THE MAORIS “DISCOVERED.”
“And the great god Morduch heaved the earth from its watery bed, and peopled its shores according to his will.”
As Oseba evidently meant to proceed upon his discourse in some predesigned order, he here gave some interesting attention to the Maoris, the natives—or, so-called, aboriginals—of New Zealand.
The orator, in his inimitable manner, described the Maoris with amusing detail. He calls them a fine race of romantic savages, whose physique had undoubtedly been greatly improved by the winning smiles of Zelania’s climate and general aspects; for ’tis said they have been loafing around there for 500 years. “A large, heavy, dark brown people are these Maoris, who, in their own picturesque costume, often looked gracefully noble. Brave and ferocious while untamed, they are usually amiable and indolent when subjected to civilising influences.”
Many of the young women were very pretty, and the children were quick in wit and movement. He did not think that tattooing the under lips of the women had really improved their beauty. Many of the half-castes were very intelligent, and not a few had made excellent reputations, in politics and other “professions.” Many of them, too, had a sublime gift of “gab,” and this trait is shared—even by the men.
Intellectually the Maoris were, Oseba thought, superior to any other tamed savage; but, like other barbarians, when touched by civilisation, they learned and accepted the vices more readily than the virtues. This was noticeable in all civilising movements. Oseba remarked that it was often observed among the Outeroos when speaking of such people, that the “Christian vices” killed them.
“This,” he says, “was natural, for while it takes time to teach the ‘brethren’ the real advantages to be derived from the practices of Christian virtue, the ‘Christian vices’ yield ‘immediate returns.’ ‘Thou shalt not steal’ to a savage produces a peculiarly disagreeable confusion of ideas, and the advantages are not readily apparent, but two drinks of whisky rarely failed to impress. This is a custom peculiar to ‘Christian culture’ that is ‘taking.’
“To judge by the conspicuous exhibitions of artistic effort and the countless displays by the photo fiend in many of Zelania’s towns, a stranger would conclude that the Maoris were the ‘superior’ and dominant race, though there are but a little over 43,000 in the whole country, mostly on the north or warmer island, and it is said they are about stationary in numbers and in morals.”
He told his audience that these Maoris, when originally discovered, were a stalwart, brave and rather superior race of savages; that war was the only argument that appealed to their perverted consciences, and he quoted an admiring New Zealand poet to prove the “amiable” heroism of the Maori “ladies.”
“E’en woman, formed for sweetness, for love, and tender art
Here showed the tiger instinct, the hard and ruthless heart;
Her’s was the task in battle, the wounded braves to slay,
And cook the reeking corpses for the feast that closed the fray.”
“Yes, the Maori women were brave, very brave, but, my children, in all Zelania there was not a mouse.
“Of these Maoris, there are several tribes,” he says, “who, when free from the meddlesome ‘white man’s yoke,’ are usually engaged in slaying and stewing each other, and, besides carving with their greenstone cleavers their cooked brethren and their own faces, they practised much in wood-carving. In this, while the workmanship is fair, there is a manifest lack of a sense of proportion, that amuses the connoisseur as it delighted the amateur in art.
“Like the more common, or at least more numerous and more pretentious white fellow-citizen, these Maoris go to church some, and to school, and to the drink-shop and to jail, but as the Maoris have a little creed of their own, they don’t go to church very much. But if the Maori goes less to church, to school, and to Parliament, he also goes less to jail and to the hotel than his more pretentious white British fellow-citizen.
“The Maoris are picturesque, especially at the more popular tourist resorts, where their presence lends a particularly charming romance to the occasion. The emotional tourist—especially if a young gentleman from ‘Home’—who is safely piloted by the alert, polite, and loquacious ‘Maggie’ among the roaring and exploding geysers of that charming compromise between awe-inspiring beauty and terror, that unpreached sermon, that unsung song, that unwritten poem, that section of hell in an earthly paradise, Rotorua, in whose weird precincts are seen and heard and smelled, at close range, the seething fires of ‘Pluto’s dread abode,’ he will cherish a generous respect for Maori hospitality forever. Under Maggie’s watchful guidance, the most unsophisticated tourist could safely approach the yawning mouth of these boiling caldrons without endangering life or health or appetite; though, unless one heeds the cautious guide, the boot soles are in danger of shrinking, and in these sulphurous regions ‘kuss words’ flow from pious lips.
