PART II.

We have now arrived at an epoch in our story, the time when missionaries first ventured to reside among the savage tribes of which we write. The missionaries had paid several visits to those tribes, and it will be remembered that traders had done the same. Pakeha-Maoris also, in at least four instances, had risked short residences among them, but such residences were dangerous; and in one case alluded to, that of a man named Cabbage, who lived in 1833 at Rotorua, had terminated fatally, for he was murdered on the island of Mokoia by two chiefs, for the sake of the merchandise in his possession. One of his murderers still lives at Whakatane.

The missionaries destined for this under­taking waited for a certain time at the Bay of Islands, hoping some opening would present itself in the South, to afford a better chance of successfully prosecuting their labours. As, however, no such opportunity occurred, they determined to delay no longer; and so we find that in the early part of 1834 three brethren, Messrs Preece, Wilson, and Fairburn, landed with their families at Puriri, near the mouth of the Thames; and that within eighteen months they were followed by Messrs Chapman, Morgan, Brown, Hamlin, Maunsell, Stack, and Wade; the last-named missionary, however, did not stay long in that part of the country.

The New Zealand settler of the Northern Island, who at the present time reflects indis­criminately, and in a general manner on missionaries—and there are too many that do so, confounds the early missionary, to whose perils and labours he is indebted for his footing on this soil, with some missionaries who came to the country after those perils had ceased— when the Maori had become another man—with men who by their actions seemed less conscious than even the settlers of what the Maoris had been, and to what he might again revert; who, in short, were experimentally ignorant of, and undisciplined by, the difficulties and dangers with which the early missionary’s path had been beset, and therefore prone to err—like other raw recruits—in despising and ignoring danger. Therefore such New Zealand colonists as have lately become accustomed to scatter animadver­sions broadcast on the missionary body are, we trust, either ignorant or forgetful of the dreadful state of society, which existed here before the missionaries came to the country; and which, prior to 1834, formed the normal condition of the Maori tribes south of Tamaki—a condition, which, under God, was changed only by those early missionaries; and which, until so changed, entirely defeated all colonising efforts. This is no bare assertion or speculative opinion, but a matter established in the country’s history by the manner in which the first New Zealand Company’s attempt to colonise the Thames, in 1826, was frustrated.

 

Residence of Colonel Wakefield, principal agent of the New Zealand Company, Wellington,

 

In November, 1826, an English ship full of immigrants sailed up the Hauraki Gulf. Their mineralogist having reported Pakihi, the Sand­spit Island, to be extremely rich in iron ore, the leaders of the enterprise purchased the island, intending immediately to open an iron mine; but the increasing number of natives, who probably came over from the river Thames, and their ferocious appearance and conduct, so alarmed the immigrants, that they refused to land; and their leaders being similarly dismayed, they gave up the scheme, pocketed their loss, and, having called at the Bay of Islands and Hokianga, sailed to Australia, and ultimately engaged elsewhere in a pearl fishery. Those simple “people were so alarmed at the ferocious appearance and conduct of the natives, that they were afraid to land,” and with good reason, for a country infested with lions and tigers probably would not have deterred them from carrying out their schemes of colonising their island, and digging their mine; but the numerous bloodthirsty occupants they found in organised hordes, were of so destructive and remorseless a character, as utterly to forbid the hope of preserving existence among them— savages, whose degradation of cannibalism was hardly removed from Fijian horrors, and but a step from the practices of Mr Du Chaillu’s Fans.

It should be remembered, in justice to the first missionaries, that there was a time when Maori character and habits did not accord with the pleasant scenes of native excellence, which sanguine imaginations have from time to time delighted to paint—pictures overwrought, and drawn from a particular point of view. Thus the interesting and amiable individuals des­cribed might have been seen at Tauranga, Rotorua, or Maketu, in the years 1836 and 1837, to leave their homes as naked men, and travel through the wastes and forests of the land; then lashing themselves to frenzy, with the excited action, hideous gestures, and horrid yells of the war-dance, they would rush upon their enemy; if fortune favoured their side, they would in­dulge in a repast on the bodies of the slain. And now our ghoul-like hero, having surfeited himself, and put as much flesh into a kit as can be conveniently carried, leaves the half-cooked, half-gnawed remains, and returns home, taking his victim’s head with him. This latter he gives to his little naked children to play with. The girl nurses it like a doll; the boy goes about endeavouring to attract attention, and holds it up to view in much the same way that a more civilized child would try to submit a new toy for inspection. Let not this be thought an exag­gerated account of the Maori’s former ferocity. The sequel will show its truth in each par­ticular; and it is verified, to the letter, by the journals of old missionaries.

New Zealand was a shocking land then, for even her women stooped to lick the human gore that freely dyed her soil. The callousness of those females was truly wonderful. Thus a woman, whose husband was killed, with many more of her tribe, at Rotorua—we do not say when, or by whom—was taken with her two children into slavery. Soon her master, who had eaten her husband, desired to take her to wife, but, as a preliminary step to sever old ties, and get rid of encumbrances, he killed and ate both her children; and yet that woman who would probably have been impelled by acuter feelings to commit murder or suicide, lived con­tentedly enough, and had a numerous second family. This insensibility is, however, greatly attributable to the habits contracted from girlhood to womanhood, and until the time of marriage, when fear compels more self-restraint. The natives do not disapprove of their young people’s wantonness. They see, or rather they saw no harm in what was called child’s play, and were quite indifferent to the evils resulting from the promiscuous nocturnal assignations of the young and unmarried.

