Careless youth sat here and there, asking and guessing riddles or playing that most ancient game, familiar alike to the English child and the aboriginal of Australia, "cat's cradle." Youngsters stalked upon stilts, played at "knuckle-bones," or gambled at "odd or even," and, in strong contrast, a group of philosophers discussed abstruse questions with a keenness and cleverness which amply proved the capacity of the Maori brain. Some, too, there were who wandered off, as young folks will, youth and maid together, to whisper of matters unconcerned with logic or philosophy.
The fires burnt low, the torches sputtered towards extinction, the various groups dissolved and, as a last good-night, the warriors raised their voices in a swelling chant, and from a thousand throats the chorus of triumph or defiance rose and rolled from hill to distant hill. A few short moments later the village was hushed and still, only the vigilant sentries giving evidence of the life which slumbered within its crowded whare.
So the Maori rose and toiled and played and fought, until at last came the time, inevitable for all, when must "the silver cord be loosed and the golden bowl be broken," and potent chief, in common with meanest slave, yield up his life to God who gave it.
No tangi was raised for the slave; but how different when the chief set his face to the north and walked with slow and solemn step towards the gates of Reinga. Even as their muffled clang resounded and the breath went out of the chieftain's body, the crowd of mourners who had till then been repeating with fervour the "last words" of the dying man, burst into noisy lamentations, many of the women gashing their arms and breasts. In some instances slaves were immediately slain, so that the dead man might not plunge alone into the waters of Reinga, or go unattended in the next world.
The dead body was exorcised by the priests, dressed in its best, and allowed to sit in state. The dried heads and skulls of ancestors grinned from their pedestals at the latest addition to their ranks, who, with face painted, head befeathered, his costly ornaments upon him, his clubs and spears set ready to his hand, stared back at them with unseeing eyes, a lifelike figure enough among those musty relics of the long-ago dead.
The pihe, or dirge, was sung, the choir standing before the body, and days went by, during which the long procession of relatives, friends, subjects and delegates from other tribes paid their respects to the mighty dead, grasping his cold hand, talking to him as though he were alive, speaking panegyrics and chanting laments, often of singular beauty, in his honour.
Then followed the last act but one in the drama of death. "No useless coffin enclosed the breast" of the dead man, whose body, wrapped in flax mats, was either buried beneath the floor of his house, or hoisted to a high stage in the vicinity of the village and allowed to remain there for a twelvemonth.
The year of mourning over, the dead man's effects, his valuable greenstone clubs, other weapons and ornaments were distributed amongst his heirs.[46] A great feast was also arranged and, while the attention of all was occupied with eating and drinking, the priests stole away, bearing the remains with them, to hide them for ever in some solitary sepulchre within the scarred bosom of the hills, or deep in the green twilight of the silent forests.[47]