Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
They are all most inveterate smokers, men, women, and children; you can give a Maori maiden nothing more acceptable to her taste and appreciation than a pipe and a plug of smoking-tobacco. As a people, they have manifestly filled the purpose for which Providence placed them upon these islands of the South Sea; and now, like the Moa, they must pass off the scene and give way to another race.
I thought I was the person who should have been nervous, because I was in his country almost alone. I liked him, and really all the old Maori chiefs were fine fellows shrewd, dignified, with a high sense of honour. Heke made me his heir when he died, to the neglect of his wife, but of course I gave her everything. This Heke was the son-in-law of Hongi, a Napoleonic figure in Maori annals.
But less fortunate than young Grant, he walked straight into a Maori camp, where he met a tall, intelligent-looking chief, evidently of higher rank than all the warriors of his tribe. The chief spoke excellent English, and he saluted the new-comer by rubbing the end of his nose against the end of the geographer's nose. Paganel wondered whether he was to consider himself a prisoner or not.
"My dear Lord, where Maories are concerned, distrust is safer than confidence. I do not know on what terms they are with the English, whether the insurrection is suppressed or successful, or whether indeed the war may not be going on with full vigor. Modesty apart, people like us would be a prize, and I must say, I would rather forego a taste of Maori hospitality.
On some of the earlier deeds and agreements between White and Maori, a chief would sign or make his mark by means of a rough reproduction of his special Moko. The Maori pas or stockaded and intrenched villages, usually perched on cliffs and jutting points overhanging river or sea, were defended by a double palisade, the outer fence of stout stakes, the inner of high solid trunks.
If we cannot say of the Maori tongue as Gibbon said of Greek, that it "can give a soul to the objects of sense and a body to the abstractions of philosophy," we can at any rate claim for it that it is a musical and vigorous speech. Full of vowel-sounds, entirely without sibilants, but rich in guttural and chest notes, it may be made at will to sound liquid or virile, soft or ringing.
Her attitude frightened him, he dreaded lest she should be on the eve of a serious illness; he had sore misgivings and tortured himself with many doubts. Her words rang in his head with damnable iteration: 'I deceived them all. I lied to every body. Maori welcomed them under the firs, capering heavily and putting himself very much in the way, but with the best intentions.
Night and morning in the far south were vividly reflected to Sir George Grey in tales of Rauparaha and Rangihaeta, Maori chieftains, and of Siapo, Loyalty Islander. Before his arrival in New Zealand, the Maoris had been divorced from their cannibal practices. Yet, the horrid traffic was not remote, if he were to accept a lasting rumour of Rauparaha and Rangihaeta.
The average colonist regards a Mongolian with repulsion, a Negro with contempt, and looks on an Australian black as very near to a wild beast; but he likes the Maoris, and is sorry that they are dying out. No doubt the remnants of the Maori tribal system are useless, and perhaps worse than useless. The tribes still own land in common, and much of it.
On account of the sacredness of his head a Maori chief "could not blow the fire with his mouth, for the breath being sacred, communicated his sanctity to it, and a brand might be taken by a slave, or a man of another tribe, or the fire might be used for other purposes, such as cooking, and so cause his death." Hair tabooed
Word Of The Day
Others Looking