(1769)
John Savage, from Some Account of New Zealand
Remote in Southern Seas an Island lies,
Of ample Space, and bless’d with genial Skies;
Where shelter’d still by never-fading groves,
The friendly Native dwells, and fearless roves;
Where the tall Forest, and the Plains around,
And Waters wide, with various Wealth abound.
E.H.
The natives of New Zealand, at least the part of it I visited, are of a very superior order, both in point of personal appearance and intellectual endowments.
The men are usually from five feet eight inches to six feet in height; well proportioned, and exhibit evident marks of great strength.
The colour of the natives, taken as a mean, resembles that of an European gipsy; but there is considerable difference in the shades, varying between a dark chestnut and the light agreeable tinge of an English brunette.
Their countenances are in general open; and though you are not alarmed by any marks of savage ferocity, you clearly discover signs of undaunted courage, and a resolution not easily shaken.
The workings of the mind are readily discernable in most instances; but this country is not without its dissemblers; and particularly among those advanced in life are to be found some who can smile, and assent to your opinion, when their natural feelings dictate a frown, and a decided disapprobation of your conduct or sentiments.
The natives have a great aversion from spirits, and I do not find that they have any mode of intoxication among them; they are consequently robust, cheerful, and active, and probably, in many instances, live to a great age. I observed, that in a few persons the appearances of longevity were very strongly marked, though it is impossible to speak with certainty upon the subject, there being no positive criterion for determining the age of man. In some instances we observe all the characteristics of old age at a very early period of life, while in others juvenility is protracted to an advanced stage.
Returning from this digression, I must say something of the fair part of the creation of the Bay of Islands, and there is really no great impropriety in the term, for many of the women were scarcely to be denominated brunettes. Their features in general are regular and pleasing, with long, black hair, and dark penetrating eyes. The tattooing of their lips, and the quantity of oil and red earth with which they anoint their persons and hair, would not be agreeable to the taste of a refined European; but I can conceive to a New Zealand lover, their well-formed figure, the interesting cast of their countenance, and the sweet tone of their voice, must render them extremely desirable companions, to soothe his cares, and strew his path through life with flowers: for savage life has its cares and perplexities as well as that of the polished native of the most enlightened country.
(1807)
Poetic Projections
Anna Seward, from ‘Elegy on Captain Cook’
While o’er the deep, in many a dreadful form,
The giant Danger howls along the storm,
Furling the iron sails with numbed hands,
Firm on the deck the great Adventurer stands;
Round glitt’ring mountains hears the billows rave,
And the vast ruin thunder on the wave.—
Appal’d he hears!—but checks the rising sigh,
And turns on his firm band a glist’ning eye.—
Not for himself the sighs unbidden break,
Amid the terrors of the icy wreck;
Not for himself starts the impassion’d tear,
Congealing as it falls;—nor pain, nor fear,
Nor Death’s dread darts, impede the great design,
Till Nature draws the circumscribing line.
Huge rocks of ice th’ arrested ship embay,
And bar the gallant Wanderer’s dangerous way.—
His eye regretful marks the Goddess turn
The assiduous prow from its relentless bourn.
And now antarctic Zealand’s drear domain
Frowns, and o’erhangs th’ inhospitable main.
On its chill beach this dove of human-kind
For his long-wand’ring foot short rest shall find,
Bear to the coast the olive-branch in vain,
And quit on wearied wing the hostile plain.—
With jealous low’r the frowning natives view
The stately vessel, and adventurous crew;
Nor fear the brave, nor emulate the good,
But scowl with savage thirst of human blood!
And yet there were, who in this iron clime
Soar’d o’er the herd on Virtue’s wing sublime;
Rever’d the stranger-guest, and smiling strove
To sooth his stay with hospitable love;
Fann’d in full confidence the friendly flame,
Join’d plighted hands, and name exchang’d for name.
To these the Hero leads his living store,
And pours new wonders on th’ uncultur’d shore.
(1780)
Henry Headley, from ‘An Invocation to Melancholy: a Fragment’
Child of the potent spell and nimble eye,
Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array’d,
Points to new scenes that in succession pass
Across the wond’rous mirror that she bears,
And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye
A wider range o’er all her prospects take:
Lo, at her call, New-Zealand’s wastes arise!