“Nature,” Oseba argued, “was a unity and is consistent. She ignores individuals, and strives, oblivious to time, for universals. No created thing ever escapes the influence of environment. But Nature carries out her works with the instruments at hand. Whence came these Maoris is a guess, but as in character, stature, proportion, personal bearing, and mental possibilities, no other savage on the globe compares with them, they must have been sufficiently long in Zelania to have become modified by, and made to conform to, the luring conditions of that wonderful country.”
But I must continue:—
As there were no indigenous grains or tameable animals, and as no people ever worked out a civilisation without the assistance of tameable animals, the Maori could only remain a savage, but the climate and general aspect of Nature, the peculiar environing conditions, gave him the noblest soul and most fertile intellect ever housed in the brain of a barbarian. The conduct of the Maoris in defence of their country, considering the relative conditions of the contending forces, found no parallel in history or romance.
They had all the cunning and duplicity of the Greek, the stubborn courage of the ancient Briton, and the stoical disdain for death of the North American Indian. While in the whirligig of the great world’s doings a contest between the most skilful of all warriors and a few small tribes of savages, in so remote a country, could excite no very great interest among the far-away nations, to the watchful student of events there were few pages of history more interesting than the Maori wars in Zelania.
Socially, the Maori was of a peculiar mould. A communist in property, he was an aristocrat by nature, and in his soul there was a haughty exuberance of spirit that rendered tribal discipline difficult, and domestic peace precarious. In war, the Maori was brave; in diplomacy, shrewd; in council, a born orator.
The Maori remained a savage in Zelania because there was nothing to tame him, but in his nature there was the diamond, and, by a little grinding, its brilliancy always burst forth. His native environment had given him everything of a superior mould but the final touch. I quote:—
“Already from the grim huts of these late savages have come forth the orator, the lawyer, the statesman, and the successful business man. ‘From the cannibal feast to the Cabinet,’ is almost true of the Maori.
“The fate of the Maoris?
“Well, my children, I don’t know, but the grafting of civilisation on such a stock may work wonders, and to study these most picturesque of all the sons of Nature, is worth a journey around this little world.
Tattooed Maori Chief.—“Maori Carving.”
“It is most interesting,” continued Oseba, “to study the aboriginals of any country, and it is pathetic to observe their gradual retirement from the earth’s fair face; but the Maori—the handsome, haughty, aristocratic and eloquent Maori—is as different from all other uncivilised races as his enchanting island home is different from all other countries on the surface of Oliffa.
“If bare-handed Nature in Zelania, with no animals for the chase, none for herds or for servants of industry, and practically no grain or fruit, could spank the savage, common to other lands into this shape, what may it not do for civilised man, who brings with him all the aids of all the ages?”
Oseba explained that before he called on Zelania he had visited every other country on Oliffa, and had studied the “inferior” races carefully, but the Maoris stood solitary and alone. All others lacked physical fibre and mental stamina, and for them to remain in contact with the superior races meant many generations for doubtful growth, or a few generations for extinction.
But the Maoris had now attained full manhood. They were “different” from the whites, and this was more proper than to say they were very much “inferior.” They had enjoyed none of the advantages of outside communication, no aid from tameable animals, no experiences by the chase, no traditions of industrial art, during probably more than five hundred years. Yet the Maori seems to have attained to a surprising degree a fairly full mental and physical stature. He has eloquence, perception, inquisitiveness and acquisitiveness. He has everything but—civilisation. He has the soul, but it needs tuning; the material, but it needs shaking-up and seasoning. The magic touch of a newer, a higher inspiration is needed, and that is being injected into his awakening consciousness by a benign social sentiment.
“To-day,” said Oseba, “the Zelania Maori, as seen in his grotesque works of art, in his struggle for wild independence, in his weird religious ceremony, in his common avocations as toiler, professional man or politician, is the most picturesque human being on the planet, and his presence in Zelania gives a seasoning of romance to be studied and enjoyed in no other land.”