, however, I have been told, is the case with the pitch-pine in North America, the timber of which this much resembles, and which the North Americans lighten by tapping, and actually use for masts.
​But of all the plants we have seen among these people, that which is the most excellent in its kind, and which really excels most if not all that are put to the same uses in other countries, is the plant which serves them instead of hemp or flax. Of this there are two sorts. The leaves of both much resemble those of flags; the flowers are smaller and grow many more together. In one sort they are yellowish, in the other of a deep red. Of the leaves of these plants all their common wearing apparel is made with very little preparation, and all strings, lines, and cordage for every purpose, and that of a strength so much superior to hemp as scarce to bear comparison with it. From these leaves also by another preparation a kind of snow-white fibre is drawn, shining almost as silk, and likewise surprisingly strong; of this all their finer cloths are made: their fishing-nets are also made of these leaves, without any other preparation than splitting them into proper breadths and tying the strips together. So useful a plant would doubtless be a great acquisition to England, especially as one might hope it would thrive there with little trouble, as it seems hardy and affects no particular soil, being found equally on hills and in valleys, in dry soil and the deepest bogs, which last land it seems, however, rather to prefer, as I have always seen it in such places of a larger size than anywhere else.
When first we came ashore we imagined the country to be much better peopled than we afterwards found it; concluding from the smokes that we saw that there were inhabitants very far inland, which indeed in Poverty Bay and the Bay of Plenty (much the best peopled part of the country that we have seen) may be the case. In all the other parts we have been in we have, however, found the sea coast only inhabited, and that but sparingly, insomuch that the number of inhabitants seems to bear no kind of proportion to the size of the country. This is probably owing to their frequent wars. Besides this the whole coast from Cape Maria Van Diemen to Mount Egmont, and seven-eighths of the Southern Island, seem totally without people.
​The men are of the size of the larger Europeans, stout, clean-limbed, and active, fleshy, but never fat, as the lazy inhabitants of the South Sea Isles, vigorous, nimble, and at the same time clever in all their exercises. I have seen fifteen paddles of a side in one of their canoes move with immensely quick strokes, and at the same time as much justness as if the rowers were animated by one soul, not the fraction of a second could be observed between the dipping and raising any two of them, the canoe all the while moving with incredible swiftness. To see them dance their war dance was an amusement which never failed to please every spectator. So much strength, firmness, and agility did they show in their motions, and at the same time such excellent time did they keep, that I have often heard above a hundred paddles struck against the sides of their boats, as directed by their singing, without a mistake being ever made. In colour they vary a little, some being browner than others; but few are browner than a Spaniard a little sunburnt might be supposed to be. The women, without being at all delicate in their outward appearance, are rather smaller than European women, but have a peculiar softness of voice which never fails to distinguish them from the men. Both are dressed exactly alike. The women are like those of the sex that I have seen in other countries, more lively, airy, and laughter-loving than the men, and with more volatile spirits. Formed by nature to soften the cares of more serious man, who takes upon himself the laborious and toilsome part, as war, tilling the ground, etc., that disposition appears even in this uncultivated state of nature, showing in a high degree that, in uncivilised as well as in the most polished nations, man's ultimate happiness must at last be placed in woman. The dispositions of both sexes seem mild, gentle, and very affectionate to each other, but implacable towards their enemies, whom after having killed they eat, probably from a principle of revenge. I believe they never give quarter or take prisoners. They seem inured to war, and in their attacks work themselves up by their own war dance to a kind of artificial courage, which will ​not let them think in the least. Whenever they met with us and thought themselves superior they always attacked us, though seldom seeming to intend more than to provoke us to show them what we were able to do in this case. By many trials we found that good usage and fair words would not avail the least with them, nor would they be convinced by the noise of our firearms alone that we were superior to them; but as soon as they had felt the smart of even a load of small shot, and had time to recollect themselves from the effects of their artificial courage, which commonly took a day, they were sensible of our superiority and became at once our good friends, upon all occasions placing the most unbounded confidence in us. They are not, like the islanders, addicted to stealing; but (if they could) would sometimes, before peace was concluded, by offering anything they had to sell, entice us to trust something of ours into their hands, and refuse to return it with all the coolness in the world, seeming to look upon it as the plunder of an enemy.
Neither of the sexes are quite so cleanly in their persons as the islanders; not having the advantage of so warm a climate, they do not wash so often. But the disgustful thing about them is the oil with which they daub their hair, smelling something like a Greenland dock when they are "trying" whale blubber. This is melted from the fat either of fish or birds. The better sort indeed have it fresh, and then it is entirely void of smell.