This point in Maori character has been much disregarded, though the natives themselves affect no secrecy about it. Yet its moral, social, and physical importance can hardly be overestimated; as the tastes acquired in youth and early maturity were generally retained through life; and hence the natives—even in their most Christian days—observed the seventh commandment more in the breach than the perform­ance. We are not sure that the missionaries were generally aware of the cankerworm, that gnawed the root of the plant they sought to cherish; but we know one excellent member of that body, who saw the evil, and did his utmost to induce the natives of his district—Rotorua —to overcome it. He vainly urged his native teachers to set an example, by partitioning their dwellings into rooms. One teacher did indeed begin a wall, but never finished it; and so apathetic and deplorably low did the natives’ tone of mind on the subject appear to be, that the missionary’s heart misgave him, and he feared, should their habits remain unchanged, that their profession of Christianity would prove hollow and unenduring. Time has justi­fied those apprehensions; for this has not been the least among the causes which have led to the decay of religion amongst the Maoris, and which ever predisposed them to associate with the debased portions of our own population.

To the above slight sketch of the ferocity and depravity of some New Zealanders in 1836 and 1837, we will merely add a few words, descrip­tive of their personal, always confining our remarks to the softer sex, as being the more refined. They were clothed from the waist to the knees, generally with a rough mat, and another small mat was often thrown over the shoulders. Most people are aware that they were never tattooed as their lords were—a por­tion on the lips, a pattern on the chin, and a few lines and scratches on the arms and breasts, were considered to be about the correct quantum of tattooing for ladies. But then they were allowed to use any amount of red paint on their limbs and bodies. It was a mixture of red ochre and rancid shark oil, and formed a coating, which was suffered to adhere as long as it liked. The smell of the paint was mingled with that of an amulet, worn round the neck, made of a certain kind of grass, and prepared in a peculiar manner; and which was of the size, colour, and odour, of a small dead rat; so we may perhaps be pardoned for saying that the entree of a select circle was overpowering to the olfactory nerves, and, in fact, not at all agree­able. At home, the women worked hard in the plantations, rowed the canoes, and did all the carrying work, the men having wisely tapued their backs. The burdens these poor creatures were accustomed to bear, were really wonderful, and far exceeded in weight anything carried in the olden time by the female bearers in the Newcastle collieries. Their gait was often per­manently affected by it; being changed into an awkward kind of waddle, in which the heels were kept apart, and the toes turned in. Mr Darwin would probably tell us that such extra­ordinary physical powers were due to the gradual selection, by nature, of a variety of the species. But what would that eminent naturalist say to the periodical inversion, by the females of that variety, of the law that gives the parasite its prey? Nothing in his synthetical work, nothing in his chapter on “the struggle for existence, ’’ exceeds in horror the dreadfully anoma­lous crusades which those amiable ladies regularly engaged in,—apparently from selfish rather than benevolent motives—and in which themselves, their children, and their dogs were concerned.

Thus have we endeavoured, cursorily, to sketch the more prominent characteristics of the Maori inhabitants of the districts we write of in Waharoa’s time. But to obtain a correct view of the troubled times, and scenes, which chequered the lives of all who lived in Tauranga, Rotorua, and Matamata districts, during the last years of that chief, it is neces­sary to advert more particularly to the new influence which then began to affect the Maori mind.

We have already seen that in March, 1834, a small, but remarkable, band of missionaries appeared at the Puriri; but three at first, in less than two years their numbers had been augmented to nine, of whom seven were laymen. Settled they were not, for in obedience to their Master, and protected by Him in many dangers, as messengers of religion and civilisation, they traversed the Thames, Tauranga, Rotorua, Matamata, Maungatautari, Upper and Lower Waikato and Manukau districts. They found as our readers have by this time seen, a nation of bloodthirsty cannibals, turbulent, treach­erous, and revengeful; repulsive in habits, naked, licentious and filthy. The change wrought during the ensuing six or seven years on this people, by the teaching and examples of these good men and their wives was marvellous.

At the end of nine years the last traces of cannibalism had been erased; before that time, even in 1840, many villages were entirely Christian, and the population of all their large pas were chiefly of the same belief. Morning and evening they attended their devotions. Their outward observance of the Decalogue would have caused many, their superiors otherwise, to blush. They learned to read, write, and cipher; they were clothed tolerably decently; they gradually became more cleanly in their persons; and wars and murders had nearly ceased; and last, but not least, there was a certain desire, not generally apparent now, to do justice by each other, and by the Europeans who traded with them.

To suppose such unparalleled results were lightly attained would be unreasonable; no dis­passionate mind, endowed with common sense, could be guilty of such an error. It was only by great energy of mind and body, fearlessly but judiciously directed, that those devoted men were enabled to effect their triumphs. Would, that the ground they conquered had been retained by those who followed them!

As opportunities occurred, the missionaries established stations, where they placed their families; but in the wars which then raged, two of those homes were destroyed. One was entered, devastated, and partially burnt, by a hostile taua; the other was entirely burnt by a war party; and a third station was almost aban­doned. Then every evening, for weeks together, ladies once used to the comforts and refinements of an English home, were conducted, with their children, to some sandy island, or other place, where they might be secure from the prowling murdering parties, that nightly sought their prey. Yet, though their own situation was so frequently perilous, the missionaries shrank not from the duty of giving timely warning to such natives as they sometimes learned had been marked for slaughter.

