Maoria--A Sketch of the Manners and Customs of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of New Zealand by John Campbell Johnstone

Author:John Campbell Johnstone [Johnstone, John Campbell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781304978073
Publisher: John Campbell Johnstone
Published: 2014-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter VI.

The written laws of the Persians and the Medes, the arbitrary emanations from the brains of despots, executed by courtly chamberlains and obsequious ministers of justice, were less freely and willingly obeyed than were the customs, traditions, and oral laws of the Maoris enforced by the sovereign will of the people. Had it been otherwise, anarchy must have overcome order among a people whose every unit was trained to the use of arms.

The ordeal of public battle by single combat was the recognized course for the redress of private injuries, supplemented in many cases by damages levied upon the offending party, and in some instances, upon his relatives.

Woman was the most frequent cause of duelling; even an immodest glance being a sufficient cause for inflicting a little blood-letting upon its recipient. Injuries in some way or other connected with land were the next most prolific motive of these affairs of honour, looked upon with so much favour. A trespass upon a piece of "tapued" ground, even if accidental, subjected the offender to the chance of having a hole pierced through him, and himself and his relations to being heavily mulcted by those interested in the tapu. The plea of ignorance or accident was never for a moment entertained, or even thought of. It mattered not how or why a man had done anything; he had to take the consequences of his act. Limited liability was unknown; and ingenious excuses, such as those invented by railway directors to shirk their liability for accidents, caused by the carelessness of their servants or the recklessness of their own management, would have ensured those making them ample opportunities for practising the noble art of self-defence with the spear. To invent an excuse for an inflicted injury was considered an aggravation of the crime. While stating the two most frequent causes of duelling, and even of war, to be quarrels about land and about women, we must not in justice forget that insulting language, still the reason of so many duels upon the Continent of Europe, was never a cause of quarrel and bloodshed amongst these barbarians, whose language did not even possess a curse until one was invented out of a mixture of Maori and English. Custom so governed the practice of duelling, that, while it was encouraged, it was at the same time restrained. A person in the constant habit of requiring the assistance of his friends would have been considered an intolerable nuisance, and means would soon have been found of getting rid of him; the most obvious being that of turning him into ridicule: a punishment to which most Maoris, of gentle birth, preferred death itself. While the State recognized and patronized duelling, it insisted that it should take place in public. A private rencontre would have been looked upon as a positive fraud upon the public, which would thereby have been deprived of a morning's edifying instruction and exciting entertainment; besides, when a man was killed in a sudden

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