Both sexes stain themselves in the same manner with the colour of black, and somewhat in the same way as the South Sea Islanders, introducing it under the skin by a sharp instrument furnished with many teeth. The men carry this custom to much greater lengths; the women are generally content with having their lips blacked, but sometimes have little patches of black on different parts of the body. The man on the contrary seems to add to the ​quantity every year of his life, so that some of the elders were almost covered with it. Their faces are the most remarkable; on them, by some art unknown to me, they dig furrows a line deep at least, and as broad, the edges of which are often again indented, and absolutely black. This may be done to make them look frightful in war, indeed it has the effect of making them most enormously ugly; the old ones especially, whose faces are entirely covered with it. The young, again, often have a small patch on one cheek or over one eye, and those under a certain age (maybe twenty-five or twenty-six) have no more than their lips black. Yet ugly as this certainly looks, it is impossible to avoid admiring the extreme elegance and justness of the figures traced, which on the face are always different spirals, and upon the body generally different figures, resembling somewhat the foliages of old chasing upon gold or silver. All these are finished with a masterly taste and execution, for of a hundred which at first sight would be judged to be exactly the same, no two on close examination prove alike, nor do I remember ever to have seen any two alike. Their wild imagination scorns to copy, as appears in almost all their works. In different parts of the coast they varied very much in the quantity and parts of the body on which this amoca, as they call it, was placed; but they generally agreed in having the spirals upon the face. I have generally observed that the more populous a country the greater was the quantity of amoca used; possibly in populous countries the emulation of bearing pain with fortitude may be carried to greater lengths than where there are fewer people, and consequently fewer examples to encourage. The buttocks, which in the islands were the principal seat of this ornament, in general here escape untouched; in one place only we saw the contrary.
Besides this dyeing in grain, as it may be called, they are very fond of painting themselves with red ochre, which they do in two ways, either rubbing it dry upon their skins, as some few do, or daubing their faces with large ​patches of it mixed with oil, which consequently never dries. This latter is generally practised by the women, and was not universally condemned by us, for if any of us had unthinkingly ravished a kiss from one of these fair savages, our transgressions were written in most legible characters on our noses, which our companions could not fail to see on our first interview.
The common dress of these people is certainly to a stranger one of the most uncouth and extraordinary sights that can be imagined. It is made of the leaves of the flag described before, each being split into three or four slips; and these, as soon as they are dry, are woven into a kind of stuff between netting and cloth, out of the upper side of which all the ends, of eight or nine inches, are suffered to hang in the same manner as thrums out of a thrum mat. Of these pieces of cloth two serve for a complete dress: one is tied over the shoulders, and reaches to about their knees; the other is tied about the waist, and reaches to near the ground. But they seldom wear more than one of these, and when they have it on resemble not a little a thatched house. These dresses, however, ugly as they are, are well adapted for their convenience, as they often sleep in the open air, and live some time without the least shelter, even from rain, so that they must trust entirely to their clothes as the only chance they have of keeping themselves dry. For this they are certainly not ill adapted, as every strip of leaf becomes in that case a kind of gutter which serves to conduct the rain down, and hinder it from soaking through the cloth beneath.
Besides this they have several kinds of cloth which are smooth, and ingeniously worked; these are chiefly of two sorts, one coarse as our coarsest canvas, and ten times stronger, but much like it in the lying of the threads; the other is formed by many threads running lengthwise, and a few only crossing them to tie them together. This last sort is sometimes striped, and always very pretty; for the threads that compose it are prepared so as to shine almost as much as silk. To both these they work borders of different colours in fine ​stitches, something like carpeting or girls' samplers in various patterns, with an ingenuity truly surprising to any one who will reflect that they are without needles. They have also mats with which they sometimes cover themselves; but the great pride of their dress seems to consist in dogs' fur, which they use so sparingly that to avoid waste they cut it into long strips, and sew them at a distance from each other upon their cloth, often varying the colours prettily enough. When first we saw these dresses we took them for the skins of bears or some animal of that kind, but we were soon undeceived, and found upon inquiry that they were acquainted with no animal that had fur or long hair but their own dogs. Some there were who had their dresses ornamented with feathers, and one who had an entire dress of the red feathers of parrots; but these were not common.
The first man we saw when we went ashore at Poverty Bay, and who was killed by one of our people, had his dress tied exactly in the same manner as is represented in Mr. Dalrymple's account of Tasman's voyage, in a plate which I believe is copied from Valentijn's History of the East Indies; it was tied over his shoulders, across his breast, under his armpits, again across his breast, and round his loins. Of this dress we saw, however, but one more instance during our whole stay on the coast, though it seems convenient, as it leaves the arms quite at liberty, while the body is covered. In general, indeed, when they choose to set their arms at liberty, they at the same time free all their limbs by casting off their clothes entirely.
The men always wear short beards, and tie their hair in a small knot on the top of their heads, sticking into it a kind of comb, and at the top two or three white feathers. The women, contrary to the custom of the sex in general, seem to affect rather less dress than the men. Their hair, which they wear short, is seldom tied, and when it is, it is behind their heads, and never ornamented with feathers. Their cloths are of the same stuff, and in the same form, as those of the men.
​Both sexes bore their ears, and wear in them a great variety of ornaments; the holes are generally (as if to keep them upon the stretch) filled up with a plug of some sort or other, either cloth, feathers, bones of large birds, or sometimes only a stick of wood: into this hole they often also put nails or anything we gave them which could go there. The women also often wear bunches, nearly as large as a fist, of the down of the albatross, which is snow-white. This, though very odd, makes by no means an inelegant appearance. They hang from them by strings many very different things, often a chisel and bodkins made of a kind of green talc, which they value much; the nails and teeth also of their deceased relations, dogs' teeth, and, in short, anything which is either valuable or ornamental. Besides these the women sometimes wear bracelets and anklets made of the bones of birds, shells, etc., and the men often carry the figure of a distorted man made of the before-mentioned green talc, or the tooth of a whale cut slantwise, so as to resemble somewhat a tongue, and furnished with two eyes. These they wear about their necks and seem to value almost above everything else. I saw one instance also of a very extraordinary ornament, which was a feather stuck through the bridge of the nose, and projecting on each side of it over the cheeks; but this I only mention as a singular thing, having met with it only once among the many people I have seen, and never observed in any other even the marks of a hole which might occasionally serve for such a purpose.
