They have several ways of preparing the sweet potato. It is either simply boiled, or dried slowly in a “hangi,” when it has the taste of dates, or ground into powder and baked into cakes. The kumera, like most importations, is rather a delicate vegetable, and while it is young it is sheltered by fences made of brushwood, which are set up on the windward side of the plantation when bad weather is apprehended. Great stacks of dried brushwood are seen in all well-managed kumera gardens, ready to be used when wanted. So great is the veneration of the natives for the kumera, that the storehouses wherein it is kept are usually decorated in a superior style to the dwelling of the person who owns them.
In [illustration No. 2], on the next page, several of these elaborate storehouses are shown. They are always supported on posts in such a way that the rats cannot get among the contents, and in some instances they are set at the top of poles fifteen or twenty feet high, which are climbed by means of notches in them. These, however, are almost without ornamentation, whereas those which belong specially to the chief are comparatively low, and in some cases every inch of them is covered with graceful or grotesque patterns, in which the human face always predominates.
Some of these curious storehouses are not rectangular, but cylindrical, the cylinder lying horizontally, with the door at the end, and being covered with a pointed roof. Even the very posts on which the storehouses stand are carved into the rude semblance of the human form.
The Maories also say that the calabash, or hue, is of comparatively late introduction, the seeds having been obtained from a calabash which was carried by a whale and thrown on their shores.
A very curious article of vegetable food is the cowdie gum, which issues from a species of pine. This gum exudes in great quantities from the trees, and is found in large masses adhering to the trunk, and also in detached pieces on the ground. It is a clear, yellowish resin; and it is imported into England, where it is converted into varnish. The flavor of the cowdie gum is powerfully aromatic, and the natives of the northern island chew it just as sailors chew tobacco. They think so much of this gum, that when a stranger comes to visit them, the highest compliment that can be paid to him is for the host to take a partially chewed piece of gum from his mouth, and offer it to the visitor.
The New Zealanders eat great quantities of the pawa, a species of Haliotis, from which they procure the pearly shell with which they are so fond of inlaying their carvings, especially the eyes of the human figures. Shells belonging to this group are well known in the Channel Islands under the name of Ormer shells, and the molluscs are favorite articles of diet. Those which are found in New Zealand are very much larger than the species of the Channel Islands, and the inhabitants are tough and, to European taste, very unpalatable. Great quantities are, however, gathered for food. The putrid potato cakes are generally eaten with the pawa; and the two together form a banquet which an Englishman could hardly prevail on himself to taste, even though he were dying of hunger.
Mussels, too, are largely used for food: and the natives have a way of opening and taking out the inmate which I have often practised. If the bases of two mussels be placed together so that the projections interlock, and a sharp twist be given in opposite directions, the weaker of the two gives way, and the shell is opened. Either shell makes an admirable knife, and scrapes the mollusc out of its home even better than a regular oyster-knife.
Oysters, especially the Cockscomb oyster (Ostræa cristata), are very plentiful in many parts of the coast, and afford an unfailing supply of food to the natives. They are mostly gathered by women, who are in some places able to obtain them by waiting until low water, and at other places are forced to dive at all states of the tide.
Fish form a large portion of New Zealand diet; and one of their favorite dishes is shark’s flesh dried and nearly putrescent. In this state it exhales an odor which is only less horrible than that of the putrid cakes. Mr. Angas mentions one instance where he was greatly inconvenienced by the fondness of the natives for these offensive articles of diet. He was travelling through the country with some native guides, and on arriving at a pah had procured for breakfast some remarkably fine kumeras. The natives immediately set to work at cooking the kumeras, among which they introduced a quantity of semi-putrid shark’s flesh. This was not the worst of the business, for they next wove some of the phormium baskets which have already been described, filled them with the newly-cooked provisions, and carried them until the evening repast, giving the traveller the benefit of the horrible odor for the rest of the day.
Fish are either taken with the net, the weir, or the hook. The net presents nothing remarkable, and is used as are nets all over the world, the natives weighting them at the bottom, floating them at the top, shooting them in moderately shallow water, and then beating the water with poles in order to frighten the fish into the meshes.