New South Wales being the nearest approach to a centre of civilisation, the Government in Sydney watched the interests of the settlers on the eastern edge of the Tasman Sea; but, because of the distance between the two countries, the New Zealand settlers had really to protect themselves from annoyance as best they could. The Maori, predominant in power, found little difficulty in safeguarding their own interests.
Apart from the efforts of the missionaries, what did most to keep the peace was the desire of commercial adventurers to tap the resources of the country. On their side, the Maori were anxious to bargain with the Pakeha for guns, and very soon learned that any serious breach with the white men was followed by interruption of profitable intercourse.
The Pakeha at first took shameful advantage of the natives, purchasing a shipload of flax for a few old muskets, while a fig of tobacco was esteemed by the latter worth almost as much as a gun. But the Maori were never fools, whatever else their failings, and they quickly grew instructed in the commercial value of the articles they had for disposal, for which they were prompt to demand a more adequate return.
The one point in which they seemed hopelessly to fail was in estimating the value of land. This was because they and the white men approached the subject from absolutely different standpoints, and what the Pakeha concluded they had bought, the Maori imagined they had leased. For the most sacred article in the creed of the Maori was, perhaps, that precluding them from parting in perpetuity with the land which had descended to them from their ancestors.
An abominable traffic in which the baser sort of white men engaged was that in human heads. The marvellous preservation of the heads of dead Maori had excited great interest among scientists, and European museums clamoured for specimens. But the loss of the head of one of its male members brought a peculiar grief and shame to a Maori family, for it meant also the loss of mana, or reputation. Consequently, the demand for heads greatly exceeded the supply.
But if there were base men among the Pakeha, so were there among the Maori, and such fellows made nothing of filching the heads of other persons' ancestors or defunct relatives, and selling them to the sailors frequenting the coast.
This was bad enough; but, since theft could not accomplish enough, murder stalked upon its heels, and many a wretched slave was slain in order that his head might grin from the shelf of a museum, or "grace" the library of some curio-hunter.
Efforts were made to stop the disgusting traffic with its lurid accompaniments; but the offenders were not easily reached and, had New Zealand remained uncolonised, the Maori race might by this time have become extirpated by a gradual process of decapitation. Fortunately, as the white population grew more respectable and responsible, their own sense of what was due to themselves choked off the practice.
Such a shocking story reached the ears of Governor Darling in Sydney, that he issued a proclamation, threatening those engaged in the trade with heavy fines and exposure in the public prints.