New Zealand - Reginald Horsley

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men; but rarely were the initial speeches so inflammatory, the early gibes so stinging as to precipitate the conflict. It was almost a point of etiquette to measure the stabbing power of that unruly member, the tongue, before proceeding to test the keenness of spear-point, the smashing capacity of club.

      But the tongue was put to another use; for, while eyes were rolled and faces contorted in hideous grimaces, Arero, The Little, was poked farther and farther out of the mouth with telescopic power of elongation, till it rested almost upon the broad, scarred chest below its proper frontier, the lips. The visage of a Maori at such a moment was indescribably hideous, and would probably have scared away the enemy, had it not been that their faces were equally appalling.

      Arero, the tongue, having played its part in facial distortion, was now drawn back into its proper territory and again put to its legitimate use, abuse of the enemy. Once more the wordy war raged, till some taunt too savage, some sneer too biting, some gesture too insulting, brought the long preliminaries to a sudden, dreadful close, and the men of war with startling swiftness broke ranks, and with howls of fury clashed together in mortal combat.

      "Vae victis!" growled the old Roman, and these brown men with the stern, Roman faces made good the sinister words. A defeat meant not a rout, but a slaughter of those who fled and were overtaken, a massacre of those who lay wounded, awaiting the death-stroke with a composure not less superb than that of the stricken gladiators in Rome's arena.

      The lives of the wounded were too often taken to the accompaniment of shocking barbarities and, when the breath was out of their bodies, their heads were hacked off and borne away in triumph, to grin from spiked palisades at the foe who refused to respect them even in death.

      The victors were careful to decapitate their own dead, whose heads were carried home with every mark of respect and handed over to the nearest relatives of the deceased. It was no disgrace to be slain in battle; but if your head were not returned to the bosom of your family, then your own, and with it the family mana, or honour, was gone.

      Were a man forced to flee, it was considered an act of the greatest friendship if he delayed to decapitate a dead or wounded comrade, so that, though the latter's body might be rent in pieces, and very likely swallowed, his head might suffer no dishonour, and the family mana be saved.

      The heads thus rescued were subjected to prolonged exposure to air and steam and smoke, after which they underwent treatment at the hands of experts. The final result was that the head retained a wonderfully lifelike appearance, the moko marks remaining plainly visible. The heads were set up in places of honour, with that ceremony which these paladins of the South Seas invariably observed, to be handed down from generation to generation along with stirring tales of the valorous warriors upon whose shoulders they had once sat.

      We are learning that our brown hero was by no means faultless. He was not above insulting his vanquished foe, and saw no reason why he should not do a brave and helpless man to death with revolting tortures. The extinction of life did not satisfy him; he must mutilate the bodies of the slain and spurn the dishonoured corpse.

      Surely his appetite for revenge must now be glutted; his ingenuity can suggest nothing more in the way of utu; his passion-inflamed mind devise no further stroke of insolent hate.

      Alas! The violent climax is yet to be reached; the abysmal depth of degradation to be plumbed; the savage nature to be laid bare in all its hideousness.

      The pity of it! This man, so strong, so brave, so keen of intelligence; this man with brain so clever and hand so deft that he can fashion that wonderful thing, a war-canoe, with nought but tools wrenched from the unwilling earth; this man who is a loving husband, a fond father; who in future years is destined to take his place beside the white invader of his dominion; this man can sink to the level of the beast, which, having slain, must fall to and eat. Lower, indeed, he descends; for the brute kills that it may satisfy its hunger, but the Maori that he may inflict the crowning dishonour upon his dead foe and upon the children of the slain.

      Cannibalism, if not a respectable, is a very ancient practice, for Homer and Herodotus mention the anthropophagi; but it is impossible to say when it originated, and the why and wherefore of the horrid custom can be still less easily come at. Some have argued that it began in a craving for animal food; but these seem to have lost sight of the fact that there are in Africa cannibals who live in regions teeming with game, just as in the South Sea Islands there are cannibals who till modern times were forced to content themselves with an almost purely vegetable diet. If the same motive animated both of these in their adoption of the practice, that motive can obviously not have been a hankering after animal food.

      Neither does the name throw any light upon the origin of the custom; for the word "cannibal" is presumed to be a corruption of "Caribal," that is, "pertaining to the Caribs," a West Indian tribe of man-eaters, discovered by Columbus in 1493.

      The Malays, or some of them, were cannibals, and the Maori offshoots of that race indulged in the habit in those far-off days before they adventured to New Zealand. Their traditions shew that they had abandoned the practice before, and that they did not resume it for several generations after their emigration. Even then they were cannibals side by side with the fact that they were warriors and, in the beginning at least, consumed their species less from appetite than from a desire to humiliate the kindred of the vanquished.

      The Zulus, who used to eat but little meat, were accustomed when in view of war to gorge themselves with the flesh of beeves. Then, intoxicated, as it were, with the unaccustomed nitrogenous food, they swung into battle, careless of disaster or death. The Maori, on the other hand, after days of preparation, during which their rule of life was ascetic, urged on the battle fever by rhetoric and oratory of a very high order. They showed so far only their intellectual side; when once the fight was over, cramming themselves with loathsome food, they sank below the level of the ravening brute.

      It must be granted, then, that the Maori did not wholly abstain from human flesh. Against this—save for some notable exceptions—they were not habitually cannibals when at peace. After the shock of war they swallowed portions of their dead foes, as much to incorporate the others' courage with their own as from any radical hankering after the ghastly dish. Let it go at that.

      There is at length a lull in the strife. The stronger are weary of dealing blows, the weaker faint with taking them. The time is come when both may rest awhile, if only to husband their strength, so that some day they may fight again. After all, one cannot be for ever upon the war-path. The fern-root is maturing, the kumara are ripening in the fields, the eels fattening in the creeks. Home-voices are calling, and fierce men of war grow sick with longing for sight of wife and child. Yes; there has been enough of war. Let peace prevail; if not for ever, at least until rage, cool now, has had time to blaze up once more; until arms, stiff and sore with hammering skulls and splitting hearts, again renew their strength. Yes, peace is good. Let us have peace.

      So a herald went forth, bearing a leafy bough, a sign that his mission was Hohou i te rongo—to make peace. Takawaenga, or "go-betweens," had been busily engaged over the matter for some days past, and the herald's very presence proved that the result of his visit was a foregone conclusion.

      Still, the Maori must always be dramatic, so the herald was met with great respect and ceremony, and his argument seriously considered with much show of dissent. Then, when the orator had listened with becoming patience to numerous speakers on the other side, and exhausted every trick of voice and gesture on his own, all opposition suddenly collapsed, and peace was concluded

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