Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/231

Rh much more than I gained, that I stipulated to have nothing to do with these affairs in future.

"In actual honesty the Maoris have been injured by their contact with Europeans. They will steal and do other improper things more than formerly; but against this we must offset the abolition of slavery, cannibalism, tribal wars, polygamy, and many of their superstitious and cruel practices. When anything is stolen from you the chief can recover it, and will do so if you apply to him. Custom requires that you should tell him to keep it as a reward for his trouble, and so you don't gain much by the recovery of the plunder.

"They were not favored by nature," continued their historian, "as they did not have the bread-fruit, banana, and cocoa-tree to supply them with food, and they did not even have the pig until it was given to them by Captain Cook. Dogs and rats were their only quadrupeds, and they ate both. The native dogs are extinct, as the Maoris did not care to preserve them when pigs became plentiful.

"It used to be the custom to make human sacrifices on the death of a chief; prisoners of war were used for this purpose, their blood being sprinkled on the grave, and the flesh roasted and eaten. There was a grand feast at a funeral, and even now this custom is kept up, though they have no longer any human sacrifices. The festivities at a Maori funeral are very much like those of an Irish 'wake,' and something like an Arab burial ceremony. They eat and drink all they can get, and the mourning is performed by the women, who howl and cry for hours, simply because it is the custom to do so."

As the time of our friends was limited, they bade adieu to the pakeha Maori, and left him to meditate upon the changes that had taken place since his advent into New Zealand.

"He might have told you," said their guide, "that the native rat has been killed off by the European one, which was introduced from ships, and the European house-fly has driven away the native blue blow-fly. The foreign clover is killing the ferns, and European grasses