John Rutherford, the White Chief by George Lillie Craik James Drummond

Author:George Lillie Craik, James Drummond, [George Lillie Craik, James Drummond,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781296069179
Google: 7ZVCrgEACAAJ
Publisher: Scholar's Choice
Published: 2015-02-17T03:05:07+00:00

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CHAPTER VII.

The details we have thus given will enable the reader to form a conception of the state of society in the country in which Rutherford now found himself imprisoned.

The spot in the northern island of New Zealand, in which the village lay where his residence was eventually fixed, cannot be exactly ascertained, from the account which he gives of his journey to it from the coast. It is evident, however, from the narrative, that it was too far in the interior to permit the sea to be seen from it.

"For the first year after our arrival in Aimy's village," says Rutherford, "we spent our time chiefly in fishing and shooting; for the chief had a capital double-barrelled fowling piece, as well as plenty of powder and duck-shot, which he had brought from our vessel; and he used to entrust me with the fowling-piece whenever I had a mind to go a shooting, though he seldom accompanied me himself. We were generally fortunate enough to bring home a good many wood-pigeons, which are very plentiful in New Zealand.

"At last it happened that Aimy and his family went to a feast at another village a few miles distant from ours, and my comrade and I were left at home, with nobody but a few slaves, and the chief's mother, an old woman, who was sick, and attended by a physician. A physician in this country remains with his patients constantly both day and night, never leaving them till they either recover or die, in which latter case he is brought before a court of inquiry, composed of all the chiefs for many miles round.

"During the absence of the family at the feast, my comrade chanced to lend his knife to a slave for him to cut some rushes with, in order to repair a house; and when this was done he received it back again. Soon after he and I killed a pig, from which we cut a portion into small pieces, and put them into our iron pot, along with some potatoes which we had also peeled with our knives. When the potatoes were cooked, the old woman who was sick desired us to give her some, which we did in the presence of the doctor, and she ate them. Next morning she died, when the chief and the rest of his family immediately returned home.

"The corpse was first removed to an unoccupied piece of ground in the centre of the village, and there placed with a mat under it, in a sitting position against a post, being covered with another mat up to the chin. The head and face were anointed with shark oil, and a piece of green flax was also tied round the head, in which were stuck several white feathers, the sort of feathers which are here preferred to any other.

"They then constructed, around the corpse, an enclosure of twigs, something like a bird's cage, for the purpose of keeping the dogs, pigs, and

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