Both salt and fresh water crayfish are taken in large quantities. The latter, which are very large, are almost invariably captured by the women, who have to dive for them, and the former are taken in traps baited with flesh, much like our own lobster-pots. Birds are almost always caught by calling them with the voice, or by using a decoy bird. The apteryx, or kiwi-kiwi, is taken by the first of these methods. It is of nocturnal habits, and is seldom seen, never venturing out of its haunts by day. It is very thinly scattered, living in pairs, and each pair inhabiting a tolerably large district. At night it creeps out of its dark resting-place among the ferns, where it has been sleeping throughout the day, and sets off in search of worms, grubs, and other creatures, which it scratches out of the ground with its powerful feet. During the night it occasionally utters its shrill cry; that of the male being somewhat like the words “hoire, hoire, hoire,” and that of the female like “ho, ho, ho.”
When the natives wish to catch the apteryx, they go to the district where the bird lives, and imitate its cry. As soon as it shows itself, it is seized by a dog which the hunter has with him, and which is trained for the purpose. As the bird is a very strong one, there is generally a fight between itself and the dog, in which the powerful legs and sharp claws of the bird are used with great effect. Sometimes the hunter has ready a torch made of the cowdie resin, and by lighting it as soon as the kiwi-kiwi comes in sight he blinds the bird so effectually by the unwonted light that it is quite bewildered, does not know in what direction to run, and allows itself to be taken alive.
At some seasons of the year the bird is very fat, and its flesh is said to be well flavored. In former days, when it was plentiful, it was much used for food, but at the present time it is too scarce to hold any real place among the food-producing animals of New Zealand, its wingless state rendering it an easy prey to those who know its habits. The skin is very tough, and, when dressed, was used in the manufacture of mantles.
The parrots are caught by means of a decoy bird. The fowler takes with him a parrot which he has taught to call its companions, and conceals himself under a shelter made of branches. From the shelter a long rod reaches to the branches of a neighboring tree, and when the bird calls, its companions are attracted by its cries, fly to the tree, and then walk down the rod in parrot fashion, and are captured by the man in the cover.
Formerly the native dog used to be much eaten; but as the species has almost entirely been transformed by admixture with the various breeds of English dogs, its use, as an article of food, has been abandoned. Pigs are almost the only mammalia that are now eaten; but they are not considered as forming an article of ordinary diet, being reserved for festive occasions. The pork of New Zealand pigs is said to surpass that of their European congeners, and to bear some resemblance to veal. This superiority of flavor is caused by their constantly feeding on the fern roots. In color they are mostly black, and, although tame and quiet enough with their owners, are terribly frightened when they see a white man, erect their bristles and dash off into the bush.
We now come to the question of cannibalism, a custom which seems to have resisted civilization longer in New Zealand than in any other part of the world. In some places cannibalism is an exception; here, as among the Neam-Nam of Africa, it is a rule. An [illustration] on the next page represents a cannibal cooking-house, that was erected by a celebrated Maori chief, in the Waitahanui Pah. This was once a celebrated fort, and was originally erected in order to defend the inhabitants of Te Rapa from the attacks of the Waikato tribes. Both these and their enemies having, as a rule, embraced Christianity, and laid aside their feuds, the pah has long been deserted, and will probably fall into decay before many years have passed. Mr. Angas’ description of this pah is an exceedingly interesting one.
“Waitahanui Pah stands on a neck of low swampy land jutting into the lake, and a broad, deep river, forming a delta called the Tongariro, and by some the Waikato (as that river runs out again at the other end of Tampo Lake), empties itself near the pah. The long façade of the pah presents an imposing appearance when viewed from the lake; a line of fortifications, composed of upright poles and stakes, extending for at least half a mile in a direction parallel to the water. On the top of many of the posts are carved figures, much larger than life, of men in the act of defiance, and in the most savage posture, having enormous protruding tongues; and, like all the Maori carvings, these images, or waikapokos, are colored with kokowai, or red ochre.
“The entire pah is now in ruins, and has been made tapu by Te Heuheu since its desertion. Here, then, all was forbidden ground; but I eluded the suspicions of our natives, and rambled about all day amongst the decaying memorials of the past, making drawings of the most striking and peculiar objects within the pah. The cook houses, where the father of Te Heuheu had his original establishment, remained in a perfect state; the only entrance to these buildings was a series of circular apertures, in and out of which the slaves engaged in preparing the food were obliged to crawl.
“Near to the cook houses there stood a carved patuka, which was the receptacle of the sacred food of the chief; and nothing could exceed the richness of the elaborate carving that adorned this storehouse. I made a careful drawing of it, as the frail material was falling to decay. Ruined houses—many of them once beautifully ornamented and richly carved—numerous waki-tapu, and other heathen remains with images and carved posts, occur in various portions of this extensive pah; but in other places the hand of Time has so effectually destroyed the buildings as to leave them but an unintelligible mass of ruins. The situation of this pah is admirably adapted for the security of its inmates: it commands the lake on the one side, and the other fronts the extensive marshes of Tukanu, where a strong palisade and a deep moat afford protection against any sudden attack. Water is conveyed into the pah through a sluice or canal for the supply of the besieged in times of war.
“There was an air of solitude and gloomy desolation about the whole pah, that was heightened by the screams of the plover and the tern, as they uttered their mournful cry through the deserted courts. I rambled over the scenes of many savage deeds. Ovens, where human flesh had been cooked in heaps, still remained, with the stones used for heating them lying scattered around, blackened by fire; and here and there a dry skull lay bleaching in the sun and wind, a grim memorial of the past.”