Their houses are certainly the most unartificially made of anything among them, scarcely equal to a European dog's kennel, and resembling it, in the door at least, which is barely high or wide enough to admit a man crawling upon all fours. They are seldom more than sixteen or eighteen feet long, eight or ten broad, and five or six high from the ridge pole to the ground: they are built with a sloping roof like our European houses. The material of both walls and roof is dry grass or hay, and very tightly it is put together, so that they must necessarily be very warm; some are lined ​with the bark of trees on the inside, and many have either over the door or somewhere in the house a plank covered with their carving, which they seem to value much as we do a picture, placing it always as conspicuously as possible. All these houses have the door at one end; and near it is a square hole which serves as a window or probably in winter time more as a chimney; for then they light a fire at the end where this door and window are placed. The side walls and roof project generally eighteen inches or two feet beyond the end wall, making a kind of porch, where are benches on which the people of the house often sit. Within is a square place fenced off with either boards or stones from the rest, in the middle of which they can make a fire; the sides of the house are thickly laid with straw, on which they sleep. As for furniture, they are not much troubled with it; one chest commonly contains all their riches, consisting of tools, cloths, arms, and a few feathers to stick into their hair; their gourds or baskets made of bark, which serve them to keep fresh water, their provision baskets, and the hammers with which they beat their fern roots, are generally left without the door.
Mean and low as these houses are, they most perfectly resist all inclemencies of the weather, and answer consequently the purposes of mere shelter as well as larger ones would do. The people, I believe, spend little of the day in them (except maybe in winter); the porch seems to be the place for work, and those who have not room there must sit upon a stone, or on the ground in the neighbourhood.
Some few families of the better sort have a kind of courtyard, the walls of which are made of poles and hay, ten or twelve feet high, and which, as their families are large, encloses three or four houses. But I must not forget the ruins, or rather frame of a house (for it had never been finished), which I saw at Tolaga, as it was so much superior in size to anything of the kind we have met with in any other part of the land. It was 30 feet in length, 15 in breadth, and 12 high; the sides of it were ornamented with many broad ​carved planks of a workmanship superior to any other we saw on the land. For what purpose this was built or why deserted we could not find out.
Though these people when at home defend themselves so well from the inclemencies of the weather, yet when they are abroad upon their excursions, which they often make in search of fern roots, fish, etc., they seem totally indifferent to shelter. Sometimes they make a small shade to windward of them, but more often omit that precaution. During our stay at Opoorage, or Mercury Bay, a party of Indians were there, consisting of forty or fifty, who during all that time never erected the least covering, though it twice rained almost without ceasing for twenty-four hours together.
Their food, in the use of which they seem to be moderate, consists of dogs, birds (especially sea fowl, as penguins, albatrosses, etc.), fish, sweet potatoes, yams, cocos, some few wild plants, as sow-thistles and palm-cabbage, but above all, the root of a species of fern which seems to be to them what bread is to us. This fern is very common upon the hills, and very nearly resembles that which grows upon our hilly commons in England, and is called indifferently fern, bracken, or brakes. As for the flesh of man, although they certainly do eat it, I cannot in my own opinion debase human nature so much as to imagine that they relish it as a dainty, or even look upon it as common food. Thirst for revenge may drive men to great lengths when their passions are allowed to take their full swing, yet nature, through all the superior part of the creation, shows how much she recoils at the thought of any species preying upon itself. Dogs and cats show visible signs of disgust at the very sight of a dead carcass of their own species; even wolves or bears are said never to eat one another except in cases of absolute necessity. When the stings of hunger have overcome the precepts of nature, in which case the same has been done by the inhabitants of the most civilised nations. Among fish and insects, indeed, there are many instances which prove that ​those that live by prey regard little whether what they take is of their own or any other species. But any one who considers the admirable chain of nature, in which man, alone endowed with reason, justly claims the highest rank, and in which the half-reasoning elephant, the sagacious dog, the architect beaver, etc., in whom instinct so nearly resembles reason as to have been mistaken for it by men of no mean capacities, are placed next; from these descending through the less informed quadrupeds and birds to the fish and insects, who seem, besides the instinct of fear which is given them for self-preservation, to be moved only by the stings of hunger to eat, and those of lust to propagate their species, which, when born, are left entirely to their own care; and at last by the medium of the oysters, etc., which not being able to move, but as tossed about by the waves, must in themselves be furnished with both sexes, that the species may be continued; shading itself away into the vegetable kingdom, for the preservation of whom neither sensation nor instinct is wanted; whoever considers this, I say, will easily see that no conclusion in favour of such a practice can be drawn from the actions of a race of beings placed so infinitely below us in the order of nature.
But to return to my subject. Simple as their food is, their cookery so far as I saw is as simple: a few stones heated and laid in a hole, with the meat laid upon them and covered with hay, seems to be the most difficult part of it. Fish and birds they generally broil, or rather toast, spiking them upon a long skewer, the bottom of which is fixed under a stone, another stone being put under the fore part of the skewer, which is raised or lowered by moving the second stone as circumstances may require. The fern roots are laid upon the open fire until they are thoroughly hot and their bark burnt to a coal; they are then beaten with a wooden hammer over a stone, which causes all the bark to fly off, and leaves the inside, consisting of a small proportion of a glutinous pulp mixed with many fibres, which they generally spit out, after having sucked each mouthful a long time. Strange and unheard of as it must ​appear to a European, to draw nourishment from a class of plant which in Europe no animal, hardly even insects, will taste, I am much inclined to think that it affords a nourishing and wholesome diet. These people eat but little, and this is the foundation of their meals all summer, at least from the time that their roots are planted, till the season for digging them up. Among them I have seen several very healthy old men, and in general the whole of them are as vigorous a race as can be imagined.
