Part 13 (1/2)
The princ.i.p.al native war-instrument of the New Zealanders is the short thick club, which has been so often mentioned. This weapon they all constantly wear, either fastened in their girdle or held in the right hand and attached by a string to the wrist. It is in shape somewhat like a battledore, varying from ten to eighteen inches in length, including a short handle, and generally about four or five broad, thick in the middle, but worked down to a very sharp edge on both sides. It is most commonly formed of a species of green talc, which appears to be found only in the southern island, and with regard to which the New Zealanders have many superst.i.tious notions. Some of them are made of a darker-coloured stone, susceptible of a high polish; some of whalebone; and Nicholas mentions one, which he saw in the possession of Tippoui, brother of the celebrated George of w.a.n.garooa, and himself one of the leaders of the attack on the 'Boyd,' which, like that of Shungie, which Rutherford speaks of, was of iron, and also highly polished. It had been fabricated by the chief himself, with tools of the most imperfect description; and yet was, in Nicholas's opinion, as well-finished a piece of workmans.h.i.+p as could have been produced by any of our best mechanics. This instrument is employed in close combat, the head being generally the part aimed at; and one well-directed blow is quite enough to split the hardest skull. The name usually given to it, in the earlier accounts of New Zealand, is patoo-patoo. Anderson, in his general remarks on the people of Queen Charlotte Sound, says it is also called Emeeta. But its correct and distinctive name seems to be that by which Rutherford always designates it, the mery or mairy.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Christchurch Museum_
1. _Pou-wherma._ 2. _Taiaha_ of white whale-bone.
3. _Taiaha_ (6ft. 3in. long) of wood, with flax mat and dog's hair.
4. _h.o.e.roa_ of white whale-bone.
5. _Tewha-tewha_.]
Savage tells us that when he took his friend, Moyhanger,[CM] to a shop in the Strand to purchase some tools, he was particularly struck with a common bill-hook, upon which he cast his eyes, as appearing to be a most admirable instrument of slaughter; and we find accordingly that since they have had so much intercourse with Europeans some of the New Zealand warriors have subst.i.tuted the English bill-hook for their native battle-axe. Nicholas mentions one with which Duaterra was accustomed to arm himself.
Their only missile weapons, except stones, which they merely throw from the hand, are short spears, made of hard wood or whalebone, and pointed at one extremity. These they are very dexterous with, both in darting at a mark, and in receiving or turning aside with the blades of their battle-axes, which are the only s.h.i.+elds they use, except the folds of their thick and flowing mats, which they raise on the left arm, and which are tough enough to impede the pa.s.sage of a spear. They have other spears, however, varying from thirteen or fourteen to thirty feet in length, which they use as lances or bayonets. These, or rather the shorter sort, are also sometimes called by English writers patoos, or patoo-patoos. Lastly, they often carry an instrument somewhat like a sergeant's halbert, curiously carved, and adorned with bunches of parrot's feathers tied round the top of it.
The musket has now, however, in a great measure superseded these primitive weapons, although the New Zealanders are as yet far from being expert in the use of it.
By Rutherford's account, as we have just seen, they only fire off their guns once, and throw them away as soon as they have got fairly engaged, much as some of our own Highland regiments are said formerly to have been in the habit of doing.
Cruise, in like manner, states that they use their firelocks very awkwardly, lose an immense deal of time in looking for a rest and taking aim, and after all, seldom hit their object, unless close to it.
Muskets, however, are by far more prized and coveted by the New Zealander than any of the other commodities to which his intercourse with the civilized world has given him access. The s.h.i.+ps that touch at the country always find it the readiest way of obtaining the supplies they want from the natives, to purchase them with arms or ammunition; and the missionaries, who have declined to traffic in these articles, have often scarcely been able to procure a single pig by the most tempting price they could offer in another shape. Although the arms which they have obtained in this way have generally been of the most trashy description, they have been sufficient to secure to the tribes that have been most plentifully provided with them a decided superiority over the rest; and the consequence has been that the people of the Bay of Islands, who have hitherto had most intercourse with European s.h.i.+ps, have been of late years the terror of the whole country, and while they themselves have remained uninvaded, have repeatedly carried devastation into its remotest districts.
More recently, however, the River Thames, and the coasts to the south of it, have also been a good deal resorted to by vessels navigating those seas; and a great many muskets have in consequence also found their way into the hands of the inhabitants of that part of the island.
When Rutherford speaks of the two parties whom he saw engaged having had about two thousand stand of arms between them, it may be thought that his estimate is probably an exaggerated one; but it is completely borne out by other authorities. Thus, for example, Davis, one of the missionaries, writes, in 1827: ”They have at this time many thousand stand of arms among them, both in the Bay and at the River Thames.”
The method of fighting, which is described as being in use among the New Zealanders, in which, after the first onset, every man chooses his individual antagonist, and the field of battle presents merely the spectacle of a mult.i.tude of single combats, is the same which has, perhaps, everywhere prevailed, not only in the primitive wars of men, but up to a period of considerable refinement in the history of the military art.