The following incident of this kind serves to illustrate the singular influence the missionaries acquired, and shows the promptitude and great­ness of the efforts they were capable of making. Two of their number, Messrs. Wilson, and Fairburn, received intelligence of an expedition that was about to cut off a party of unsuspecting persons, engaged in scraping flax, on the banks of a stream about fifty miles off. Taking one or two Christian natives as guides, and to assist in their boat, on a stormy night the missionaries set forth. Though the rain fell in torrents, the gale was pretty fair, and in the morning they landed, having accomplished about half their journey. But the harder portion yet remained; for the hills were slippery, and the streams swollen by the continued rain, so that in crossing one stream, they were compelled to construct a mokihi, or catamaran of flax stalks. In twenty-four hours the missionaries had descended the Thames a considerable distance, and crossed its frith; they had ascended the Piako, and walked across the hilly country that separates that river from the Maramarua, a stream which empties itself into the Waikato at Wangamarino; and now, towards evening, though sorely tried with fatigue and exposure, they neared the place where the people they sought to rescue were staying. As they advanced their anxiety increased, for the taua had taken a shorter road, while the mission­aries, to maintain the secrecy necessary to the success of the undertaking, were obliged to take a more circuitous route. Urged on, therefore, by the exigency of the occasion, they used every effort, for the unsuspecting natives at Mara­marua were the rearguard of a party of Waikatos, whose main body had gone to Wakatiwai, to endeavour to bring about a peace with the Thames natives; while the Thames natives, knowing that the flax-scraping party at Mara­marua had been left by the peace-seeking expedition in charge of their canoes there, privately sent a taua to cut them off. Hence the brethren felt that not only were the lives of the Maramarua party at stake, but that the success of the taua would utterly overthrow, or indefinitely postpone, all hopes of terminating the long and bloody war between the Thames and Waikato tribes.

Now, there were two landing places, some distance from each other, on the banks of the Maramarua stream, and the road dividing led to each of them. Mr. Fairburn, accompanied by the native guides, proceeded to the lower landing place, while Mr. Wilson branched off by himself for the upper. Presently the latter missionary arrived on a summit above the stream, and saw the objects of his search one hundred yards from him, sitting on its banks outside their whare. He also saw the taua about five hundred yards from them, approaching from the lower landing place, along the margin of a swamp. Not a moment was to be lost; he shouted, but the wind prevented his being heard. The Waikato group, however, saw him, and when he took off his coat and waved it, they rose as one man, and gazed fixedly until he repeated the signal. Then, without confusion, they seemed to slink into their canoes, and in an incredibly short time, were paddling away; so that when Mr. Wilson reached the hut, the last canoe was just disappearing in the windings of the stream.

Scarcely had our missionary time to realise the event, and to think of his own situation, when the first man of the fight appeared. He was a naked, square-built, powerful, dark- complexioned, forbidding-looking fellow, who, eager for the fray, had outstripped his companions—on he came, dripping with rain, with his left arm en garde, wound round with a mat, and his right hand tightly clutching a short tomahawk, he was too intent on entering the hut to perceive the missionary, who stood near and watched his movements. He did not go straight in at the doorway, as a measured blow might have been dealt him; but suddenly he leaped obliquely through it, making at the same time a ward to defend himself. Some disappointment must, however, have ensued, as he quickly came out, and, running with uplifted weapon in search of prey, met Mr. Wilson. He paused, and scarcely restraining himself, looked the white man full in the face—it was a critical moment—but the countenance of the latter was firm, and the eye of the savage fell, and, wan­dering, lit upon a pig asleep close by, which luckily served as a safety-valve to the explosive power of his fury, and was despatched instanter by a blow on the head.

But the taua came up, and was extremely glum. Mr. Fairburn, too, following on its track, presently arrived. All went into the long low hut, for night had set in, and the weather continued bad. The whare was crowded, and the missionary party were to­gether at one end of it. For two hours the taua maintained a dogged silence—most trying to their neighbours. They neither ate, nor did they light a single pipe; they merely kindled a fire, and it was impossible to foresee the upshot of the matter when the missionaries at length had prayers with their party, beginning with the Maori hymn:

“E! Ihu homai e koe

He ngakau hou ki au.”

“O! Jesus give to me

A heart made new by Thee.

The attention of the taua was quickly riveted. The hard countenances of the sullen and chagrined men gradually relaxed, as listening, they mutely acknowledged the superior power of the pakehas’ Atua—perhaps from their own superstitious fear at His having so palpably thwarted their enterprise—or perhaps a nobler influence was then mysteriously working in their minds. At any rate, when that short service had ended, the natives’ conduct became so altered that it seemed as though a spell had been removed from them. Fires were made, food was prepared, and the carcase of the pig, which had lain neglected, was cut up, and a portion, together with a present of potatoes, was handed to the missionaries; conversation followed, and the evening ended better than it began. So great, however, had been the mental and bodily strain on the brethren, that next day, on the homeward journey, one of them, Mr. Fairburn, repeatedly fainted, and was with some difficulty escorted back to the boat. On that day, Koinaki, leader of the party, and the great guerilla captain of Ngatimaru tribe, said to the missionaries: “If Waharoa will cease fighting, I will do the same.’’ He kept his word, and thus, in 1835, ended the last episode in the Ngatihaua and Ngatimaru war.

The following interviews will show how, in a few years, the thoughts and habits of these very natives became changed.

At Whakatane, twelve years after the incident above recorded, a Maori, well-dressed in sailor’s clothes, presented himself before Mr. Wilson, and the following conversation ensued:

“Do you know me?”

“No, I do not remember ever having seen you before.”

