The officers remained on shore till the evening; "and as we were preparing to return to the ship," continues Cruise, "we were drawn to that part of the beach where the prisoners were, by the most doleful cries and lamentations. Here was the interesting young slave in a situation that ought to have softened the heart of the most unfeeling. The man who had slain her father, having cut off his head, and preserved it by a process peculiar to these islanders, took it out of a basket, where it had hitherto been concealed, and threw it into the lap of the unhappy daughter." At once she seized it with a degree of phrenzy not to be described; and subsequently, with a bit of sharp shell, disfigured her person in so shocking a manner that in a few minutes not a vestige of her former beauty remained. They afterwards learned that this fellow had married the very woman he had treated with such singular barbarity.
The crying, however, seems to be a ceremony that takes place universally on the meeting of friends who have been for some time parted. We may give, in illustration of this custom, Cruise's description of the reception by their relatives of the nine New Zealanders who came along with him in the "Dromedary" from Port Jackson.
"When their fathers, brothers, etc., were admitted into the ship," says he, "the scene exceeded description; the muskets were all laid aside, and every appearance of joy vanished. It is customary with these extraordinary people to go through the same ceremony upon meeting as upon taking leave of their friends. They join their noses together, and remain in this position for at least half-an-hour;[[P]] during which time they sob and howl in the most doleful manner. If there be many friends gathered around the person who has returned, the nearest relation takes possession of his nose, while the others hang upon his arms, shoulders, and legs, and keep perfect time with the chief mourner (if he may be so called) in the various expressions of his lamentation. This ended, they resume their wonted cheerfulness, and enter into a detail of all that has happened during their separation. As there were nine New Zealanders just returned, and more than three times that number to commemorate the event, the howl was quite tremendous, and so novel to almost every one in the ship that it was with difficulty our people's attention could be kept to matters at that moment more essential. Little Repero, who had frequently boasted, during the passage, that he was too much of an Englishman ever to cry again, made a strong effort when his father, Shungie, approached him, to keep his word; but his early habit soon got the better of his resolution, and he evinced, if possible, more distress than any of the others."
The sudden thawing of poor Repero's heroic resolves was an incident exactly similar to another which Mr. Nicholas had witnessed. Among the New Zealanders who, after having resided for some time in New South Wales, returned with him and Mr. Marsden to their native country, was one named Tooi,[[Q]] who prided himself greatly on being able to imitate European manners; and accordingly, declaring that he would not cry, but would behave like an Englishman, began, as the trying moment approached, to converse most manfully with Mr. Nicholas, evidently, however, forcing his spirits the whole time. But "his fortitude," continues Nicholas, "was very soon subdued; for being joined by a young chief about his own age, and one of his best friends, he flew to his arms, and, bursting into tears, indulged exactly the same emotions as the others."
Tooi was afterwards brought to England, and remained for some time in this country. He was in attendance upon his brother Korro-korro, one of the greatest chiefs in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Islands, and, as well as Shungie, who has just been mentioned, celebrated all over the country for his love of fighting, and the number of victories he had won.
Yet even this hardy warrior was no more proof than any one of his wives or children against this strange habit of emotion. The first person he met on his landing happened to be his aunt, whose appearance, as, bent to the earth with age and infirmities, she ascended a hill, supporting herself upon a long staff, Nicholas compares to that which we might conceive the Sibyl bore, when she presented herself to Tarquin. Yet, when she came up to Korro-korro, the chief, we are told, having fallen upon her neck, and applied his nose to hers, the two continued in this posture for some minutes, talking together in a low and mournful voice; and then disengaging themselves, they gave vent to their feelings by weeping bitterly, the chief remaining for about a quarter of an hour leaning on his musket, while the big drops continued to roll down his cheeks.
The old woman's daughter, who had come along with her, then made her approach, and another scene, if possible of still more tumultuous tenderness than the former, took place between the two cousins. The chief hung, as before, in an agony of affection, on the neck of his relation; and "as for the woman," says Nicholas, "she was so affected that the mat she wore was literally soaked through with her tears." A passionate attachment to friends is, indeed, one of the most prevailing feelings of the savage state. Dampier tells us of an Indian who recovered his friend unexpectedly on the island of Juan Fernandez, and who immediately prostrated himself on the ground at his feet. "We stood gazing in silence," says the manly sailor, "at this tender scene."
The house of the chief to which Rutherford and his comrades were taken was the largest in the village, being both long and wide, although very low, and having no other entrance than an aperture, which was shut by means of a sliding door, and was so much lower even than the roof that it was necessary to crawl upon the hands and knees to get through it.
Two large pigs and a quantity of potatoes were now cooked; and when they were ready, a portion having been allotted to the slaves, who are never permitted to eat along with the chiefs, the latter sat down to their repast, the white men taking their places beside them.
The feast was not held within the house, but in the open air; and the meat that was not consumed was hung up on posts for a future occasion. One of the strongest prejudices of the New Zealanders is an aversion to be where any article of food is suspended over their heads; and on this account, they never permit anything eatable to be brought within their huts, but take all their meals out of doors, in an open space adjoining to the house, which has been called by some writers the kitchen, it being there that the meal is cooked as well as eaten. Crozet says that every one of these kitchens has in it a cooking hole, dug in the ground, of about two feet in diameter, and between one and two feet deep. Even when the natives are confined to their beds by sickness, and, it may be, at the point of death, they must receive whatever food they take in this outer room, which, however, is sometimes provided with a shed, supported upon posts, although in no case does it appear to be enclosed by walls. It is here, accordingly, that those who are in so weak a state from illness as not to be able to bear removal from one place to another usually have their couches spread; as, were they to choose to recline inside the house, it would be necessary to leave them to die of want.