Volume 2

The natural history of man : being an account of the manners and customs of the uncivilized races of men / by J.G. Wood.

Date:
1868-1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of man : being an account of the manners and customs of the uncivilized races of men / by J.G. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    160/880 (page 148)
    the first seeds from the island of Tawai. E' Tiki was a native of the island of Tawai, which is not that whence, according to tradition, tlae ancestors of the New Zealanders had come. He came to New Zealand with his wife, whether in less frail vessels than they possess at present, and whether purposely or driven there by accident, tradition is silent. He was well received, but soon perceived that food was more scanty here than in the happy isle whence he came. He wished to confer a benefit upon his hosts, but knew not how to do it, until his wife, E' Paul, offered to go back and fetch kumera, that the people who had received them kindly might not suffer want any longer. This she accomplished, and returned in safety to the shores of New Zealand. What a tale of heroism may lie hidden under this simple tradition ! Is it a tale connected with the Polynesian race itself? or does it not rather refer to the arrival in New Zealand of the early Spanish navigators, who may have brought this valuable product from the island of Tawai, one of the Sandwich Islands, where the plant is still most extensively cultivated ? There can be scarcely any doubt but that New Zealand was visited by some people antecedent to Tasman. Kaipuke is the name of a ship in New Zealand—huque is a Spanish word—Kai means to eat, or live. No other Poly- nesian nation has this word to designate a ship. Pero (dog) and poaca (pig) are also Spanish. Tawai, whence E' Paul brought the kumera, is situated to the east of New Zealand according to tradition, and the first discoverers in the great ocean, Alvaro Mendana (1595), Quiros (1608), Lemaire, and others, arrived from the eastward, as they did at Tahiti, according to the tradition of the inhabitants. Tasman did not come to New Zealand until 1642. However this may be, the fields of kumera are strictly tapu, and any theft from them is severely punished. The women who are engaged in their cultivation are also tapu. They must pray together with the priests for the increase of the harvest. These women are never allowed to join in the cannibal feasts, and it is only after the kumera is dug up that they are released from the strict observance of the tapu. They believe that kumera is the food consumed in the reinga, the dwelling-place of the departed spirits ; and it is certainly the food most esteemed among the living. They have several ways of preparing the sweet potato. It is either simply boiled, or dried slowly in a hangi, when it has the taste of dates, or ground into powder and baked into cakes. The kumera, like most importations, is rather a delicate vegetable, and while it is young it is sheltered by fences made of brushwood, which are set up on the windward side of the plantation when bad weather is apprehended. Great stacks of dried brush- wood are seen in all well-managed kumera gardens, ready to be used when wanted. So great is the veneration of the natives for the kumera, that the storehouses wherein it is kept are usually decorated in a superior style to the dwelling of the person who owns them. In the following illustration several of these elaborate storehouses are shown. They are always supported on posts in such a way that the rats cannot get among the contents, and in some instances they are set at the top of poles fifteen or twenty feet high, which are climbed by means of notches in them. These, however, are almost without ornamentation, whereas those which belong specially to the chief are compara- tively low, and in some cases every inch of them is covered with graceful or grotesque patterns, in which the human face always predominates. Some of these curious storehouses are not rectangular, but cylindrical, the cylinder lying horizontally, with the door at the end, and being covered with a pointed roof. Even the very posts on which the storehouses stand are carved into the rude semblance of the human form. The Maories also say that the calabash, or hue, is of comparatively late introduction, the seeds having been obtained from a calabash which was carried by a whale and thrown on their shores. A very curious article of vegetable food is the cowdie gum, which issues from a species of pine. This gum exudes in great quantities from the trees, and is found in large masses adhering to the trunk, and also in detached pieces on the ground. It is a clear,