John Rutherford, the White Chief: A Story of Adventure in New Zealand

neither priests, nor places of worship, nor any re

savages would very naturally give such an impression. Cook ascertained that they had no "morais"[BJ] or temples, like some

ed presence of the unseen and supernatural crosses them at every step. What has been already stated respecting the "taboo" may give some idea of how submissive and habitual is their sense of

nary influence of the same belief. They think, for instance, that if they were to allow

d voyage, of a young man he had taken on board the ship, who, having one day performed this ceremony, could no

kson, cut the hair of one of his companions, and continu

ing to take up the implement after it had been used, but was immediately charged by the chief not to touch it, a

asion, he retorted by ridiculing our preaching, yet at the same time asking me to sermonize over his wife, as if his object w

wn, threw it away. Cook remarks that he used to see quantities of hair tied to the branches of the trees near the villages. It is

e hair of the dead, and presenting it as an offering to the infernal gods, in order to secure a free passage to Elysium for the person to whom it belonged. The passage in the fourth book of

t. The act in this way naturally became significant of the separation from the living world of the person on whom it was performed. Of the antiquity of this practice, we have a proof in a comm

e country is disfigured with scars. The same notion of abstraction from the present life and its concerns is expressed by the clerical tonsure, so long known in the Christian church, and still retained among the Roman Catholics. It is still common, also, among ourselves, for widows, in the earlier period

was worn at all. In such cases, the hair, either of the head or of the beard, has usually been cherished with very affectionate care, and the mode of dressing it has been made matter of anxious regulation. Many of the barbarous nation

e present day. It is recorded, too, that no reform which Peter the Great of Russia essayed to introduce a

." Although possessed, however, of the attributes of immortality, omni-presence, invisibility, and su

the hope of thereby frightening him away. They imagine that at other times he amuses himself in entangling their nets and oversetting their canoes. Of late years they have suspected that he has been very angry with them for having allowed the white men to obtain a footing in their country, a proof of which they think they see in the greater mortality that has recently prevailed among them. This, however, they

ficulty be made to see how one God should give these to the New Zealander and not equally to the white man; or, on the other hand, how he should have acted so partially as to give to the white man only such possessions as cattle, sheep, and horses, which the New Zealander as much required. The argument, however, upon which they seem most to have rested, was:-"But we are of a different colour fr

ily adoration of the sun, moon, and stars. Of the heavenly host, the moon, he says, is their favourite; though why he should think so, it is not easy to understand, seeing that, when addressing this luminary, they employ, he tells us, a mournful song, and seem as full of apprehension as of devotion; whereas "when paying their adoration to the

habit of commencing the exhibition of their national customs wi

w Zealanders have certain fancies with regard to several of the more remarkable constellations; and are not without some conception that the issues of human affairs are occasionally influenced, or at least indicated, by the movements of the stars. The Pleiades, for instance, they believe to

a version as it ever has received. It would be easy to collect many proofs of the extensive diffusion of this ancient faith, traces of which are to be found in the primitive astronomy of every people. The classical reader will at

muse-she saw

by none but qu

founder to the

alone confes

it shot thro

nd a radiant

eir great chiefs who may be unwell when it is seen. Like the vulgar among ourselves, too, they have their man in the moon; who,

heir number, according to him, is very great, and each of them has his distinct powers and functions; one being placed over the elements, another over

logy and that of the ancient Malay tribe, the Battas of Sumatra, whose extraordinary cannibal practices we have already detailed; especially in the circumstance of the thr

TNO

B

in a village; in the Tahitian, Mangaian, and Paumotan langua

B

th's "Hawaiki," articles by Mr. Elsdon Best in the "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," articles by that author and by Mr. Per