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Amongst the Maoris: A Book of Adventure

Chapter XX

page 188

Chapter XX.

A Christian Pah.

A Few days after this, they arrived in sight of another native pah. This time it was a Christian settlement of what the Maoris call “missionary people,” although there was no missionary resident in the immediate neighbourhood; but the people were under the guidance of a native teacher.

In the middle of the village was a building of much better appearance than ordinary—a square wooden house, which was the church. As the party approached the village, a number of people, both men and women, ran out to meet them, with hands outstretched, followed by half a dozen dogs and several pigs. The entire pah testified great pleasure at the arrival of the Pakeas, and were profuse in their offers of hospitality. These people, from intercourse with the missionaries and their families, had learnt to speak a little English. Their huts were of rather a superior description to those in the other pah we have spoken of, being some of them of very good size, and page 189 ornamented by being painted a bright red outside. For all that, I believe the Maoris really prefer their original little mud huts, with the doorways two feet square; but they seem to like to imitate the Europeans as much as they can. There was an old man seated under a tree in solemn silence, who took no part in the general welcome. This was, or had been, the tohunga; but now that the people were Christians, his occupation and his influence were gone. The tangi, or native greeting of howls and tears, began after awhile, the women rocking themselves backwards and forwards, and bowing their bodies to the ground until their foreheads touched the earth.

After the stranger had been conducted into the pah, a large fire was lighted in the church, for the Maoris seem to think that fires are a requisite ingredient in a warm welcome, and the guests were invited to enter.

“What an odd idea!” said Bernard, hesitating before he entered. “I wonder at the people making such a use of their church.”

“I have noticed that they invariably do so everywhere. I don't think they mean any disrespect.”

“I do not half like it,” said Bernard. “In the other pah the people appeared to be so scrupulous about the sacredness of their tapu things, even to not allowing them to be touched. I think these men should be taught to look upon their church building as sacred from secular employments being carried on within its walls.”

“I think so too. I quite agree with you, Bernard,” page 190 answered Colonel Bradshaw. “There must be a fault somewhere in their education. Surely if as heathens they had the organ of veneration so strongly developed, this same quality might have been Christianized into a virtue, and carried on to their new faith. We will not, at any rate,” resumed the Colonel, “let them think that we do not recognize the sacredness of the building. I will tell the chief that we would prefer sitting in the open air to using the church as a dining-room.”

“Pray do, sir,” said Jack; “and we may have a chance of breathing at the same time as we eat.”

Colonel Bradshaw went to the chief, and explained to him that, in England, everybody would be shocked at a church being put to such a use as he contemplated. The Maori, who was extremely good-natured and willing to adopt any European idea or custom, at once agreed, and said that the Colonel and the two Pakeas should be accommodated in the “cook-house.”

This cook-house was a large wooden building, kept for such emergencies as the sudden arrival of strangers; and the church having been at the first allotted to them was evidently meant as a special honour to the guests.

The cook-house was but a little way off. The fire was transferred to the cook-house, and the travellers stripped off their things and hung them up to dry, for it had been raining sharply most of the afternoon. But the Maori servants, not being endowed with much courtesy, which they leave to the rangatira, or Maori gentlemen, had been page 191 beforehand with them in taking off their blankets, and putting them in front of the fire. The steam from these was by no means pleasant, for these blankets had not been washed for very long, if ever. Moreover, a large part of the village crowded into the cook-house to examine the strangers and to ask for tobacco, with their pipes all ready in their mouths. Colonel Bradshaw requested the chief to desire his people to move away; but the native chiefs have no real authority, and his people declined doing so, but remained blocking up the entrance of the door, and grinning.

After a time, however, the native teacher made his way through the throng. He was a fine, intelligent-looking man; and as soon as he discovered that the Pakeas were annoyed by the familiarity of the villagers, he spoke a few words to them, and they at once dispersed to a greater distance. Colonel Bradshaw invited the native teacher to dine with them, which he readily agreed to do.

Of course the Maori teacher spoke very little English; and we know that Bernard and Jack knew no more of Maori than the two or three words they had learnt during the last week or two, so that the conversation could scarcely be called general; still, it was interesting for all that, as Colonel Bradshaw repeated the teacher's remarks in English to his companions.