To the southward, where little or nothing is planted, fern roots and fish must serve them all the year. Accordingly, we saw that they had made vast piles of both, especially the latter, which were dried in the sun very well, and I suppose meant for winter stock, when possibly fish is not so plentiful or the trouble of catching it is greater than in summer.
Water is their universal drink, nor did I see any signs of any other liquor being at all known to them, or any method of intoxication. If they really have not, happy they must be allowed to be above all other nations that I have heard of.
So simple a diet, accompanied with moderation, must be productive of sound health, which indeed these people are blessed with in a very high degree. Though we were in several of their towns, where young and old crowded to see us, actuated by the same curiosity as made us desirous of seeing them, I do not remember a single instance of a person distempered in any degree that came under my inspection, and among the numbers of them that I have seen naked, I have never seen an eruption on the skin or any signs of one, scars or otherwise. Their skins, when they came off to us in their canoes, were often marked in patches with a little floury appearance, which at first deceived us, but we afterwards found that it was owing to their having been in their passage wetted with the spray of the sea, which, when it was dry, left the salt behind it in a fine white powder.
Such health drawn from so sound principles must make ​physicians almost useless; indeed I am inclined to think that their knowledge of physic is but small, judging from the state of their surgery which more than once came under my inspection. Of this art they seemed totally ignorant. I saw several wounded by our shot, without the smallest application on their wounds; one in particular who had a musket ball shot right through the fleshy part of his arm, came out of his house and showed himself to us, making a little use of the wounded arm. The wound, which was then of several days' standing, was totally void of inflammation, and in short appeared to be in so good a state, that had any application been made use of, I should not have failed to inquire carefully what it had been which had produced so good an effect.
A further proof, and not a weak one, of the sound health that these people enjoy, may be taken from the number of old people we saw. Hardly a canoe came off to us without bringing one or more; and every town had several, who, if we may judge by grey hairs and worn-out teeth, were of a very advanced age. Of these few or none were decrepit; the greater number seemed in vivacity and cheerfulness to equal the young, and indeed to be inferior to them in nothing but the want of equal strength and agility.
That the people have a larger share of ingenuity than usually falls to the lot of nations who have had so little or no commerce with any others appears at first sight: their boats, the better sort at least, show it most evidently. These are built of very thin planks sewn together, their sides rounding up like ours, but very narrow for their length. Some are immensely long. One I saw which the people laid alongside the ship, as if to measure how much longer she was than the canoe, fairly reached from the anchor that hung at the bows quite aft, but indeed we saw few so large as that. All, except a few we saw at Opoorage or Mercury Bay, which were merely trunks of trees hollowed out by fire, were more or less ornamented by carving. The common fishing canoe had no ornament but ​the face of a man with a monstrous tongue, whose eyes were generally inlaid with a kind of shell like mother-of-pearl; but the larger sort, which seemed to be intended for war, were really magnificently adorned. The head was formed by a plank projecting about three feet before the canoe, and on the stern stood another, proportioned to the size of the canoe, from ten to eighteen feet high. Both these were richly carved with open work, and covered with loose fringes of black feathers that had a most graceful effect. The gunnel boards were often also carved in grotesque taste, and ornamented with white feathers in bunches placed upon a black ground at certain intervals. They sometimes joined two small canoes together, and now and then made use of an outrigger, as is practised in the islands, but this was more common to the southward.
In managing these canoes, at least in paddling them, they are very expert. In one I counted sixteen paddlers on a side, and never did men, I believe, keep better time with their strokes, driving on the boat with immense velocity. Their paddles are often ornamented with carving, the blade is of an oval shape pointed towards the bottom, broadest in the middle, and again sloping towards the handle, which is about four feet long, the whole being generally about six feet in length, more or less. In sailing they are not so expert; we very seldom saw them make use of sails, and indeed never, unless they were to go right before the wind. They were made of mat, and instead of a mast were hoisted upon two sticks, which were fastened one to each side, so that they required two ropes which answered the purpose of sheets, and were fastened to the tops of these sticks. In this clumsy manner they sailed with a good deal of swiftness, and were steered by two men who sat in the stern, each with a paddle in his hand. I shall set down the dimensions of one which we measured, that was of the largest size. It was in length 68½ feet, breadth 5 feet, depth 3½ feet. This was the only one we measured, or indeed had an opportunity of measuring.
Of the beauty of their carving in general I would fain ​say more, but find myself much inferior to the task. I shall therefore content myself with saying that their taste led them into two materially different styles, as I will call them. One was entirely formed of a number of spirals differently connected, the other was in a much more wild taste, and I may truly say was like nothing but itself. The truth with which the lines were drawn was surprising; but even more so was their method of connecting several spirals into one piece, inimitably well, intermingling the ends in so dexterous a manner that it was next to impossible for the eye to trace the connections. The beauty of all their carvings, however, depended entirely on the design, for the execution was so rough that when you came near it was difficult to see any beauty in the things which struck you most at a distance.