Casting their shadows far along the main,
Whose brows cloud-cap’d in joyless majesty,
No human foot hath trod since time began;
Here death-like silence ever-brooding dwells,
Save when the watching sailor startled hears,
Far from his native land at darksome night,
The shrill-ton’d petrel, or the penguin’s voice,
That skim their trackless flight on lonely wing,
Through the bleak regions of a nameless main:
Here danger stalks and drinks with glutted ear
The wearied sailor’s moan, and fruitless sigh,
Who, as he slowly cuts his daring way,
Affrighted drops his axe, and stops awhile,
To hear the jarring echoes’ lengthen’d din,
That fling from pathless cliffs their sullen sound:
Oft here the fiend his grisly visage shews,
His limbs of giant form in vesture clad
Of drear collected ice and stiffened snow,
The same he wore a thousand years ago,
That thwarts the sun-beam and endures the day.
(1786)
Missionaries, Whalers and Pakeha Maori
Thomas Kendall, Letter to Josiah Pratt
It has pleased Almighty God, of His goodness, to preserve me and my Colleagues, with our Families, in safety at his place, during the past four years. We are under no fears respecting our personal safety; the Natives, making due allowance for their wild habits, being reconciled to us, and we to them. On their part, there is no apparent obstacle in the way of our usefulness, except, as must be expected, their unsettled turn of mind; and we have every encouragement to indulge the hope, that, by a patient perseverance in the path of duty, with a single eye to the glory of God and their benefit, a blessing will attend our exertions.
I am now anxiously expecting some person of talent, to assist me in fixing the New-Zealand Language. One friend of a kindred spirit, possessing greater abilities than I do, would be very useful to me, and I could be useful to him. As soon as the Holy Scriptures are in print, or those parts of them the knowledge of which is essential to salvation, and the Natives are taught to read them, a general blessing, in dependence upon the Divine promises, may then, and perhaps not before then, be expected.
Although the New Zealanders are exceedingly superstitious, and what religion they profess is constituted of Rites the most horrible and offensive to an Englishman and a Christian, yet it
is a very encouraging circumstance, that Parents do not at all object to their children being instructed by us. They rather wish it: and the children themselves have always been ready to repeat their lessons when called on; and have been kept in a state of discipline far superior to my expectations, when we have had it in our power to give them a handful of victuals.
When numbers of Natives are about us, they are often very troublesome; it being a difficult matter for the Chiefs most friendly to our interests to keep their people under restraint.
Our trials, I apprehend, will be much heavier for some years to come, than they have hitherto been. The Native Spirit has been roused, by the long intercourse of the Natives with Europeans; but none of them having been yet converted to Christianity, the Native Heart with its blind attachment to its barbarous customs remains unchanged, and inclines its possessor to pursue them with additional vigour.
In the first year after our arrival, many New Zealanders died. They had not food sufficient to preserve life; and, in this weak condition, we could discern little of the Native Mind. Since then, the Natives in general at the Bay of Islands, and in the adjacent country, eager to procure implements of war and of husbandry, have exerted themselves so much in cultivating land for potatoes, Indian corn, &c. that they have not only obtained such articles as they wanted, but have lived much better themselves, and there has been but little mortality. Their Native Disposition has, of course, been greatly revived; and, being Heathens still, they follow the customs and traditions of their forefathers with avidity. War is all their glory. They travel to the South, and kill great numbers. Almost the whole of the men belonging to this Bay are now gone to battle. Although the Natives in general shew no disposition to injure us; yet, being so unsettled and unsteady, our situation among them is more trying.
We have hitherto been strictly neutral. We have made it our constant practice to be kind to strangers; and while we continue to be quiet, I am under no fears whatever respecting our personal safety: but we require, at this time, not only the assistance of our Heavenly Master, but support and encouragement from our Christian Employers.
The constant sailing to and fro of the Active, and steady supplies for the Settlement, are essential to our comfort and to our progress in duty. It is the ultimate object of the Society that must be our chief aim. Without a regular intercourse between this country and Port Jackson, and steady supplies for the Settlement, I should contemplate nearly the same disastrous events taking place, as formerly occurred with the Missionaries at Otaheite.
