Current:

Leader (1850-1860), 18th November 1854, Edition 2 of 2, Page 16, 1096 THE LEADER. [Sat drd a y ,

Page 16
Page 16
16 of 24

On this page

  • Text (2)
  • Transcript

    • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

      Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

      The Recent Reception At The Palais Mazau...

      the right use of words , and of precise definitions . He attributed -the prevalent "disorders of opinion" to the insane perversion of formulas carried to excess by demagogic writers . The Bishop had already , with far more purpose and propriety , but with an emphasis which to the uninitiated may have seemed almost irony , adored the " Dictionary" which 5 t is the special province of the Academy to conserve . Count Sa . lv andy : anathematised with a melancholy affluence of common -place declamation all revolutions . It is the last privilege of these rejected statesmen to forget , and this ex-minister forgets that he once conspicuously celebrated the Revolution

      of 1830 . It is true that ily a fagot et fagot . The Revolution of 1830 carried M . de Saxvasgbt into power and place . A subsequent crisis consigned him , after a moral quarantine at Jersey , to this refuge of political senilities . The Academy of Forty , which used to have " the wit cf force , " possesses now the weakness and the wilfulness of two impotent royalties The Paiois Mazabet is a Hospital of Invalides—we should rather say Incurables . Many other points are suggested by this recent sitting of the French Academy , For the present we must be content with this pleasant episcopal surprise and this pitiable political apostacy .

      1096 The Leader. [Sat Drd A Y ,

      1096 THE LEADER . [ Sat drd a y ,

      In"Ew Zealand. Traditions And Superstiti...

      IN"EW ZEALAND . Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders . By Edward Shortlanct . Longmans . The earliest superstitions of any branch of the human family present one of the profoundest subjects of investigation to the philosophical inquirer who pursues the first faint footsteps of the world ' s history through the successive developments and migrations of the race , and of ten in the < 3 im records of some savage tribe seems to penetrate to the rude alphabet of the universal language , and of the immemorial belief . We ar « therefore surprised to learn that " the missionaries ( in New Zealand ) , who , from their knowledge of the language , alone had it in their power for many years to converge-freely , with the native race , seem , to have avoided all inquiries on such subjects It surel

      ; " was y a weak and narrow theory of duty to regard these superstitions as mere exercises of ingenuity for the ethnologist , and altogether foreign , if not hostile , to the work of the apostle . " Perhaps so mistaken a _ reticence may account , for those imperfect and insincere conversions with which missionaries have too often been content to feed the confidence of their Societies . For low is a physician to effect a . real cure without having obtained an insight into the constitutional predispositions of the patient ? A cannibal may be converted from man-flesh to mutton , but how shall a genuine Christiaa be manufactured out of an hereditary believer in Atua and Tapuby a preacher who has never taken the trouble , or had the courage ^ to sound the recesses of those savage instincts of aw-e and fear ? The soil must be prepared for the sowing of the new and purer faith—and how ? By striking at the roots of the old . The

      writer of this singularly interesting little book , Mr . Shortland , has had peculiar opportunities of studjing the manners and traditions of the flbonginesof New Zealand , from many years ' residence in districts to which the missions had scarcely penetrated , and in close and friendly intercourse with the natives , of whom he subsequently became the official protector in the dealings with the Colonial Government , and the Company . The natives almost universally attribute their origin to the crews of three canoes , who , according to their tradition , migrated some five hundred years ago from an island named Ha-wailri , which thev point out to be in a northeast direction from New Zealand . The genealogies of several chiefs attested and compared , and the scantiness of the population in the islands when first discoveredby Cook , " and more particularly so of the middle and southern islands , which , according to the accounts given by the N " Zealanders , were colonised from the north island , " seem to support this tradition . This island of Hawaiki Mr . Shortland conjectures to be " the principal p ne of the Sandwich Island group , pronounced Hawaii by its present native inhabitants , the Owaihee of Cook , There is no reason to believe that the

      canoes could not hare accomplished the voyage . The language of tho New Zealanders is found to be nearly identical with that of Hawaii . " Both were found , on their first discovery bv Cook , to resemble each other in Eer sonal appearance , in warlike disposition , and in the practice of cannialisnu" Similar ceremonies and customs , and similar habits of subsistence , seem to establish the ' connexion between the inhabitants of these islands , so remote from each other . " The natives of New Zealand are a mixed race , " containing among them tyro elements , one of which nnfty bo called the pure Indian , the other being the Papuan . " Their ' * prevailing type of feature is the Indian . "