After having said so much of their workmanship, it will be necessary to say something of their tools. As they have no metals these are made of stone of different kinds, their hatchets especially of any hard stone they can get, but chiefly of a kind of green talc, which is very hard and at the same time tough. With axes of this stone they cut so clean that it would often puzzle a man to say whether the wood they have shaped was or was not cut with an iron hatchet. These axes they value above all their riches, and would seldom part with them for anything we could offer. Their nicer work, which requires nicer-edged tools, they do with fragments of jasper, which they break and use the sharp edges till they become blunt, after which they throw them away as useless, for it is impossible ever again to sharpen them. I suppose it was with these fragments of jasper that at Tolaga they bored a hole through a piece of glass that we had given them, just large enough to admit a thread in order to convert it into an ornament. I must confess I am quite ignorant of what method they use to cut and polish their weapons, which are made of very hard stone.
Their cloths are made exactly in the same manner as by the inhabitants of South America, some of whose workmanship, procured at Rio de Janeiro, I have on board. The ​warp or long threads are laid very close together, and each crossing of the woof is distant at least an inch from another. They have besides this several other kinds of cloth, and work borders to them all, but as to their manner of doing so I must confess myself totally ignorant. I never but once saw any of this work going forward; it was done in a kind of frame of the breadth of the cloth, across which it was spread, and the cross threads worked in by hand, which must be very tedious; however, the workmanship sufficiently proves the workmen to be dexterous in their way. One notable point I must not forget, which is that to every garment of the better kind is fixed a bodkin, as if to remind the wearer that if it should be torn by any accident, no time should be lost before it is mended.
Nets for fishing they make in the same manner as ours, of an amazing size; a seine seems to be the joint work of a whole town, and I suppose the joint property. Of these I think I have seen as large as ever I saw in Europe. Besides this they have fish pots and baskets worked with twigs, and another kind of net which they most generally make use of that I have never seen in any country but this. It is circular, seven or eight feet in diameter, and two or three deep; it is stretched by two or three hoops and open at the top for nearly, but not quite, its whole extent. On the bottom is fastened the bait, a little basket containing the guts, etc., of fish and sea ears, which are tied to different parts of the net. This is let down to the bottom where the fish are, and when enough are supposed to be gathered together, it is drawn up with a very gentle motion, by which means the fish are insensibly lifted from the bottom. In this manner I have seen them take vast numbers of fish, and indeed it is a most general way of fishing all over the coast. Their hooks are ill made, generally of bone or shell fastened to a piece of wood; indeed, they seem to have little occasion for them, for with their nets they take fish much easier than they could with hooks.
In tilling they excel, as people who are themselves to eat the fruit of their industry, and have little else to do but ​cultivate, necessarily must. When we first came to Tegadu the crops were just covered, and had not yet begun to sprout; the mould was as smooth as in a garden, and every root had its small hillock, all ranged in a regular quincunx by lines, which with the pegs still remained in the field.
We had not an opportunity of seeing them work, but once saw their tool, which is a long and narrow stake, flattened a little and sharpened; across this is fixed a piece of stick for the convenience of pressing it down with the foot. With this simple tool, industry teaches them to turn pieces of ground of six or seven acres in extent. The soil is generally sandy, and is therefore easily turned up, while the narrowness of the tool, the blade of which is not more than three inches broad, makes it meet with the less resistance.
Tillage, weaving, and the rest of the arts of peace are best known and most practised in the north-eastern parts; indeed, in the southern there is little to be seen of any of them; but war seems to be equally known to all, though most practised in the south-west. The mind of man, ever ingenious in inventing instruments of destruction, has not been idle here. Their weapons, though few, are well calculated for bloody fights, and the destruction of numbers. Defensive weapons they have none, and no missives except stones and darts, which are chiefly used in defending their forts; so that if two bodies should meet either in boats or upon the plain ground, they must fight hand to hand and the slaughter be consequently immense.
Of their weapons, the spears are made of hard wood pointed at both ends, sometimes headed with human bones; some are fourteen or fifteen feet long. They are grasped by the middle, so that the end which hangs behind, serving as a balance to keep the front steady, makes it much more difficult to parry a push from one of them than it would from one of a spear only half as long which was held by the end. Their battle-axes, likewise made of a very hard wood, are about six feet long, the bottom of the handle pointed, and the blade, which is exactly like that of an axe but broader, made very ​sharp: with these they chop at the heads of their antagonists when an opportunity offers.
The patoo-patoos, as they called them, are a kind of small hand bludgeon of stone, bone, or hard wood, most admirably adapted for the cracking of skulls; they are of different shapes, some like an old-fashioned chopping-knife, others like this, or ; always however, having sharp edges, and sufficient weight to make a second blow unnecessary if the first takes effect. In these they seemed to put their chief dependence, fastening them by a long strap to their wrists, lest they should be wrenched from them. The principal people seldom stirred out without one of them sticking in their girdle, generally made of bone (of whales as they told us) or of coarse, black, and very hard jasper, insomuch that we were almost led to conclude that in peace as well as war they wore them as a warlike ornament, in the same manner as we Europeans wear swords. The darts are about eight feet long, made of wood, bearded and sharpened, but intended chiefly for the defence of their forts, when they have the advantage of throwing them down from a height upon their enemy. They often brought them out in their boats when they meant to attack us, but so little were they able to make use of them against us, who were by reason of the height of the ship above them, that they never but once attempted it; and then the dart, though thrown with the utmost strength of the man who held it, barely fell on board. Sometimes I have seen them pointed with the stings of sting-rays, but very seldom; why they do not oftener use them I do not know. Nothing is more terrible to a European than the sharp-jagged beards of those bones; but I believe that they seldom cause death, though the wounds made by them must be most troublesome and painful. Stones, however, they use much more dexterously, though ignorant of the use of slings. They throw by hand a considerable distance; when they have pelted us with them on board the ship, I have seen our people attempt to throw them back, and not be able to reach the canoes, although they had so manifest an advantage in the height of their situation.
