“Having refused the aid of the Government and the Missionary Societies’ establishments at the River Burwan and Mount Rouse, the natives were to a serious extent deprived of animal food, so essential to a people who were ever exposed to the inclemencies of winter and the exhausting heats of summer. Influenza was one of the greatest scourges under which they suffered. Then, among other evils attending their association with the colonists, the brandy, rum, and tobacco told fearfully upon their already weakened constitutions.”
This one tribe is but an example of the others, all of whom are surely, and some not slowly, approaching the end of their existence. For many reasons we cannot but regret that entire races of men, possessing many fine qualities, should be thus passing away; but it is impossible not to perceive that they are but following the order of the world, the lower race preparing a home for the higher.
In the present instance, for example, the aborigines performed barely half of their duties as men. They partially exercised their dominion over the beasts and the birds—killing, but not otherwise utilizing them. But, although they inherited the earth, they did not subdue it, nor replenish it. They cleared away no useless bush or forest, to replace them with fruits; and they tilled no land, leaving the earth exactly in the same condition that they found it. Living almost entirely by the chase, it required a very large hunting-ground to support each man, and a single tribe gained a scanty and precarious living on a tract of land sufficient, when cultivated, to feed a thousand times their number. In fact, they occupied precisely the same relative position toward the human race as do the lion, tiger, and leopard toward the lower animals, and suffered in consequence from the same law of extinction.
In process of time white men came to introduce new arts into their country, clearing away useless forest, and covering the rescued earth with luxuriant wheat crops, sufficient to feed the whole of the aborigines of the country; bringing also with them herds of sheep and horned cattle to feed upon the vast plains which formerly nourished but a few kangaroo, and to multiply in such numbers that they not only supplied the whole of their adopted land with food, but their flesh was exported to the mother country.
The superior knowledge of the white man thus gave to the aborigines the means of securing their supplies of food; and therefore his advent was not a curse, but a benefit to them. But they could not take advantage of the opportunities thus offered to them, and, instead of seizing upon these new means of procuring the three great necessaries of human life, food, clothing, and lodging, they not only refused to employ them, but did their best to drive them out of the country, murdering the colonists, killing their cattle, destroying their crops, and burning their houses.
The means were offered to them of infinitely bettering their social condition, and the opportunity given them, by substituting peaceful labor for perpetual feuds, and of turning professional murderers into food-producers, of replenishing the land which their everlasting quarrels, irregular mode of existence, and carelessness of human life had well-nigh depopulated. These means they could not appreciate, and, as a natural consequence, had to make way for those who could. The inferior must always make way for the superior, and such has ever been the case with the savage. I am persuaded that the coming of the white man is not the sole, nor even the chief, cause of the decadence of savage tribes. I have already shown that we can introduce no vice in which the savage is not profoundly versed, and feel sure that the cause of extinction lies within the savage himself, and ought not to be attributed to the white man, who comes to take the place which the savage has practically vacated.
CHAPTER LXXVIII.
NEW ZEALAND.
GENERAL REMARKS.
LOCALITY OF NEW ZEALAND — GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE PEOPLE — THE TWO CASTES, AND THEIR SUPPOSED ORIGIN — CONTRAST BETWEEN THE SEXES — LAXNESS OF MORALS — NUMBER OF THE POPULATION, AND THE DIFFERENT TRIBES — MODE OF GOVERNMENT — DISTINCTION BETWEEN RANKS — FORMATION OF THE CLANS, OR SUB-TRIBES — THE SLAVES, THEIR VALUE AND TREATMENT — THE TENURE OF LAND — A COMPLEX ARRANGEMENT AND CONSEQUENT DIFFICULTIES — ESTABLISHING A CLAIM — NATIVE LAW — THE “LEX TALIONIS” — SENSITIVENESS TO DISGRACE — THE PREVALENCE OF SUICIDE — STRANGE CONDUCT OF A MAORI CHIEF — THE SISTER’S VENGEANCE.
Southward and eastward of Australia we come to the group of islands known collectively as New Zealand. Like Australia, New Zealand possesses many peculiarities of climate and natural production, and is inhabited by a number of tribes which are generally hostile to each other, but which are almost identical in appearance and habits. We shall therefore be enabled to treat of this important portion of the globe with much more brevity than could be the case if, as in Africa, the tribes differed from each other in hue, dress, and customs.
Taken as a whole, the New Zealanders are a singularly fine race of people—tall, powerful, and well made. Though varying somewhat in shade, the color is always a brown of some kind, the complexion being sometimes as light as that of a Spaniard, and sometimes of a dark umber. It is, however, always of a clear tint and never approaches to the deep black of the Australian. The nose is straight and well formed, in many cases being boldly aquiline; and the mouth is rather large, and the lips moderately full, though not resembling those of the negro. The cheekbones are rather high, but not much more prominent than those of a genuine Scotchman; and the eyes are large, dark, and vivacious.