To work again with knife and awl and chisel, each of stone, and presently the stern-post, ornately carved, rises in an elegant curve to a height of fifteen feet. The prow, too, rises in a curve, but not so high, and is adorned by a huge, grinning head, correctly tattooed, with goggle eyes and defiantly protruded tongue.
Paddles are shaped from the tough wood of the ti-tree, one for each of the rowers, who kneel in equal numbers on each side, facing the prow, while the steersman wields an oar nine feet in length.
The canoe is finished—begun, wrought at and completed with never an iron tool, with not one iron bolt to stay or strengthen. Yet it is beautiful and strong and serviceable, and will skim the stormiest sea as safely as would a gull.
The whare was often rendered attractive on the outside by elaborate carving, and quaint by the grotesque figures surmounting the gables. It was within only a wide, low room, with roof of raupo-thatch[45] and eaves within three feet of the ground. A stone-lined hole served as a fireplace, the floor was strewn with fern upon which were thrown the sleeping-mats, and a sliding panel formed a door, which was blocked when privacy or warmth was desired. Furniture there was none; but this mattered little, since the house was rarely used save as a dormitory, or a shelter during cold or wet weather.
Within the village a piece of ground was set apart for the marae, or public square, whither folk repaired for gossip or recreation when the work of the day was done. Without the enclosure were home fields of kumara and taro, where the women laboured as many women labour in the potato and turnip-fields in Scotland.
The heavy tasks as a rule fell to the men, and were undertaken cheerfully enough, though the Maori became less careful in this respect after years of intercourse with the Pakeha. To the men also belonged the duty of supplying the commissariat and, while some hunted or fished, others cleared the forest trails, upon which the undergrowth reproduced itself with extraordinary rapidity. The question of animal food was always a vital one in the days before the poaka, or pig, rioted through the bush, and there were many days on which the Maori were forced to content themselves with fern-root and kanini berries for the two meals in which they daily indulged.
Though they had neither books nor writings upon parchment, stone or papyrus, the Maori were not without a literature of their own. Great deeds of heroic ancestors, notable events of the past were immortalised in song and story, and handed down from generation to generation. On summer nights an eager audience thronged the marae, listening, rapt, to some "divine-voiced singer," or to some other, who told with every trick and charm of the finished orator the story of "the brave days of old," when Ngahue fought in far Hawaiki, or sailed the sea with Te Turi to find the land of Maui.
Always decorous, the listeners applauded discreetly, and chewed incessantly the hardened juice of the sow-thistle, the precious gum of the kauri, or the mimiha, bitumen from the under-sea springs of the west. None of these was harmful like the opium of the Chinaman or the kava of the Polynesian. The Maori chewed his gum much as the fair American chews hers, or as the youthful Scot surreptitiously sucks his peppermint during the Sunday sermon in the kirk.
As night fell quiet reigned for a time, for night is the council-time of the Maori. Encircled by pineknot torches, chiefs and rangatira sat together, gravely discussing the common weal, or planning great schemes of attack or defence. One after another, each stern-visaged councillor arose, and with dignified gesture and speech rich in metaphor expressed his views, his fellows hearkening with respectful attention, expecting, and receiving, the same when their own turn came to speak. So the discussion went on until the council broke up and the senators dispersed, stalking through the double row of armed guards who, themselves out of earshot, had stood like bronze statues throughout the deliberations.
When the need for quiet had passed, the warriors gathered together and fought their battles o'er again, while those more peacefully inclined applauded the efforts of a flautist and a trumpeter, whose instruments were limited to five and two notes respectively.