​These are all that can be properly called arms, but besides these the chiefs when they came to attack us carried in their hands a kind of ensign of distinction in the same manner as ours do spontoons: these were either the rib of a whale, as white as snow, carved very much, and ornamented with dogs' hair and feathers, or a stick about six feet long, carved and ornamented in the same manner, and generally inlaid with shell like mother-of-pearl. Of these chiefs there were in their war canoes one, two, or three, according to the size of the canoes. When within about a cable's length of the ship, they generally rose up, dressed themselves in a distinguishing dress (often of dog's skin), and holding in their hands either one of their spontoons or a weapon, directed the rest of the people how to proceed. They were always old, or at least past the middle age, and had upon them a larger quantity of amoca than usual. These canoes commonly paddled with great vigour till they came within about a stone's throw of the ship (having no idea that any missive could reach them farther), and then began to threaten us; this, indeed, the smaller canoes did, as soon as they were within hearing. Their words were almost universally the same, "Haromai haromai, harre uta a patoo-patoo oge," "Come to us, come to us, come but ashore with us, and we will kill you with our patoo-patoos."
In this manner they continued to threaten us, venturing by degrees nearer and nearer till they were close alongside: at intervals talking very civilly, and answering any questions we asked them, but quickly renewing their threats till they had by our non-resistance gained courage enough to begin their war-song and dance; after which they either became so insolent that we found it necessary to chastise them by firing small shot at them, or else threw three or four stones on board, and, as if content with having offered such an insult unavenged, left us.
The war-song and dance consists of various contortions of the limbs, during which the tongue was frequently thrust out incredibly far, and the orbits of their eyes enlarged so much that a circle of white was distinctly seen round the ​iris; in short, nothing is omitted which could render a human shape frightful and deformed, which I suppose they think terrible. During this time they brandish their spears, hack the air with their patoo-patoos, and shake their darts as if they meant every moment to begin the attack, singing all the while in a wild but not disagreeable manner, ending every strain with a loud and deep-drawn sigh, in which they all join in concert. The whole is accompanied by strokes struck against the sides of the boats with their feet, paddles, and arms; the whole in such excellent time, that though the crews of several canoes join in concert, you rarely or never heard a single stroke wrongly placed.
This we called the war-song; for though they seemed fond of using it upon all occasions, whether in war or peace, they, I believe, never omit it in their attacks. They have several other songs which their women sing prettily enough in parts. They were all in a slow melancholy style, but certainly have more taste in them than could be expected from untaught savages. Instrumental music they have none, unless a kind of wooden pipe, or the shell called Triton's Trumpet, with which they make a noise not very unlike that made by boys with a cow's horn, may be called such. They have, indeed, also a kind of small pipe of wood, crooked and shaped almost like a large tobacco pipe, but it has hardly more music in it than a whistle with a pea. But on none of these did I ever hear them attempt to play a tune or sing to their music.
That they eat the bodies of such of their enemies as are killed in war, is a fact which they universally acknowledged from our first landing at every place we came to. It was confirmed by an old man, whom we supposed to be the chief of an Indian town very near us, bringing at our desire six or seven heads of men, preserved with the flesh on. These it seems the people keep, after having eaten the brains, as trophies of their victories, in the same manner as the Indians of North America do scalps; they had their ornaments in their ears as when alive, and some seemed to have false eyes. The old man was very jealous of showing them; ​one I bought, but much against the inclination of its owner, for though he liked the price I offered, he hesitated much to send it up; yet, having taken the price, I insisted either on having that returned or the head given, but could not prevail until I enforced my threats by showing him a musket, on which he chose to part with the head rather than the price he had, which was a pair of old drawers of my white linen. The head appeared to have belonged to a person of about fourteen or fifteen years of age, and evidently showed, by the contusions on one side, that it had received many violent blows which had chipped off a part of the skull near the eye. From this, and many other circumstances, I am inclined to believe that these Indians give no quarter, or even take prisoners to eat upon a future occasion, as is said to have been practised by the Floridan Indians; for had they done so, this young creature, who could not make much resistance, would have been a very proper subject.
The state of war in which they live, constantly in danger of being surprised when least upon their guard, has taught them, not only to live together in towns, but to fortify those towns, which they do by a broad ditch, and a palisade within it of no despicable construction.