Until the Word of God is graciously revealed to this people, a firm footing among them will not be obtained. They may be conciliated by kindness; but nothing can secure them permanently to our interests, but a participation with us in the blessings of the Gospel.
On the Sunday after Easter, I had an opportunity to examine some Otaheitean Sailors, belonging to the Ship King George. They read the works of their Missionaries, both in print and manuscript, very readily. It would have rejoiced your heart to have been with us on that day. The New Zealanders fell on their knees; and continued to behave with decency and listen with attention, while they heard prayer in their own tongue, and while the Otaheitean Sailors in the Evening were reading in my house and singing the praises of their Redeemer. These Christian Islanders would not take a mouthful of victuals until they had implored the Divine Blessing; nor would they leave the table until they had given thanks. They slept in one of our barns, and spent part of the night in singing and prayer.
I bless God that my Wife and seven Children are well. I have had my health ever since the day I landed here. My father lived until he was 93. I have not yet attained to half that period, yet I am covered with grey hairs. If it pleases the Lord to spare me, I pray to Him that I may be usefully employed in promoting the Kingdom of His Dear Son.
(1818; 1820)
Winthrop Mackworth Praed, from Australasia
But not thy death shall mar the gracious plan,
Nor check the task thy pious toil began;
O’er the wide waters of the bounding main
The Book of Life must win its way again,
And, in the region by thy fate endeared,
The Cross be lifted, and the Altar reared.
With furrowed brow and cheek serenely fair,
The calm wind wandering o’er his silver hair,
His arm uplifted, and his moistened eye
Fixed in deep rapture on the golden sky,—
Upon the shore, through many a billow driven,
He kneels at last, the Messenger of Heaven!
Long years, that rank the mighty with the weak,
Have dimmed the flush upon his faded cheek,
And many a dew, and many a noxious damp,
The daily labour, and the nightly lamp,
Have reft away, for ever reft, from him,
The liquid accent and the buoyant limb:
Yet still within him aspirations swell
Which time corrupts not, sorrow cannot quell;
The changeless Zeal, which on, from land to land,
Speeds the faint foot, and nerves the withered hand,
And the mild Charity, which, day by day,
Weeps every wound, and every stain away,
Rears the young bud on every blighted stem,
And longs to comfort, where she must condemn.
With these, through storms, and bitterness, and wrath,
In peace and power he holds his onward path,
Curbs the fierce soul, and sheathes the murderous steel,
And calms the passions he hath ceased to feel.
Yes! he hath triumphed!—while his lips relate
The sacred story of his Saviour’s fate,
While to the search of that tumultuous horde
He opens wide the Everlasting Word,
And bids the soul drink deep of wisdom there,
In fond Devotion, and in fervent prayer;
In speechless awe the wonder-stricken throng
Check their rude feasting and their barbarous song;
Around his steps the gathering myriads crowd,
The chief, the slave, the timid and the proud,
Of various features, and of various dress,
Like their own forest-leaves, confused and numberless.
Where shall your temples, where your worship be,
Gods of the air, and Rulers of the sea?
In the glad dawning of a kinder light,
Your blind Adorer quits your gloomy rite,
And kneels in gladness on his native plain,
A happier votary at a holier fane.
(1823)
Anonymous, ‘Come All You Tonguers’
Come all you tonguers and land-loving lubbers,
Here’s a job cutting in and boiling down blubbers,
A job for the youngster, or old and ailing,
The Agent will take any man for shore whaling.
I am paid in soap, and sugar, and rum,
For cutting in whale and boiling down tongue.
The Agent’s fee makes my blood so t’boil,
I’ll push him in a hot pot of oil!
Go hang the Agent, the Company too!
They are making a fortune off me and you.
No chance of a passage from out of this place,
And the price of living’s a blooming disgrace!
I am paid in soap, and sugar, and rum,
For cutting in whale and boiling down tongue.
The Agent’s fee makes my blood so t’boil,
I’ll push him in a hot pot of oil!