      ' ? These traces of a mixed race are easily accounted for by supposing , as indeed appears certain , that tho Indian Archipelago and tho Malay Peninsula woro primitively inhabited . Jb y Papuans , and that the brown or coppor-colourcd racn , whom wo have called Indian , invaded tlioir country and took possession of parts of it ; for a long time must have elapsed between their first invasion of the Malay Peninsula and their conquest of the Philippine Islands , from which point wo suppose tho nncestors of tho Polynesians to have migrated . And during tho interval , in . which tho two races roxnaincd so nearly in contact , while tho one -was being supplanted or ubaorbod by tho other , no doubt alliances muuat have taken place between individuals of oppoaite aoxca , giving rise to tho appearances of a mixed race now observed . "

      " The New Zealanders had no idea of a Supremo Being ; creating and overruling all things . " They invested the heavens and oarth with individual existences , and their cosmogony was a generation rather than u creation . Tho Adam of tUo Now Zeuiandcrs was known as Tiki-nhua , and thoir idea of aristocracy was democratic enough , for to be designated as the aon of Ti-ki was tho hi g hest evidonce of good birth . Tho Atua ., or supernatural beings , are behoved to have existed before man , but to bo indifferent to human affairs : the Attta who watch over a tribe are tho spirits of its departed warriors . Tho tohiinga , a fumily priest , ia tho intercessor with the Atna . Tho abode of spirits is a region situated bonoath the earth , called Te Jtteigna . Some tribes preserve small carved images of wood , each of Vrhich ia dedicated to tlie spirit of an ancestor , who is believed to ontor into its substance to hold converse with tho living . These images are not

      worshipped , nor held sacred as possessing in themselves virtue , but merely as having been in contact with an Atua . Mr . Shortland had an interview with certain Atna , which , like the spirit-rappings , was half failure , half success . We regret our space will not allow us to extract the account of this amusing seance . There is nothing in these small images , and in the belief that spirits enter into their substance , that may not be paralleled nearer home in less savage nations , and the reservation that the images are not worshipped , but only held sacred , is not unfamiliar to our experience . The following passage is highly characteristic : — ° " Some persons have imagined that they could trace in the traditions of the New Zealanders vestiges of the principal historical facts connected with , the early state of

      mankind , recorded by Moses . But , I must confess , that my inquiries on these subjects have led me to arrive at very different conclusions . A gentleman connected with the Church Mission , with whom I was once conversing on the subject , assured me that the natives among whom he resided had a distinct tradition of the Deluge . As this gentleman had been twelve or fourteen years in the country , and possessed an intimate knowledge of the Maori language , his statement -would have been generally accepted as most worthy of reliance . On further inquiry , however , from the same tribe of natives who were his informants , I was soon convinced that he had been misled by his own preconceived ideas , and that the Deluge of his imagination was no more than a remarkable flood , which had overwhelmed a village several generations ago . The particulars of this event I obtained from a chief named Te Awhe . "

      Tapu , or tabou , from which we get our word taboo , means , literally , " marked thoroughly , " , in a secondary sense , " sacred or prohibited : — " Tbe fundamental law on -which all their superstitious restrictions depend is , that if anything tapu is permitted to come in contact with food , or with any vessel or place where food is ordinarily kept , such food must not afterwards be eat hy any one , and such vessel or place must no > longer he devoted to its ordinary use ; the food , vessel , or place becoming tapu from tbxe instant of its contact -with an object already- tapu . " Everything not tapu is noa , or free and common , and the tapu may be removed by certain ceremonies , but for which everything would have become tapu in time , and so life itself would have come to a fall stop ! This belief id'tapu . has- become much relaxed since the introduction of Christianity , bufc it has not entirely disappeared , nor have the Atuaheerx altogether superseded by the new faith . The onl y cause of disease is supposed to be the possession of the body by infant spirits , the agents of the vengeance of the Atua .

