I am not sure that we do not underrate the capacity for tradition among savages where it has once taken hold; still, if it had been a question of mere savages, at the first glance I should have been disposed to agree with Sir John Lubbock. But let us take the case of Tasman, which Sir John puts forward as a sort of crucial case, and which may be accepted as such, seeing that the New Zealanders may fairly claim to be regarded as “barbarians.”[249]
In the first place, I find the following in a note to “Cook’s Voyages” (Smith, 1846):—“Mr Polack, in his ‘Narrative of Travels and Adventures during a residence in New Zealand between the years 1831–37,’ collected all the particulars relating to Cook’s brush with the natives, 1769, on the spot.”
Next, let us see what Cook says on the subject of Tasman (“Cook’s Voyages,” i. 164)—
“But the Indians still continued near the ship, rowing round many times [hardly the most favourable conditions under which to recover a tradition], conversing with Tupia [the Otaheitan interpreter] chiefly concerning the traditions they had among them with respect to the antiquities of their country. To this subject they were led by the inquiries which Tupia had been directed to make, whether they had ever seen such a vessel as ours, or had ever heard that any such had been on their coast. These inquiries were all answered in the negative, so that tradition has preserved among them no memorial of Tasman, though by an observation made this day we find we are only fifteen miles south of Murderers’ Bay!”
Evidently the shrewd and gallant investigator himself was not satisfied with the cross-examination, for we find at p. 170—
“When we were under sail one old man, Topaa his ancestors had told him there had once come to this place a small vessel from a distant country called Ulimaroa, in which were four men, who upon coming on shore were all killed. Upon being asked where this distant land lay he pointed to the northward.”
But what does Tasman himself say?—
“On the 17th December these savages began to grow a little bolder and more familiar, insomuch that at last they ventured on board the Heemskirk, in order to trade with those in the vessel. As soon as I perceived it, being apprehensive that they might attempt to surprise that ship, I sent my shallop, with seven men, to put the people in the Heemskirk on their guard, and to direct them not to place any confidence in these people. My seven men, being without arms, were attacked by these savages, who killed three of the seven, and forced the other four to swim for their lives; which occasioned my giving that place the name of the Bay of Murderers.[250] Our ship’s company would undoubtedly have taken a severe revenge if the rough weather had not prevented them.”—Tasman’s Voyage of Discovery, Pinkerton, xi.
Now, I submit that this old man Topaa’s recollection of the tradition of an event which occurred one hundred and thirty years before his time, was much more perfect than Captain Cook’s, Sir Joseph Banks’, Dr Solander’s, and Sir J. Lubbock’s recollection of the same event from geographical records.
Emboldened by this instance of the fallibility of scientific men, I now proceed to question the truth of the two following propositions of Sir J. Lubbock, after which I shall ask to be allowed to enunciate a proposition of my own.