(c. 1830)
James ‘Worser’ Heberley, from ‘Reminiscences’
I then shipped on board the Waterloo Schooner, belonging to John Gard, bound for Queen Charlottes Sound New Zealand that was in the year 1830 Gard told me there were plenty of Houses in Te Awaite and Native Women, and that we had nothing to do but to go in our Boats and catch Fish, and put them in a Bag and throw them on Shore, and the Women clea
n them, and have them cooked against we come on shore, we sailed on the 1st of April being what is commonly termed April fool day, on the 14th of April I found he had made a fool of me, there was no Houses there, only places built on high posts which the Natives use to keep their Provisions in, the Native name of it is Whata.
I had no House to live in till I built one, I got a Tomahawk, and went in the Bush and cut some timber to build one, on entering the Bush, I saw a great number of dead Bodies, I came out I was very frightened, I told an Irish man of the name of Logan he laughed at me, and told me there was plenty in the next Bay, so I went, I suppose there was about 50 or 60 on the ground besides Heads Arms and Joints, some of the Joints were cooked, there was like a young child stuck upon a stick before a fire, that had been lighted the Natives had their fill and left the rest, that evening I came home, the Natives had gone to Haipoa[?] to fight, they left a few Natives behind to look after there land, there were several Women left, also I myself slept in one of their Houses till I built one, there was a Native called—Ranga-cobiner and his Daughter, his Daughter called me one morning to get up, the girl did not know my name, so she sang out tangeter-water […] mau kiki, then the Natives burst out laughing, then the Natives called me Tangata Water so I go by that name ever since by the Natives, but by the white people I am called Worser: but my proper name is James Heberley so I answer to the name of Worser as well as my proper name, I am better known by the name of Worser. I got the natives to lend me a hand to build my House, they are good hands at building and finished my House I paid them not with money, but with Tobacco and Pipes, on the 1st of May we launched our Boats for Whaling, we then pulled to the Heads of Queen Charlottes Sound, some go on shore and some stop in the Boats fishing, till sun-down, so that was our work till we saw Whales, sometimes we go to Surrender [?] Point in search of whales, but more often at the Heads. On the 10th of May the Natives came from Tharepoa they had returned from War, there was about 2000 Natives including females and children, among them were 500 prisoners, they had from 60 to 70 Canoes, the Canoes were decorated with dead mens Hands and Heads they landed at Te-Awaite; and the Te Awaite people stopped at home to look after our Property the Natives stole a Tablecloth belonging to John Gard he was our employer so we took our Muskets and went to the Chief to make them give up the property, they took up arms against us, when they saw we were determined they gave up the property, then the Natives were friends again, and made presents to us, consisting of Pigs and Potatoes, and we gave them in return Tobacco and Blankets then the Natives had a Feast, the Chief Te Rauparaha send some of the prisoners Slaves in the Bush to get Firewood to make a Copper Maori (that is a hole made in the earth and a Fire made in it, as soon as the Oven was ready then the Chief took his Tomahawk and kill the Slave Prisoners that fetched the wood to cook themselves, then some of the other Slaves cook his friends, and dish them up in Baskets and set the human flesh before the Chief, then the Chief got up and made a speech, after that they all sat down and feasted, as soon as they had done their meal, they got up and made another speech and they quivered their Tomahawks and Spears, they stopped about nine days on the Beach with us, then they left and went to the North Island, there were four different tribes, the name of one tribe is the Ngatiawas one the Puketapu & one the Taniwas and the other Kawhia the same tribe that is in the Wairau now so we saw no more of them till the summer except what we saw in Port Underwood, it was there I took a Wife I bought her for a Blanket, she was not a Slave, it is a rule to give something to their friends, I then took her to Te-Awaite and she has reared a large family, we got married as soon as the missionary came amongst us the name of the missionary was Ironside, in 1831 we shifted our quarters to Port Underwood in the summer, and built our Houses and Fishery ready for the next season, we completed our work, and went back to our old Station about the fall of the year. The Southern Natives came back, and set fire to our Houses and drove us out, and destroyed our crops, we took too our Boats and crossed the Straits for the North Island. The Ngatiawa tribe was at war with the [illegible][…]
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 6