      It is not so very long ago that witchcraft was nourishing in England : in New Zealand this profession is known by the name of makutUj which is , in fact , the mystery of bringing down the anger of the Atua on your enemy . It is remarkable that -when the first missionaries preached in N ~ Zealand the "Atua always declared Jesus Christ to be the true God : " " and this may account , " continues Mr . Shortland , " for the little opposition which the introduction of Christianity received in New Zealand . " Sometimes part of a tribe or family became converts , while the rest remained in their old belief . " A . nd it sometimes became a matter of arrangement among the elders who should be missionary and who should remain devil . ' The jealousies of tribes , says Mr . Shortland , have often determined the selection of a form of Christianity , as the following example proves : —

      " Had it not been for the existence of such jealousies , the whole native population of Cook ' s Straits "would , in all likelihood , have become members of the Church of England ; for the first European Missionary who resided in that part of N " ew Zealand , the Rev . O . Hadfield , was a most zealous and intelligent minister of the Gospel . But it so happened that the young chiefs of the tribe called Ngatitoa -would not receive instruction from him , because a son and nephew of Te Rauparaha , of whom they were jealous , had the credit generally -with their people of having brought Mr . Hadiield from the Bay of Islands to dwell with them . They , therefore , determined to have a Missionary of their own finding , and went to > the head-quarters of the " Wesleyan establishment , and prevailed on that body to send one of their number to reside -with them . Thus the inhabitants of Cook ' s Straits became divided between the Church of

      England and the wesleyan sect . " We cannot , in our limited space , do justice to the various and ample information contained in this little volume 031 the social condition and customs of the New Zealanders . The chapters on the ceremonies attending births and burials ; on the education and amusements of youth ; on their war and love songs , are full of interest . The life of the aborigines when first discovered is vividly described : their agriculture , their mechanical skill , their mode of barter , their calendar : their social distinctions , forms of justice , laws and precedents : their arms and fortifications , and modes of warfare : their tenure of land , and form of bequests and titles—all these important topics arc handled with perfect mastery of the subject , ami illustrated by special cases . The last chapter , on the classification of lands according to the titles of claimants , and on the disputes arising out of the purchase of land from natives with doubtful titles , deserves to be read by all colonists , and by all vvho pay attention to coloninl affairs ; it bears the nuirk of tho -writer ' s active experience . In arc appendix will be found valuable illustrative notes , and a vocabulary of native words .

      New Zealand and tho name of Sbivwvn are imperiwhably associated in the annals of that new world which is to redress the balance of the old-The labours and sufferings of this heroic man and true typo of a Christian apostle havo not only taught humanity to cannibals and civilisation to savages ; they havo made the religion of tho Cjtoss a promise and a pledge of justice ami bcncficonco , a standard of right and liberty , a luminary of peace and ordor , wherever his footsteps havo loft a trace and his voice an echo . Bishop Sjbmvtn has preached and worked , it may bo said , as the representative of a local system and of a local form of worshi p which , even within tho sphere of the Christian world , occupies the position and exerts tho influence rather of a powerful sect than of a catholic unity .

      But all the power and patronage of aristocratic Englaad nfc his back could not have done his work as ho liaa done it if the spirit of tho worker had been less honest , fearless , and upright . Bishop Sml-w y n baa done for tho English Church what Cunnintj promised to do for free institutions . Ho has * redressed tho balance" of a Church weakened by wealth , corrupted by compromise , tottering under privileges , au » d torpid with repose at homo , by tho croation of a church in thoso far islandn of tho South Pacific , which in labours and perils and watchinga , in suflbring and self-douiail , half rocals tho purity and tho strength of that earlier iinul auHterer ago -when tho faith was purchased by the poverty of outcasts , and scaled by tho ulood of martyrs;—when tho only crown to winch bo-

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 18, 1854, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18111854/page/16/