The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-09-09
AROUND THE WORLD.
Dr. Talma6e on Murder as a
PaStima.

Ha Tells About ths Noble Msoris and
Tbeir Characteristics, Past and Pres
snt-The Terrible Law of Tapu-A
Colony Of Bewitehmant.
Copyright,
Ornedin. New Zealand, July 2s.-What
the Indians are to America the Maoris
are 10 New zealand. These oborigines
are diving out very rapidly, but you see
them in all the upper portions of New
zealand. All this country was once
theirs. and they would have kept it, but
from whaling ships the foreigners
aughted TO furnish enough rum and vices
of all sorts to kill the Maoris They are
said TO be a superior race of savages, but
the nobility of them fail to see. Their
faces are ploughed up, not with age but
by tattooing which they suppose pic
toriali zes and beauties. Sharp shells
scooped out these burrows of the counte-
nance Their greatest fun was massacre.
When some of them adopted Christianity
they received the old Testament but re-
ected the New Testament. They liked
the war scenes of the old but not the
PEACE of the new. On occasions
they made cartridges of the New Tesla
nent. When they could not eat all
their enemies they preserved them in tin
cans and sent them as delicate presents to
their friends. The ship Boyd, bound for
England, put in al one of the New Zea-
land harbors, and all on board were slain
and eaten except q v oman and three chill
dren, who hid away, the only survivors to
tell the story. OF course all ships knew
If tbav Xrara NvrpCl-pd On thAca Sbprac
they would become part of the diet of
the people. Two Of the chiefs taken to
London in 1920 aroused much interest and
they were loaded with presents of all
sorts; but before starting for home these
recipients exchanged the presents for
muskets with which they drove back and
destroyed the neighboring tribes who
could not afford muskets. Some of these
savages went so far as to lend clubs and
powder and knives to their enc
mics that lively fighting might
be kept up. On one occasion they re-
fused to capture the trains carrying food
and ammunition to the opposing forces and
when the chief of the Maoris was asked
the cause of this he replied, why, you
fool, if we had captured their ammunition
and food how could they have fought3n
One of the missionaries says that he held
a religious service at place between two
fighting tribes, and from both tribes the
audience was made up on Sunday, but on
Monday they resumed their cid fight. If
they had plainly put to them the first
question of the catachism, What is the
chief end of man." their reply, if frankly
made, would have been, The chief end
of man is TO make an end of him"
De Quincy wrote an essay on Murder
as a Fine Art" but to the Maoris murder
was a pastime Assassination was for
ages their gladdesJ recreation. Massacre
was their sport. IL was to them what the
tennis court and croquet grounds and
base ball are TO many moderns. No
hunter ever enjoyed shooting reed birds
or fetching down roe buck; no fisher
man better liked throwing q fly and
watching a spotted trout rise and snap it.
than did these Maoris the slaughter of
man. Give beef or mutton to others but
the appetite of the Maori wanted some
thing human in the bill Of fare. Many of
the Maoris may be good and kind and no.
BILE, but their ancesto were without no.
bility of nature, unless laZiness and heart
lessness, and revenge and malevolence be
noble What an appetite they must have
had for soup of human bones! for white
man on toast! and for spare
rib of missionary! We search New
Zealand in vain from top of the
North Island to foot of South Island
to find among the Maoris anything more
uObl6 IMAM 7SGGu III Lllt 1ALlCLlChu luilldu
seated by a bride path of the Rocky
mountains, wrapped in filthy blanket,
hair combed once in forty years, waiting
for a Wboy, to toss him a rusty cent.
These Maoris were the impersonation of
cruelty and diabolism. II was to them
rare sport when they could take IN en-
envy and scalp the skin from the bottom
of the feet--if you can apply to the lower
extremities the word usually applied TO
q IpS-and make the vic
tim walk on a rough place, and the Shrek
of pain would make those noble savages
laugh till you could hear them half
mile away. Sometimes they would, in
order to have fresh meat, cut the flesh
from their victim just as they needed it,
by nice tid-bits, one day after day. Back
of Osborne, New Zealand, to make a fine
peroration of their accomplishments
they killed all the men, women and
children. so that the authors might not
be charged with lack Of thorougnness.
They tell the most enormous stories of
the bravery of their ancestors. These
ancestors they say, killed the two
great warriors at Waterloo, Wellington
and Napoleon, and the tribe believe it,
too. Within a few days one of their
chiefs was buried amid wild scenes of
lamentatiou, and after the body was put
in the ground, the chiefs hat anu blanket
and umbrella were thrown in after him,
and then many of the tribe leaped upon
the grave with bowls and dancing. Not
satisfied with deeds Of cruelty while liv-
ing, these noble Maoris, in olden time, ex-
pected their wives to strangle themselves,
and while twisting the fax for the ROPE,
the sister of the dead chief is reported by
a recent writer as looking up at the moon
and saying:
1t is well with thee, oh moon You return
from death
Spreading your light on the little waves.
Men say,
Behold, the moon reappears"
But the dead of this world return no more.
Grle- and + spring up IN my heart as from
founta
hasten TO death for relief
On That all might eat those numerous sooth-
sayers,
Who could not foreteu his death,
Oh that might eat the Governor,
For his was the war
One of the most terrible things in all
the country Of the Maoris is their law Of
lapu. If any one breaks that he must
die. When a thing is said to be Tapu. no
one must use or employ it. For instance,
a man gave slave a knife, forthwith
that knife became Tapu, yet someone
dared with that knife to cut the bread for
the chiefs mother, and the man who used
the knife for that purpose was butchered.
mat whimsicality of Tapu has left its
victims all up and down New Zealand.
The fact is, that barbarisms are so re-
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