“I am the man who first entered the hut at Maramarua.”

‘‘Indeed I They were sad days then.’’

“Yes, they were the days of our ignorance; but we know better now.”

“And pray what brings you here, away from your tribe”

“Oh! I am a sailor, and I have been requested by So-and-so to bring his vessel here.”

This man, however, was not the only native that remembered and spoke afterwards of Maramarua. Mr. Fairburn retired from the mission, and Mr. Wilson removed to the Bay of Plenty; and Koinaki, on parting on that occasion from the latter gentleman, did not see him again until after a lapse of twenty years. Yet, so impressed had his mind been with the events of that day that, upon meeting the missionary, he exclaimed, “Mr. Wilson, do you remember Maramarua ?’’

We have thus noticed in full the foregoing Maramarua episode, in order to furnish, once for all, an example of a class of incident by no means uncommon in the early days of the New Zealand mission, and to illustrate the very remarkable manner in which the Maoris— savage as they were, and bad as they were— were sometimes influenced by Christianity.

But there were certain elements in the Maori mind which predisposed the natives to accept Christianity, and facilitated its spread amongst them:—

1.-They had no idols; all their divinities were of a spiritual nature. They had, indeed, their tapued images, houses, places, things; their tapued persons, and their tanas tapu; but the sacredness of those tapus was an extrinsic mode, having some reference or connection, directly or indirectly, to a spiritual atua. Hence, their ideas on matters of tapu were often extremely subtle and metaphysical. Thus in 1836, at Rotorua, at a place where a cannibal feast had occurred a fortnight before, a native was asked, “What he expected Whiro, the god of war, to do with the offerings left to him on the ground—did he think Whiro would eat them?” He replied: “The question is a very absurd one, for how can a spirit eat food? How can mind consume matter? The outward forms of those offerings to Whiro remain the same, but the god has absorbed their mana”—that is, virtue or essence. The offerings consisted of a cooked piece of heart or liver, a lock of hair, and a cooked potato, each placed on a small stick planted in the ground by a little oven—for Whiro had his own separate oven, about the size of a dinner-plate. The flesh and hair had been taken from the body of the first man killed in the battle, which body was a wakahere held tapu to the atua. And sometimes, in a doubtful strife, the priest of a taua would hastily rip out the wakahere’s heart, and, muttering incanta­tions, would wave it to the atua, to ensure the success of his people.

2.-Their practical acknowledgment that the shedding of blood cancelled evil. This doctrine of atonement occasionally involved them against their inclination in wars and broils, which, on the violation of a tapu, were engaged in to avenge the atua’s honour, and to avert from themselves, their wives and their children, the evils and diseases supposed to be inflicted on such as were remiss on the atua’s behalf.

Besides their atua’s grievances, they had their own private ones also; sometimes, too, these classes were interwoven, sometimes hope­lessly entangled. But in no case were they satisfied until an atonement in blood had been obtained; and the duty of seeking such redress was handed down from father to son, if neces­sary, even to the third generation. The following dialogue, which occurred some years ago, between two travellers on a lonely road, sufficiently exemplifies this:—

Maori: “I have had several opportunities to-day of killing you.”

European—uneasily—“What do you mean?”

Maori: “That among us, Maoris, strangers never travel as we are doing—walking close behind each other through copses and narrow places such as this is.”

European: “Why?”

Maori: “Because, although on good terms with my companion, yet I might know of some unavenged evil my ancestors had sustained, which he had forgotten, or perhaps never heard of, and then, if I had an opportunity, I should kill him.”

So necessary, indeed, was satisfaction of this nature to comfort their too susceptible con­sciences, that in the event of their being unable or unwilling to obtain a recompense from the offenders, they would turn to other quarters; and ultimately get utu by killing persons utterly unconnected with them or their affairs, and who may have been ignorant of their very existence.

3.-They say that conscience warned them of the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.

4.-They were naturally religious. Their affairs, whether political, civil, or social, were all blended with religion or superstition. It was invoked when they fished, planted, and gathered in their crops; when they sent out a taua, or when they attacked a pa. If they engaged in warlike operations, they observed the flight of shooting stars, and divined the atua’s approval or disapproval of their expeditions. If a star travelled towards the enemy’s country, the omen was favourable; but on an opposite course, it was sufficient to paralyse the heart of the stoutest taua, and cause the most superstitious of its warriors to return to their homes. In the assault and defence of pas the moon was studied. That satellite was supposed to represent the pa, and her eclipse—should it happen, as was the case the night before Te Tumu was taken—would most surely prognosticate its fall. So also the relative positions of stars with the moon indicated the success or otherwise of attacking tauas against a pa.

Failing these auguries, the tohunga (priest) would repeat his enchantments, and cast the niu. This ceremony was performed by taking a number of small sticks—each representing in the tohunga’s mind a particular hapu, or section of the assailants—and throwing them hap­hazard towards a small space described on the ground, which betokened the pa; the tohunga was able, by the way they fell upon the ground, and the directions they pointed in, to presage whether an attack would prove successful; and, if so, to assign to the various tribes, or hapus, the parts they should take in the proposed assault.

Their planting, too, was preceded by incantations and tapus, and their harvesting by an offering of first-fruits to the atua. In short, the genius of the people was nearly as essen­tially religious, and their actions, as subject to the control of their tohungas, as we are told the Thibetans are influenced in all their civil and social arrangements by the Grand Lama and his Buddhistical priesthood.

