The weapons used by the Maories are very few in number, and of the simplest possible construction. It is extraordinary, by the way, what misconceptions exist on this subject. With the generality of persons almost every club, axe, or spear is set down as belonging to New Zealand, especially if it has any carving about it. Even the best public collections are not free from these errors, and in one of the most celebrated collections of arms I discovered within five minutes ten or twelve wrong labels.
There is now before me an illustrated work on savage manners and customs, in which is a group of “New Zealand arms,” containing thirteen objects. Of these only one is a genuine weapon of New Zealand, and two others are doubtful. There are two Fiji clubs (one of them with a hollow tubular handle!), one stone knife of New Caledonia, two clubs of the Tonga Islands, one Maori chief’s staff of office, one New Zealander’s carpenter’s adze, one “poi” mallet and one “gnatoo” mallet from Tonga, and two articles which the draughtsman may have intended for clubs, but which have been transformed by the engraver’s art into bottle-gourds. Besides, there is one nondescript article which may be a drum (and therefore cannot belong to New Zealand), or it may be a pail, or it may be a jar, and another nondescript article.
We need not, however, wonder at these trifling errors when, in the same work, a scene in a North American wigwam is described as a “New Zealand christening,” and the “Interior of a Caffre hut” is fitted with Abyssinian arms and implements: the men are represented as wearing long two-forked beards like those of the Fans, headdresses like those of Tonga, and capes like those of Abyssinia; while a smooth-haired woman, instead of being dressed in Kaffir fashion, is naked with the exception of a white cloth tied round her hips. The hut itself is a singularly ingenious example of perversity on the part of the draughtsman, who has selected precisely those very characteristics which do not belong to the Kaffir hut. In the first place, the hut is three times too large, and the walls are apparently of clay—certainly not of the basket-work employed by Kaffirs in house-building. The floor, which in a Kaffir hut is laid down with clay, as smooth as a table and hard as concrete, is irregular and covered with grass; while, by way of climax, the door is high enough to allow a man to pass without stooping, and is finished with a beautiful arched porch covered with creepers.
With the exception of one man, who may, by some stretch of imagination, be taken for a Hottentot, neither the hut, its furniture, its inhabitants, nor their weapons, bear the slightest similitude to those of any part of Southern Africa. Such being the case with museums and books, we need not be surprised that the popular ideas respecting the weapons and warfare of New Zealand are very indefinite.
Of course, at the present day, the Maories have practically discarded their ancient weapons in favor of the rifle, which they know well how to use, retaining the aboriginal weapons more as marks of rank than for active service. We have, however, nothing to do with these modern innovations, and will restrict ourselves to the weapons that belong to the country.
The first and most important of these is the merai, or short club. This weapon is exactly analogous to the short sword used by the ancient Romans, and in some cases resembles it so closely that if the cross-guard were removed from the sword and the blade rendered convex instead of flat, the shapes of the two weapons would be almost exactly identical.
The material of which these weapons are made is sometimes wood and sometimes stone, but mostly bone, the latter material being furnished by the spermaceti whale. The stone merai is the most valued, on account of the difficulty of finding a suitable piece for the purpose, and of the enormous time which is consumed in cutting it to the desired shape with the very imperfect instrument which the Maori possesses. In fact, a stone merai is lowly and laboriously ground into shape by rubbing it with a piece of stone and a sort of emery powder.
Every merai has a hole drilled through the end of the handle. Through this hole is passed a loop of plaited cord, by means of which the weapon is slung to the wrist, to prevent the wearer from being disarmed in battle. Drilling the hole is a very slow process, and is done by means of a wetted stick dipped in emery powder.
The finest merai of this description that I have seen belongs to H. Christie, Esq., and is remarkable not merely for its size, but for the regularity and beauty of its curves. The material is the dark, dull green volcanic stone of which the New Zealanders make so many of their implements. It is nearly eighteen inches in length, and rather more than four inches wide at the broadest part. There is a similar weapon, nearly as large, in the collection of the United Service Institution; but the curves are not so regular, nor is the article so handsome.
One of these weapons is in my collection. It is of equal beauty in shape with that which has been described, but is not so long. It is rather more than fourteen inches in length, and not quite four inches wide. It weighs two pounds six ounces, and is a most formidable weapon, a blow from its sharp edge being sufficient to crash through the skull of an ox, not to mention that of a human being.