The teeth are remarkably white and even, and the feet and hands small and well proportioned. The foot is very well developed, the native never having spoiled its beautiful mechanism with shoes or boots, and being accustomed to use the toes in many tasks wherein a civilized European requires his fingers. The toes are, for example, continually employed in holding one end of a rope, while the fingers are engaged in twisting or plaiting it; and the consequence is that the natives are able to ridicule with justice the misshapen feet and toes of the European.
The men have naturally a full beard; but they always remove every vestige of hair on the face, in order to show the patterns which are tattooed upon it. Now and then a very old and powerful chief will dare to allow his beard to grow; but, as a rule, the face is divested of all covering: so that the absence of the beard, together with the profuse tattoo, destroys all evidences of age, and makes the countenance of a young man of twenty look nearly as old as that of his grandfather aged sixty.
The hair is plentiful, and mostly straight, being twisted and curled by art into the various fashionable forms. In some cases it is light, or even reddish, in color; and in such instances accompanies a complexion of peculiar fairness. Albinism exists among the New Zealanders, but is not agreeable in appearance, the eyes being always weak, and the skin looking as if it had been artificially whitened. In fact, such an albino looks among his dark fellows like a plant that has been bleached by growing in the dark.
There seems to be two castes of men among the New Zealanders. The upper caste is distinguished by the above characteristics; but the lower is shorter in stature, and has coarse and curly, though not woolly hair, more prominent cheekbones, and a much blacker skin. This second race, according to Dr. Dieffenbach, “is mixed in insensible gradations with the former, and is far less numerous; it does not predominate in any one part of the island, nor does it occupy any particular station in a tribe; and there is no difference made between the two races among themselves.
NEW ZEALANDER FROM CHILDHOOD TO AGE.
(See [page 795].)
“But I must observe that I never met any man of consequence belonging to this tribe, and that, although freemen, they occupied the lower grades: from this we may, perhaps, infer the relation in which they stood to the earliest immigrants into the country, although their traditions and legends are silent on the subject.
“From the existence of two races in New Zealand the conclusion might be drawn that the darker were the original proprietors of the soil, anterior to the arrival of a stock of true Polynesian origin; that they were conquered by the latter, and nearly exterminated. This opinion has been entertained regarding all Polynesian islands; but I must observe that it is very doubtful whether those differences which we observe among the natives of New Zealand are really due to such a source. We find similar varieties in all Polynesian islands, and it is probable that they are a consequence of the difference of castes so extensively spread among the inhabitants of the tribes of the great ocean.
“If one part of the population of New Zealand are a distinct race—a fact which cannot be denied as regards other islands—it is very curious that there should be no traces of such a blending in the language, where they would have been most durable, or in the traditions, which certainly would have mentioned the conquest of one race by the other, if it had happened. Captain Crozet, a Frenchman, who early visited New Zealand, says that he found a tribe at the North Cape darker than the rest. I could observe nothing of the kind there, though I visited all the natives. Nor are those darker-colored individuals more common in the interior; I should say, even less so.