Hence the native bent of the Maori mind caused the people, as they embraced Chris­tianity, gradually to place themselves as a matter of course under the guidance of a sort of Christian theocracy. They sought the missionary’s advice in secular affairs so frequently that, in addition to being their teacher, he became their magistrate and doctor. Yet was their religion rather that of the head than the heart. It was a principle propelled to action in many cases, and especially latterly, by the superstition latent in their minds—by the fear of incurring the atua’s displeasure. They ever lacked the opposite principle of gratitude; it was so foreign to their ideas, that they had not even a word to express it, and the missionaries were obliged to borrow wakawhetai from a Polynesian language to supply the deficiency, and convey their instructions.

It was under the auspices of this mild mis­sionary regime—which, if a government, was a very singular one, seeing there were no laws, and an almost total absence of crime—that the first British Governor set foot on the shores of New Zealand. He, Governor Hobson, and his successor Fitzroy, were well aware they had no physical means of enforcing law and maintaining order among the natives. Therefore, as much as possible, they pursued the policy of availing themselves of the moral influence the missionaries possessed—an influence which had laid the natives’ passions, had prepared the way for the founding of the colony, and formed the only tie (that of religion, tinged with super­stition in the minds receiving it) by which the turbulence of the Maoris was held in check.

The missionaries, however, to avoid an ambiguous relation to the civil power—a position alike alien and prejudicial to their vocation—permitted one of their number to retire from the mission and join the Government, for the purpose of managing native affairs. But the Governor’s selection of the gentleman to fill this new and important office was scarcely a happy one for the country; for, although a very sincere, well-meaning person, he took extravagant views of his duties as Native Protector, and the natives became over­bearing. They found themselves continually sheltered and favoured, and discovered to their surprise that Europeans—who, before the advent of a government, had managed to take care of themselves—were now neglected, and virtually unprotected. In truth, the first Governor erred in judgment when he created a Native Protectorate. The natives then required no special protection any more than they do now. Then they learned to despise the weak­ness of our administration, and expect that particular kind of justice which they have since been accustomed to obtain; then, too, began the troubles of the young colony.

If, instead of establishing a questionable advocateship under the guise of a protectorship, the Governor had entrusted a Commissioner of judgment and ability with the supervision of native affairs—some person who, by firmness, tact, and a conciliatory address, should have endeavoured, during the political honeymoon that followed the union of English and Maori power at the Treaty of Waitangi, to secure the ground the missionaries had conquered by a candid and impartial policy; who, by an equitable appeal to the merits of the cases submitted for his decision or advice, and by summoning to his aid the natives’ strong sense of justice, and their desire to do right (for old settlers can bear witness that in those days almost anything might have been done with them), might perhaps have induced a superior style of justice. Had such a course been pur­sued, those evils which have gradually increased, until now they well nigh overwhelm this unhappy land, would possibly have been averted; or at all events, they would have been experienced in a mitigated form.

When Captain Grey succeeded, or rather superseded, Captain Fitzroy in the government of this country, he swept away the Native Pro­tectorate. This step, though it appeared to initiate a policy the reverse of his predecessors, did not really do so; for, notwithstanding the office was closed and the officer paid off, yet the principle that had animated the old protectorate was retained, and its disadvantages were shortly afterwards very much intensified by the introduction of that, which has since been popularly known as the “flour-and-sugar-policy. ’’ This policy was a strenuous effort on the part of the Government to civilise the Maoris by liberally and gratuitously supplying them with the many material advantages which are necessary to the comfort and well-being of civilised man; and it also somewhat assumed the character of a system of bribery to keep the peace.

Now, if a man of a civilised mind be cast—like the English sailor Rutherford—amongst savages, he may be compelled by the force of circumstances outwardly to appear like his associates; but the tastes, sympathies, and desires of his mind will remain unchanged, and his yearning for the civilised condition of life, which is natural to him, will probably increase with his absence from it. On the other hand— with all due respect for estimable characters of the mythical Man Friday school—we venture to say that, if a savage be removed from his own to a civilised country, he may perhaps for a while be pleased with the novelties he sees, but he will soon grow weary of them; the forms and restraints of an artificial life will be irksome, and though he may externally conform to the usages of those around, in heart he will be a savage still, and long for the freedom of his native wilds.

If he be followed to those wilds, and the benefits of civilisation be pressed upon him there, he will receive certain of them, such as axes, fish-hooks, knives, etc.; if of a pugnacious turn, he will probably accept them all, and require more as a tribute to his power. But the moment any of the combustible elements in his bosom in the shape of anger, hatred, revenge, fear, suspicion, fanaticism, or superstition, are fired, he will be ready unhesitatingly to relin­quish all connection with civilisation, and go where his passions lead him; for he is the very antipodes of a certain style of artificial life, which dwarfs even the generous passions of the mind, lest they should interfere with the worldly advancement of their possessor.

But Sir George Grey’s policy towards the natives was founded on principles diametrically opposed to those contained in the foregoing remarks. First, lie broke the spell that held them, and severed the only tie we had on their minds, by undermining the missionaries’ influence; and then he sought, by dispensing gifts with a liberal hand, to win the natives to civilisation, and raise up his own personal influence in its place. This was called the “ flour-and-sugar policy,” from the peculiar form in which it was frequently exhibited. It lasted very well during his time, because at first the natives ’ minds only retrograded gradually; several years elapsed before they could divest themselves of the ideas they had acquired from the early missionaries, from whom they had learned a good deal—about as much as they were likely ever to learn. Anyhow, their minds had become tranquilised; and, during the calm, the policy lived its little span. But, if the men who endeavoured to settle at the Thames in 1826 had resorted to it for protection, they would have been as much disappointed as many are now, who have been accustomed to eulogise Sir George Grey’s native policies, and to expect great things from them.