The Greeks and Trojans, at the time of the siege of Troy, used both chariots and missiles; and yet it is evident from Homer that their battles and skirmishes usually resolved themselves in a great measure into a number of duels between heroes who seem to have sometimes paused by mutual consent to hold parley together, without at all minding the course of the general fight.
Exactly the same thing takes place in the battles of the American Indians, who are also possessed of bows and arrows. The New Zealanders have no weapons of this description, and, until their intercourse with Europeans had put muskets into their hands, were without any arms whatever by which one body could, by its combined strength, have made an impression upon another from a distance. Even the long spears which they sometimes used could evidently have been employed with effect only when each was directed with a particular aim. When two parties engaged, therefore, they necessarily always came to close combat, and every man singled out his adversary; a mode of fighting which was, besides, much more adapted to their tempers, and to the feelings of vehement animosity with which they came into the field, than any which would have kept them at a greater distance from each other.
The details of such personal conflicts amongst more refined nations always formed a princ.i.p.al ingredient in poetry and romance, from the times of Homer to those of Spenser. They are, indeed, always uninteresting and tiresome, although related with the highest descriptive power; and even in the splendid descriptions of Ariosto and Ta.s.so there is something absolutely ludicrous in the minute representations of two champions in complete armour, hammering each other about with their maces like blacksmiths.
Still, the poets have clung to this love of individual prowess, wherever their subjects would admit of such descriptions; and, even to our own day, that habit which we derived from the times of chivalry, of describing personal bravery as the greatest of human virtues, is not altogether abandoned.
The realities of modern warfare are, however, very unfavourable to such stimulating representations. The military discipline in use among the more cultivated nations of antiquity, for example the Persians, the Macedonians, the Grecian states, and above all, the Romans, undoubtedly did much to give to their armies the power of united ma.s.ses, controllable by one will, and not liable to be broken down and rendered comparatively inefficient by the irregular movements of individuals. But it is the introduction of fire-arms which has, most of all, contributed to change the original character of war, and the elements of the strength of armies. Where it is merely one field of artillery opposed to another, and the efficient value of every man on either side lies princ.i.p.ally in the musket which he carries on his shoulder, individual strength and courage become alike of little account. The result depends, it may be almost said, entirely on the skill of the commander, not on the exertions of those over whom he exercises nearly as absolute an authority as a chess-player does over his pieces.
If this new system has not diminished the destructiveness of war, it has, at least, very much abated the rancorous feelings with which it was originally carried on. It has converted it from a contest of fierce and vindictive pa.s.sions into an exercise of science. We have still, doubtless, to lament that the game of blood occasions, whenever it is played, so terrible a waste of human life and happiness; but even the displacement of that brute force, and those other merely animal impulses, by which it used to be mainly directed, and the subst.i.tution of regulating principles of a comparatively intellectual and unimpa.s.sioned nature, may be considered as indicating, even here, a triumph of civilization.
It is impossible that the business of war can be so corrupting to those engaged in it when it is chiefly a contest of skill, as when it is wholly a contest of pa.s.sion. Nor is it calculated in the one form to occupy the imagination of a people, as it will do in the other. The evil is therefore mitigated by the introduction of those arts which to many may appear aggravations of this curse of mankind.
Rutherford does not take any notice of the pas, or as they have been called, eppas, or hippahs,[CN] which are found in so many of the New Zealand villages. These are forts, or strongholds, always erected on an eminence, and intended for the protection of the tribe and its most valuable possessions, when reduced by their enemies to the last extremity. These ancient places of refuge have also been very much abandoned since the introduction of fire-arms; but formerly, they were regarded as of great importance.
Cook describes one which he visited on the East Coast, and which was placed on a high point of land projecting into the sea, as wholly inaccessible on the three sides on which it was enclosed by the water; while it was defended on the land side by a ditch of fourteen feet deep, having a bank raised behind it, which added about eight feet more to the glacis. Both banks of the ditch are also, in general, surmounted by palisades, about ten or twelve feet high, formed of strong stakes bound together with withies, and driven very deep into the ground. Within the innermost palisade is usually a stage, supported by posts, from which the besieged throw down darts and stones upon their a.s.sailants; and in addition to this, the interior s.p.a.ce, which is generally of considerable extent, is sometimes divided into numerous petty eminences, each surrounded by its palisade, and communicating with each other by narrow lanes, admitting of being easily stopped up, in case of the enemy having effected his entrance within the general enclosure. The only road to the strong-hold is by a single narrow and steep pa.s.sage.
Cruise describes a fort at w.a.n.garooa as situated on an insulated rock, about three hundred feet high, and presenting the most imposing appearance. These elevated palings were a subject of much speculation to those on board of Cook's vessel, when that navigator first approached the coast of New Zealand. Some, he tells us, supposed them to be inclosures for sheep and oxen, while others maintained they were parks of deer.
The New Zealanders may, in some degree, be considered as a warlike people upon the sea. We have no distinct account of any maritime engagements between one tribe and another carried on in their vessels of war; but as these belong to the state, if it may be so termed--that is, as the war canoes are the property of a particular community inhabiting a village or district, as distinguished from the fis.h.i.+ng-boats of individuals--it is probable that their hostile encounters may occasionally be carried on upon the element with which a nation of islanders are generally familiar.