For these towns or forts, which they call Heppahs, they choose situations naturally strong, commonly islands or peninsulas, where the sea or steep cliffs defend the greater part of their works; and if there is any part weaker than the rest, a stage is erected over it of considerable height—eighteen or twenty feet—on the top of which the defenders range themselves, and fight with a great advantage, as they can throw down their darts and stones with much greater force than the assailants can throw them up. Within these forts the greater part of the tribe to whom they belong reside, and have large stocks of provisions: fern roots and dried fish, but no water; for that article, in all that I have seen, was only to be had from some distance without the lines. From this we concluded that sieges are not usual among them. Some, however, are generally out ​in small parties in the neighbouring creeks and coves, employed either in taking fish or collecting fern roots, etc., a large quantity of which they bring back with them, a reserve, I suppose, for times when the neighbourhood of an enemy or other circumstances make the procuring of fresh provision difficult or dangerous.
Of these forts or towns we saw many; indeed, the inhabitants constantly lived in such, from the westernmost part of the Bay of Plenty to Queen Charlotte's Sound; but about Hawke's Bay, Poverty Bay, Tegadu and Tolaga, there were none, and the houses were scattered about. There were, indeed, stages built upon the sides of hills, sometimes of great length, which might serve as a retreat to save their lives at the last extremity and nothing else, but these were mostly in ruins. Throughout all this district the People seemed free from apprehension, and as in a state of profound peace; their cultivations were far more numerous and larger than those we saw anywhere else, and they had a far greater quantity of fine boats, fine clothes, fine carved work; in short, the people were far more numerous, and lived in much greater affluence, than any others we saw. This seemed to be owing to their being joined together under one chief or king, as they always called Teratu, who lives far up in the country.
It is much to be lamented that we could get no further knowledge of this chief or king than his name only; his dominions are for an Indian monarch certainly most extensive. He was acknowledged for a length of coasts of upwards of eighty leagues, and yet we do not know the western limits of his dominions; we are sure, however, that they contain the greatest share of the rich part of the northernmost island, and that far the greatest number of people upon it are his subjects. Subordinate to him are lesser chiefs, who seem to have obedience and respect paid them ​by the tribe to whom they belong, and who probably administer justice to them, though we never saw an instance of it, except in the case of theft on board the ship, when upon our complaint the offender received kicks and blows from the chief with whom he came on board.
These chiefs were generally old men: whether they had the office of chief by birth or on account of their age, we never learnt; but in the other parts, where Teratu was not acknowledged, we plainly learnt that the chiefs whom they obeyed, of which every tribe had some, received their dignity by inheritance. In the northern parts their societies seemed to have many things in common, particularly their fine clothes and nets; of the former they had but few, and we never saw anybody employed in making them. It might be that what they had were the spoils of war. They were kept in a small hut erected for that purpose in the middle of the town. The latter seemed to be the joint work of the whole society. Every house had in it pieces of netting upon which they were engaged; by joining these together it is probable that they made the large seines which we saw.
The women are less regarded here than in the South Sea Islands, so, at least, thought Tupia, who complained of it as an insult upon the sex. They eat with the men, however. How the sexes divide labour I do not know, but I am inclined to believe that the men till the ground, fish in boats, make nets, and take birds, while the women dig up fern roots, collect shell-fish and lobsters near the beach, dress the victuals, and weave cloth. Thus, at least, have these employments been distributed, when I had an opportunity of observing them, which was very seldom; for our approach generally made a holiday wherever we went, men, women, and children flocking to us either to satisfy their curiosity or trade with us for whatever they might have. They took in exchange cloth of any kind, especially linen or the Indian cloth we had brought from the islands, paper, glass bottles, sometimes pieces of broken glass, nails, etc.
We saw few or no signs of religion among these people; they had no public places of worship, as the inhabitants of ​the South Sea Islands, and only one private one came under my notice, which was in the neighbourhood of a plantation of their sweet potatoes. It was a small square bordered round with stones; in the middle was a spade, and on it hung a basket of fern roots—an offering (I suppose) to the gods for the success of the crops—so, at least, one of the natives explained it. They, however, acknowledged the influence of superior beings. Tupia, however, seemed to be much better versed in legends than any of them, for whenever he began to preach, as we called it, he was sure of a numerous audience, who attended with most profound silence to his doctrines.
The burial of the dead, instead of being a pompous ceremony as in the islands, is here kept secret; we never so much as saw a grave where any one had been interred; nor did they always agree in the accounts they gave of the manner of disposing of dead bodies. In the northern parts they told us that they buried them in the ground; and in the southern, said that they threw them into the sea, having first tied to them a sufficient weight to cause their sinking. However they disposed of the dead, their regret for the loss of them was sufficiently visible; few or none were without scars, and some had them hideously large on their cheeks, arms, legs, etc., from the cuts they had given themselves during their mourning. I have seen several with such wounds of which the blood was not yet stanched, and one only, a woman, while she was cutting herself and lamenting; she wept much, repeating many sentences in a plaintive tone of voice, at every one of which she with a shell cut a gash in some part of her body. She, however, contrived her cuts in such a manner that few of them drew blood, and those that did, penetrated a small depth only. She was old, and had probably outlived those violent impressions that grief, as well as other passions of the mind, make upon young people; her grief also was probably of long standing. The scars upon the bodies of the greater part of these people evinced, however, that they had felt sorrows more severely than she did.
​Thus much for the manners and customs of these people, as far as they have come to my knowledge in the few opportunities I had of seeing them. They differ in many things, but agree in more, with those of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. Their language I shall next give a short specimen of; it is almost precisely the same, at least fundamentally. It is true that they have generally added several letters to the words as used by the inhabitants of Otahite, etc., but the original plainly appears in the composition. The language of the northern and southern parts differs chiefly in this, that the one has added more letters than the other; the original words are, however, not less visible to the most superficial observer. I shall give a short table of each compared with the Otahite, taking care to mention as many words as possible as are either of a doubtful or different origin; premising, however, two things—first, that the words were so much disguised by their manner of pronouncing them that I found it very difficult to understand them until I had written them down; secondly, that Tupia, from the very first, understood and conversed with them with great facility.