“I was asking him,” observed the Colonel, “about the conduct of the people. He says he finds them most anxious to learn. The young men are, some of them, it would page 192 seem, examples to English schoolboys: they are so fond of their lessons.”

“Ask him,” said Jack, “if any of these men in this place have been cannibals?”

“Yes,” said Colonel Bradshaw, after he had received the teacher's answer, “most of them have; some—for instance, the chief himself—within the last five years.”

Jack shuddered, and the Maori continued speaking.

“Children have been taken away from the schools,” resumed the Colonel, “by their parents, in order that they might take part in feasts of human flesh. Not many years ago, women were in the constant habit of murdering their infants, being apparently possessed of no natural affection. In the island of Mana, not so very far from here, there is still a celebrated house, which I think I mentioned to you before, called ‘Eat-man House,’ in connection with which there is a queer story.”

“Which I am to have some day,” said Jack.

“Which you are to have some day. This man here tells me that they are overrun with wild pigs in the neighbourhood, which break into their crops of potatoes, and do all sorts of damage. I have offered the services of all of us for a grand pig-hunt to-morrow. Do you agree?”

“Oh, by all means,” said Jack and Bernard.

“Do look at that fellow!” exclaimed Jack, presently afterwards, alluding to a man who had returned within the hut, and was seated on the ground picking vermin off his blanket and eating them. “Is it possible they can be nice?”

page 193

“I would rather not try, I must say,” said Bernard. “I wonder if we did such things when we were Ancient Britons?”

Presently the Maori teacher rose to go, and they entered the hut with Colonel Bradshaw's native servants, who proceeded, as a first move, to pile up the fire. It was quite vain to speak to these men: they would laugh and take their own way, and the only thing left was to submit. When the fire was large enough to cook a dinner for twenty-four people, they carefully closed the windows and door and every aperture. It was still raining, so that Colonel Bradshaw and the others could not seek the open air, as they had on the previous occasion, but had to endure the heat as best they could, which, added to the myriads of fleas and mosquitos, made sleep impossible to any one but Maoris; and in the early morning they left the hut, in a miserable state of discomfort and want of rest, while the Maoris, streaming with perspiration, sought the open air to cool themselves after their suffocating night. The natives of this part of the world always sleep in a bath of perspiration, which one would think must be very exhausting.

Early in the morning, a great number of the inhabitants of the pah assembled in the church for morning prayers. The congregation were very attentive, but of course the Pakeas understood but little of what was going on.

Looking at Jack Stanley, who, perhaps as much from habit as from any other motive, bent his knee when others did so, and looked impressed with the solemnity which page 194 must attend the sight of a number of men kneeling in a Christian temple, whom you knew but so few years ago were heathens of the most revolting description, Hope Bernard thought and hoped that he had abandoned the idea with which he had come to New Zealand, and which at one time seemed to occupy his mind so much. But Bernard knew very little of what was passing in the mind of his friend.

Jack's thoughts and plans of revenge were put aside for the time, because other things were occupying his mind, and there was no opportunity of carrying them out; but the idea of pursuing Maitland had taken fast hold of his mind, and the packet of letters and papers, which, as he imagined, would convict Maitland of treachery and fraud, had never left his bosom, where he had placed them on his first starting. Even during his captivity with the tohunga, the knowledge that the old man had taken possession of his clothes was productive chiefly of anxiety in the breast of Jack that this packet, which was in his eyes so precious, should be lost or destroyed; and after the restoration of his property upon the interference of Colonel Bradshaw, one of Jack's first acts was to feel in the breast pocket of his shirt that his letters were safe. The tohunga had considered Jack's clothes too valuable to be worn, excepting upon some very special occasions, so that he had not interfered in any way with them.

Hope Bernard little understood Jack Stanley when he thought that he would easily relinquish a determination he page 195 had formed. It would only be a very strong feeling—indeed an entire change, a conversion of heart and mind— which would make Jack see things in their real light, and not in the distorted view which his imagination had formed.