Doubtless Sir George Grey had a difficult problem to solve, and one that then was but little understood. Physical force was out of the question. England had neither the dis­position nor the power to resort to the subjugation of the country. This is no assertion, but simply an historical fact. Thus Lord Hardinge stated that she had only 10,000 men and 42 crazy guns available to defend London in 1841, when war with France, who had 300,000 regular troops disposable, was most imminent. In 1846, Lord Palmerston, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, informed the Cabinet, by a minute, that the whole Imperial force, exclusive of India, was only 88,000 men, 24,000 of whom were required in Ireland; leaving only 64,000 for the defence of England and her colonies. Again, in 1852, the Duke of Wellington, in the last important speech he made in Parliament, when addressing the Lords on a bill to enable the Government to raise 80,000 militia, said: “We have never, up to this moment, maintained a proper peace establishment; that is the real truth; and we are now in such a position that we can no longer carry on that system, and we must have a suitable peace establishment. I tell you that, for the last ten years, you have never had more men in your armies than was sufficient to relieve your sentries in the different parts of the world; such is the state of your peace establishment. You have been carrying on war in all parts of the globe, in the different stations, by means of your peace establishment; yet on that establishment you have not more men than are necessary to relieve the sentries and regiments on foreign service, some of which have been twenty-five years abroad.” From the above statements it is easy to see that during Sir George Grey’s first government here, a war, on an effective scale, with the Maoris, was a thing impossible. The Manchester school of politicians would not suffer it. The large and influential section of the religious public at home, that looks implicitly to the platform at Exeter Hall for information and guidance, never dreamt of it. It was hardly to be supposed that, under these circumstances, England could tolerate a vexatious war in an insignificant colony like New Zealand— at a time, too, when the handful of troops she had at home (less than a third of the number stated by the Duke of Wellington to be necessary to garrison her coast fortifications) were fully occupied in her disturbed and distressed manufacturing districts; when the political and social condition of Ireland gave her constant uneasiness; when pauperism was so rife that in England and Wales every eleventh person belonged to that class, and want so general that riots occurred even in Scotland; and whilst her unparalleled catastrophe in Afghanistan was green in her memory, and her exchequer yet suffered a deficit of nearly £5,000,000 of a sum total of more than £12,000,000 that had been there lost to the empire; and while a dark cloud over the Punjab daily became more threatening. Could it then be any matter of surprise that Governor Fitzrov—who, to uphold the honour of the British flag, had engaged in war with inade­quate forces—was recalled, and that Governor Grey very shortly afterwards discontinued the strife?

 

 

Sir George Grey, KCB (14 de abril de 1812 – 19 de septiembre de 1898) fue un militar, explorador, administrador colonial y escritor inglés. Sirvió en una sucesión de cargos de gobierno: gobernador de Australia Meridional, dos veces gobernador de Nueva Zelanda, gobernador de la colonia del Cabo (Sudáfrica) y undécimo primer ministro de Nueva Zelanda.

Our readers are not yet informed of all the measures which the new Governor took to sup­port the interests of his Sovereign, in his efforts to secure the establishment of her viceroy’s personal influence over the natives. Without power himself, he knew when he landed that there was a moral force in the country, which his predecessors had used and valued—an influence, however, that did not properly belong to his sphere, and might not at all times be commanded by him, and which if not actually considered a rival, might at any rate be supposed to preoccupy the natives’ attention, to the exclusion of the scheme he hoped to set up. But whatever the Governor’s views were, his first act towards the men whose benevolent labours had gained this remarkable influence, was one of open hostility. When Ruapekapeka Pa was taken, certain letters from a European were found in it. These the Governor assumed to be treasonable; and though at the time it was generally understood they had been written by a missionary during a series of years prior to the war, on subjects unconnected with politics, yet he caused them to be burned unread.

It may appear strange to some persons who are unacquainted with the history of New Zealand during the last fifty years, that the individual aspersed, and the fraternity he belonged to, did not suffer under the withering imputation cast upon them by the Queen’s representative; but it would really have been more strange had they done so—for the simple reason that the missionaries were better known than the Governor. The gentleman whose unread letters were burnt as treasonable, was of the number of England’s naval heroes, whose deeds, as recorded by their historian, James, have ever been considered a sufficient guarantee of the loyalty and devotion of the British naval officer; Sir E. Home, commanding the squadron in the Bay of Islands, probably felt this, when he very unmistakably expressed himself on the subject; for never since Byng’s time—when ninety years before an innocent naval officer was criminally sacrificed, for reasons of state—had an officer of that “old school,” whether on service or retired, been accused of treachery or cowardice in reference to his country’s enemies. The gentleman in question served, in 1801, as a midshipman in Nelson’s own ship, the ‘Elephant,’ at Copenhagen, and, after many eventful years of naval warfare, he fought his last battle for his country as a lieutenant on board the ‘Endymion,’ when she took the American frigate ‘President,’ in 1815, in an action characterised by the great Scottish historian of the present day as “one of the most honourable ever fought by the British navy, and in none was more skilful seamanship displayed.” Seven years after the conclusion of the war, we find our sailor in New Zealand, endeavouring, with religious zeal, to convert its natives to Christianity. A few months after his arrival, he laid the keel of the missionary schooner ‘Herald,’ and, with such assistance as could be procured, he completed her in 1826. His voyage, in this vessel, with Messrs. Hamlin and Davis, in the Bay of Plenty, in the year 1828, we have already narrated. Of him, the author of the “Southern, Cross and Southern Crown” says:—“With a heart given to God, and zealous for the salvation of the heathen, he combined an indomitable perseverance with a spirit of ardent enterprise that carried him through difficulties and obstacles under which most men would have succumbed.’’ Such, then, was the man: one of the oldest, most experienced, and most valued of the brethren, against whom, for reasons of State, a step was taken which might have had the effect of disparaging the Church missionaries in New Zealand.