I must remark that most of the southern language was not taken down by myself, and I am inclined to believe that the person who did it for me made use of more letters in spelling the words than were absolutely necessary. The genius of the language, especially in the southern parts, is to add some particle—the or a—before a noun as we do; the was generally ke or ko. They also often add to the end of any word, especially if it is in answer to a question, the word oeia, which signifies yes, really, or certainly. This sometimes led our gentlemen into the most long-winded words, one of which I shall mention as an example. In the Bay of Islands a very remarkable island was called by the natives Motu aro; some of our gentlemen asked the name of this from one of the natives, who answered, I suppose, as usual Komotu aro; the gentleman not hearing well the word, repeated his question, on which the Indian repeated his answer, adding oeia to the end of the name, which made it ​Kemotuaroeia. In this way at least, and no other, can I account for that island being called in the log—book Cumettiwaroweia. The same is practised by the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands, only their particle, instead of ke or ko, is to or ta; their oeia is exactly the same, and, when I first began to learn the language, produced many difficulties and mistakes.
| | Northern. | Southern. | Otahite. |
| A chief | Eareete | Eareete | Earee |
| A man | Taata | Taata | Taata |
| A woman | Ivahine | Ivahine | Ivahine |
| The head | Eupo | Heaowpoho | Eupo |
| The hair | Macauwe | Heooo | Roourou |
| The ear | Terringa | Hetahezei | Terrea |
| The forehead | Erai | Heai | Erai |
| The eyes | Mata | Hemata | Mata |
| The cheeks | Paparinga | Hepapach | Paparea |
| The nose | Ahewh | Heeih | Ahewh |
| The mouth | Hangoutou | Hegowai | Outou |
| The chin | Ecouwai | Hekasewai | … |
| The arm | Haringaringa | … | Rema |
| The finger | Maticara | Hemaigawh | Manneow |
| The belly | Ateraboo | … | Oboo |
| The navel | Apeto | Hecapeeto | Peto |
| Come here | Haromai | Horomai | Harromai |
| Fish | Heica | Heica | Eyea |
| A lobster | Koura | Kooura | Tooura |
| Cocos | Taro | Taro | Taro |
| Sweet potatoes | Cumalo | Cumala | Cumula |
| Yams | Tuphwhe | Tuphwhe | Tuphwhe |
| Birds | Mannu | Mannu | Mannu |
| No | Kaoure | Kaoure | Ima |
| The teeth | Hennihu | Heneaho | Niheo |
| The wind | Mehow | … | Mattai |
| A thief | Amooto | … | Teto |
| To examine | Mataketaki | … | Mataitai |
| To sing | Eheara | … | Heiva |
| Bad | Keno | Keno | Eno |
| Trees | Cratou | Eratou | Eratou |
| Grandfather | Toubouna | Toubouna | Toubouna |
| 1. | Tahai | … | Tahie |
| 2. | Rua | … | Rua |
| 3. | Torou | … | Torou |
| 4. | Ha | … | Hea |
| 5. | Rema | … | Rema |
| 6. | Ono | … | Ono |
| 7. | Etu | … | Hetu |
| 8. | Warou | … | Waru |
| 9. | Iva | … | Heva |
| 10. | Augahourou | … | Ahourou |
* ↑ Left blank in Banks's Journal. The following note was appended by Banks at the end of the chapter:— Though Tasman's longitude of Cape Maria Van Diemen comes near the truth, our seamen affirm, and seem to make it appear, that he erred no less than 4° 49′ in running from the first land he made to Cape Maria Van Diemen; if so, his exactness must be attributed more to chance than skill.
* ↑ A commencement of colonisation was made by Samuel Marsden, a missionary, in 1814, in the Bay of Islands. The first definite attempt to colonise was by the New Zealand Company in 1840, whose settlement was at Wellington. In the same year Captain Hobson, R.N., was sent as Lieut.-Governor: he landed in the Bay of Islands, and transferred his headquarters to the Hauraki Gulf in September, where he founded Auckland (Wharton's Cook, p. 231).
* ↑ Atriplex patula, Linn.; it is identical with the English "fat-hen."
* ↑ The most southern of all palms, Areca sapida, Soland.
* ↑ Freycinetia Banksii, A. Cunn.
* ↑ Metrosideros robusta, A. Cunn.
* ↑ Podocarpus dacrydioides, A. Cunn.
* ↑ Phormium tenax, Forst, the New Zealand Flax.
* ↑ Throughout the remainder of the Journal Banks constantly speaks of the South Sea Islands simply as "the islands," and their inhabitants as "the islanders."
* ↑ The New Zealand bracken and sow-thistle are identical with the English (Pteris aquilina, Linn., and Sonchus asper, Vill.).
* ↑ The people who mentioned Teratu to us pointed, as we thought, always inland; but since the country has been laid down upon paper, it appears that over the land in that direction lies the Bay of Plenty; from hence it appears probable that this is the residence of Teratu, and, if so, the country inland will probably be found to be quite void of inhabitants. [Note by Banks.]