This paint is used for many purposes, and before being used it is mixed with oil obtained from the shark. The natives are fond of decorating their houses with it, and by means of the scarlet lines increase, according to their own ideas, the beauty of the carved work with which every available point is adorned. Even their household goods are painted after a similar manner, the fashionable mode being to paint all the hollows scarlet, and the projecting portions black. Their canoes and wooden ornaments are profusely adorned with red paint. But the most valued use of this pigment is the part which it plays in the decoration of a warrior when he goes to battle.
In such cases paint constitutes the whole of his costume, the mats in which he takes so great a pride in time of peace being laid aside, many warriors being perfectly naked, and with the others the only covering of any kind being a belt made of plaited leaves.
One of these belts in my collection is seven feet in length, and only three and a half inches wide in the broadest part; while at either end it diminishes to a mere plaited thong. It is folded fourfold, and on opening it the mode of construction is plainly seen; all the loose ends being tucked inside.
The material is phormium leaf cut into strips an inch in width, each alternate strip being dyed black. Each strip is then divided into eight little strips or thongs, and they are so plaited as to produce an artistic checkered pattern of black and white. The ingenuity in forming so elaborate a pattern with so simple a material is extreme; and, as if to add to the difficulty of his task, the dusky artist has entirely changed the pattern at either end of the belt, making it run at right angles to the rest of the fabric. The belt is also used in lieu of clothing when the men are engaged in paddling a canoe.
The paint, therefore, becomes the characteristic portion of the New Zealander’s war dress, and is applied for the purpose of making himself look as terrible as possible, and of striking terror into his enemies. It is, however, used in peace as well as in war, being regarded as a good preservative against the bites and stings of insects, especially the sandflies and mosquitoes. It is also used in mourning, being rubbed on the body as a sign of grief, precisely as ashes are used among some of the Oriental nations. Some travellers have thought that the continual use of this pigment gives to the New Zealanders the peculiar softness and sleekness of skin for which they are remarkable, and which distinguishes them from the Fijians, whose skin feels as if it had been roughened with a file. This theory, however, is scarcely tenable, the soft texture of the skin being evidently due to physical and not to external causes.
(1.) NEW ZEALAND WOMAN AND HER BOY.
(See [page 795].)
(2.) TATTOOED CHIEF AND HIS WIFE.
(See [page 802].)