The whole of the tomb is covered with human heads. Exclusive of those upon the posts, the front alone of the tomb contains fourteen faces, each differing from the other in expression and pattern of the moko, but all wearing the same defiant air. Their enormous eyes are made peculiarly conspicuous by being carved out of haliotis shell, carrying out on a large scale the plan adopted in the chiefs’ hanis and other sculptures. The whole of the space between the figures is covered with the most elaborate arabesques, intertwining with each other in a bewildering manner, but each running its own boldly curved course. Between the various pieces that compose this tomb are set bunches and tufts of white and green feathers, which serve to adorn as well as disguise the necessary seams of the woodwork.
This wonderful monument was entirely carved by one man, named Paranui. He was lame, and in consequence had expended his energies in art, in which he had so greatly distinguished himself that he took rank as a tohunga. He was equally celebrated as a tattooer; and it may well be imagined that a man who could design so extraordinary a piece of workmanship must be skilful in inventing the endless variety of patterns needful in the decoration of chief’s faces. In performing this work, Paranui had but one tool, the head of an old bayonet.
The loss of such specimens of native art as those which have been described carries out my former remarks on the necessity for removing to our own country every memorial of savage life that we can secure. We inflict no real injury upon the savages, and we secure an invaluable relic of vanishing customs. These monuments, for example, were simply carved and then left to decay. Had they been removed to this country, where they would have been guarded from the power of the elements and the encroachments of vegetation, we should have seen them in complete preservation at the present day, and likely to last as long as the building which contained them.
Of course the sentimental argument may be pleaded against this view of the case; but in matters which are of vital importance in the grand study of anthropology mere sentiment ought to have no place. Neither has it such place as some often imagine. The savage, finding that the white man yields to him on this point, is only too glad to find any vantage ground, and always presses on as fast as the other yields—just as has been done in India with the question of caste. We cannot measure their mental sensibilities any more than their physical by our own. A savage endures with stoicism tortures which would kill an European, simply because he does not feel them as much. And the mental and physical sensibilities are very much on a par.
The Maori is perhaps the finest savage race on the face of the earth, and yet we cannot think that he is exactly an estimable being, whose ambition is murder, and whose reward is to eat the body of his victim, who never does a stroke of work that he can avoid, and who leads a life of dissipation as far as his capabilities go. Of all savage nations, the New Zealander displays most sorrow for the loss of a friend or relation. Tears flow profusely from his eyes, and every tone of his voice and every gesture of his body convey the impression that he is borne down by unendurable woe. Yet we have seen that this effusion of sorrow is mostly premeditated, and merely a conventional mode of acting required by the etiquette of the country.
When two people can be bathed in tears, speak only in sobbing accents, utter heart-rending cries, and sink to the ground as overwhelmed by grief, we cannot but compassionate their sorrow and admire their sensibility. But if, in the middle of all these touching demonstrations of grief, we see them suddenly cease from their sobs and cries, enter into a little lively conversation, enjoy a hearty laugh, and then betake themselves afresh to their tears and sobs, we may take the liberty of doubting their sincerity.
So with those beautiful houses and monuments that are left to perish by neglect. The builder did in all probability feel very keenly at the time, though the feeling of grief seems sometimes to take a curious turn, and be metamorphosed into vengeance and an excuse for war; but it is very much to be doubted whether grief for the departed is a feeling that is really permanent in the savage mind. The Maori chief may lay his tapu on an entire village when a relative dies, and if, after the lapse of years, any one be rash enough to invade the forbidden precincts, he will visit the offence with instant punishment. But it must be remembered that the infringement of the tapu in question is not an insult to the dead but to the living, and that when the chief punishes the offender, he does not avenge an affront offered to his dead relative, but a direct insult to himself.
In spite of his sentiment, I think that the Maori might have been induced to sell such specimens of art, and even if he refused to yield to such a proposition, he would have respected us none the less if, when we had captured a pah, we exercised the right of conquest, and took that which we could not buy. Or even supposing that the first idea had proved impracticable, and the second unadvisable, it would not have been very difficult to have induced a native artist to execute a duplicate which he could sell for a price which would enrich him for life.
Such sentiments are, I know, unpopular with the mass of those who only see the savage at a distance, which certainly, in the case of savage life, lends the only enchantment to the view that it can possess. But I believe them to be just and true, and know that the closer is our acquaintance with savage life, the more reason we have to be thankful for civilization. The savage knows this himself, and bitterly feels his inferiority. He hates and fears the white man, but always ends by trying to imitate him.
To return to these monuments. In former times they existed in great numbers, and even in more recent days those which survive are so characteristic of a style of art that may have taken its rise from ancient Mexico, that I should have been glad to transfer to these pages several more of Mr. Angas’ sketches.