We confess we may seem to have wandered from our subject, but it is so in appearance rather than reality. For the progress of the religious spell that settled on the Maori mind is intimately connected with the remaining portion of Te Waharoa’s story; and, as we believe the natives’ subsequent retrogression to be largely due to the causes which paralysed the hands that had been instrumental in establishing and maintaining that religious condition, so, in justice to our readers, and to the memory of the early missionaries (of the nine missionaries and their wives, that landed at Puriri, in 1834 and 1835, more than half are dead, and of the survivors not one can be said to be engaged in the missionary field), we feel reluctantly constrained to touch upon an uninviting portion of our colonial history.

As may be easily conceived, the good name of the little band that landed at the Puriri was bound up with the reputation of their brethren in the North. Therefore, when, to New Zealand and the world, their brethren were proclaimed to be nothing better than a company of land sharks, whose unlawful claims, if suffered to be retained by them, would probably involve the expenditure of a large amount of British blood and treasure; when, to the skilled pen of a wary statesman, and the fluent tongue of a zealous prelate, whose laudable ambition prompted him to lop a growth which never should have flourished on other than clerical stems, is added the cry which rose throughout the land from many Pakeha-Maoris, who, rejoiced for once to have authority on their side, eagerly embraced the opportunity presented to lessen the missionaries’ restraining influence; when, too, the crusade was entered on across the sea, and the agitation in England so assiduously sustained, that in one year the Church Missionary Society’s funds fell off to such an alarming extent that its directors (who had discerned the gathering storm, and had sent out to the colony other, and different stems, to revive the fallen and faded growth, by grafting it on them) were now compelled, under pressure of popular outcry, to put forth their hands and uproot one of their most honoured patriarchs; and when, besides the shadow from the cloud in the North, their own atmosphere was pronounced hazy by such authorities as for the time being were able to influence others, and considered themselves most qualified to judge—it was openly affirmed that two of their number had weakly suffered themselves, some ten years previously, to be overcome by the urgent, repeated, and united solicitations of certain belligerent tribes, and had purchased from them certain debatable lands in order to stop the further effusion of blood; and it was also stated that four other members of their party had land claims, viz., Wilson and Stack’s grant, 2,987 acres; J. Preece’s grants, 1,273 acres; and for Archdeacon Brown’s, £583 scrip, the Government received 7,630 acres (vide Court of Claims Papers);—when all these varied and concen­trated influences combined openly to assault, or stealthily to sap, the missionaries’ position, it was easy to see that success was sure; for the edifice, though a good one, was built on the sand.

We have already remarked that the Maoris’ Christianity was of the head rather than the heart. Speaking generally, we believe it to have been a mass of Christian knowledge, mingled with superstitious fear, and guided by an instinctive obedience to the missionary teachers of their religion, just as in the previous religious dynasty the genius of the people caused them to honour and obey their tohungas.

In short, as the old Maori religion had furnished them with laws, so the precepts of their newly acquired Christian religion were scrupulously observed; not from its true spring of inward life, but because they were accustomed to govern their actions by the dictates of the persons they trusted to explain the will of the atua they feared. And if our remarks on this head are brought down a step further in their history, to the time when, after a season of mental chaos, they embraced the Hauhau creed, we shall observe the selfsame obedience to their tiu (priests), coupled with a rigorous adherence to the forms and ceremonies of the new superstition.

Hence, in the Maori race, the curious phenomenon is seen of much religious or super­stitious devotion, exhibited, however, from time to time, in a series of religions, and each religion adapted to the supposed circumstances and requirements of the generation professing it.

Therefore, as we have said, when confidence was withdrawn from its teachers, the Christian religion declined; its foundation in their minds was not the true one, and the grafting process we have named was not successful. The new missionaries were unable to acquire the lost influence of the old ones, notwithstanding some of them advanced the novel doctrine, which ultimately gained favour with the natives, and had reference to the non-disposal of their lands to the Government.

To become acquainted with the various phases of Maori life and character during the last half century, and to know something of the origin of the political complications of the present time, it is necessary to study the history of the gradual rise, culmination, and quick decline of the Church Mission in New Zealand. The study is an instructive one, inasmuch as, to the reflective mind, it illustrates the impartial and retributive character of the Divine administration; it shows, even at the antipodes, that a departure from justice under colour of justice recoils on its authors; it matters not whether the transgression be that of a potentate or prelate, a government or a missionary society, its punishment is equally sure. We see that in affairs civil and political, difficulties have arisen which baffle the utmost skill; and if we look beyond the secular sphere in this country, to a higher order of events, we shall find the fair work once wrought in God’s name, and outwardly prospered by Him, marred and destroyed, and this with His permission.

