Australia, New Zealand and some islands of the South seas

by Frank G. Carpenter

The women were tattooed chiefly on the lips and chin, with a sort of fish-hook curl at the corner of each eye. Some of them had their thighs and breasts decorated. The tattooing instrument was a small bone chisel, which was driven in with a mallet. The pain was so great that the work could be done only a little at a time, and a complete job often took years.

When the British first came to New Zealand cannibalism was quite general among the Maoris. The tribes warred with one another, and after a battle there was always a feast of human flesh, in which the women were not allowed to join. The greatest insult one Maori could offer another was to hint that the man’s father had been eaten; for this was considered a family disgrace.

I have before me a paper that tells just how one of these cannibal feasts was conducted. The corpse of one of those killed in the fight was sacrificed to the god of war and the rest of the dead were given over to the braves who had taken part in the battle. The cooking ovens were dug out of the earth and the human flesh was thrown in and kept there for about twenty-four hours. When it was roasted the chief had the first bite, then his sons, and then the whole army. The eating was accompanied with singing and dancing, and all gorged themselves to such an extent that many died after the banquet. When the feast was over the remains were packed up in baskets and sent around to the neighbouring tribes. Any tribe that accepted the offering was supposed to have made a treaty of friendship with the senders and to be ready to fight with them thereafter.

“This morning I stood and watched a crowd of Maori girls and boys swimming together and diving for pennies in one of the steaming pools near my hotel at Rotorua.”

The Maori haka used to precede battles and was intended to work the braves into a fury, for the fight. Nowadays the hakas are frequently staged for the benefit of tourists.

In spite of their cannibalism, the Maoris were more advanced in civilization than our American Indians. They had a social organization of their own, the people of each tribe being divided into classes consisting of priests, chiefs, a middle class, and slaves. They were warlike and it is doubtful whether the British could have gained a foothold on the islands without great loss of life had it not been for the dissensions among the various tribes.

Maori marriage customs were much like those of savages in other parts of the world. Sometimes girls were carried off by force, and then the friends of the groom and the friends of the bride would fight each other. Both polygamy and divorce were allowed and the chiefs usually had several wives. The Maori gods were demons who were feared rather than reverenced or worshipped.

The men were fishers and fighters, and the women cooked the food, wove baskets, brought the firewood, and made the clothing. The men were not hunters, for there was no big game in the islands. They snared the wild pigeons and other birds. When Captain Cook came along in 1769 he left the natives the first pigs they had ever seen.