Doubtless the Maoris had their opportunity to receive the Christian religion, but had failed to do so with a truly Christian spirit; and, therefore, other teachers armed with much authority were suffered to go to them. The natives eyed askance the rustling cassocks, the broadcloth cut square at the corners, and the very dictatorial air of some of the newcomers; and for a while clung to their old teachers, of whose honour they were jealous; but in time this latter feeling became blunted. Still, though they were gradually weaned from their missionaries, yet Providence suffered them not to attach themselves to the men who bore discord to the Church Mission in this country, who divided the house against itself; for the natives themselves not (infrequently experienced the inconvenience of being subject to the same irascible, domineering spirit—aye, and a crochety spirit, too—which continually pained the old missionaries, and sometimes frustrated their labours.

When, in the third year of the colony, the Right Reverend Doctor Selwyn came as first Anglican Bishop to New Zealand, he was joyfully welcomed by the Church missionaries, and immediately installed with his large party in their pleasant and most commodious station, including extensive school premises, at Waimate, near the Bay of Islands. However, after a lapse of two years and a half, the missionaries withdrew this act of generosity, we cannot say why. And so, in the end of 1844, we view the new Bishop removing his numerous train from Waimate to Purewa, near Auckland, as a step preparatory to the establishment of what was afterwards called St. John’s College.

The change from Waimate to the bleak, bare clay hills at St. John’s, proved a trying one to his followers. They were required to toil incessantly while little rewarded their pains, and they were unable to disguise their chagrin, much of the odium of which was cast upon the missionaries; and was their master a ‘‘sadder and a wiser man?”

At this time the missionaries had much influence with the natives. Governor Fitzroy, too, esteemed them highly, not only on account of what they had done for the Government, but also for the assistance they might yet be able to render him. A year after this time Fitzroy returned to England, and shortly after his retirement the Bishop and New Governor entered the lists to do battle with the mission­aries on account of the lands they had bought. We do not intend to defend the missionaries, nor are we going to find fault with them for the purchases they made. The question has been discussed ad nauseam, and no good is likely to result from its resuscitation.

If, as ministers of the Gospel, the missionaries acted unwisely, their fair fame has been sullied. If, after years of danger and toil they succeeded in humanising and Christianising a race of extraordinary ferocity, and rendered this country a field fit for European colonisation; if they accomplished this work to be rewarded only by calumny at the hands of the men who benefited by their labours; in short, if they had faithfully served their God and their country, and, having committed no offence, the finger of envy and popular scorn was upraised against them: if these things are true, can it be any matter of surprise if a recompense has been made ?

Do we not see a once happy country torn with anarchy, bleeding at every pore, bowed down with debt? Do we not see colonists, in their turn, unjustly accused of an inordinate desire to acquire native lands ? Do we not see a number of schemes stranded upon New Zealand’s shores, that were intended to benefit her aboriginal inhabitants? Yes, various schemes, political and educational. High and dry among the former lies the “flour-and-sugar policy,” condemned as unseaworthy. Higher and dryer still amongst the latter lies the wreck of the Maori Institution at St. John’s College, which expired with the odour of a mud-volcano. Broad against the memory of this we would write Carlyle’s excellent motto for crotchets—“My friends, beware of fixed ideas.” Aye—‘‘Give the wisest of us once a fixed idea, and see where his wisdom is!” Make it an offence for young people to take exercise on horseback, and a great offence to be caught smoking a pipe, and the chances are they will err more egregiously. And as a rule we should say, if you wish young people to obtain knowledge, feed them more generously and task them less with bodily toil than was done in the olden time at St. John’s College.

But of the fame of all those well-meant schemes, one only shall stand the test of time. Like some great mountain cone, around and against which other little cones have reared themselves, it is seen from afar vhen they are invisible; whilst to the inhabitants at their bases, the monarch is eclipsed by his satellites. So, by the world, the greatness of that early missionary effort—which rendered the direst nation most harmless—has long been acknowledged, whilst we in the vicinity have lost sight of it.

A few words to the Church Missionary Society and we have done with all, save with old Te Waharoa himself.

When next you are permitted to secure for your Great Master a missionary field like New Zealand, and it becomes your duty to find an overseer for the work, be careful to choose a man of the same stamp as your successful missionaries; thus, if your missionaries are of what is generally termed the evangelical party, or of a higher school, get a Bishop of the same complexion. Avoid a person rejoicing in the possession of highly educated physical and intellectual powers, for he who rejoices in these is too apt to lack the Christian humility he ought to have; and, though it may seem unnecessary to say so, bear in mind your new Bishop, when tried, must govern his temper, else he will sometimes be exhibited to disadvantage before the converts. Deal fairly by your old missionaries; allow them, after thirty or forty years’ service, to claim a pension and retire. You have a duty to perform in this respect which, we are informed, other missionary societies do not neglect. And, lastly, speak truly of the colonists that may settle in your missionary field; for your periodical publications have a great circulation in the mother country, and injurious statements in them, not founded on fact, would wound their feelings. We mention this, because your countrymen in New Zealand have suffered in this manner. Thus much for New Guinea, or any other field to be won.

But for New Zealand—the field that was won, and is lost—it is a consolation to remember how her first English Bishop was endowed with an extraordinary energy; and how his genius— which accomplished the nautical anomaly of uniting in himself the offices of captain, boats­wain, and helmsman—prompted him to essay much that ordinary men would not have presumed to attempt; or, as was once homely but graphically expressed by a New Zealand dignitary—it could not have been an Archbishop, so must have been an Archdeacon—yes, an Archdeacon—who thought “the Bishop was not satisfied with playing first fiddle, but desired to monopolise all the fiddles!” Alas! alas! for harmony. O! banished Harmony! when shall thy sweet influence return?