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work of the field, are often handsome and attractive, and no one can deny them this latter epithet
as long as they are young. This is heightened by a natural modesty and childlike naïveté, which all
their licentiousness of habit cannot entirely destroy. (II:11f.)
Thus, the women are relatively unspoiled by their lack of morals in certain affairs and not
tarnished by their previous prostitution to European seamen. This time they are not seen to simply
do all the drudgery, only it seems the heavy tasks that are deemed inappropriate for a man to do. 86
Interestingly, the custom of women doing all the domestic labour remains unchanged in instances
of intermarriage (I:38). In general, however, the wife is treated well by her husband to the point
where her earlier role as ‘slave’ has been replaced by that of a “constant companion” who “takes
care of the plantations, manufactures of mats, and looks after the children” while the man
“constructs the house, goes out fishing, and to war: but even in war the woman is often his
companion, and either awaits in the neighbourhood the termination of a skirmish, or on the field
itself incites the men to combat” (II:39f.). 87 Even the widows of ‘ariki’, whose respect is no more
than “voluntary and complimentary, rather than compulsory”, appear to supersede their husbands
as they “hold for life the highest influence over the tribe, or convey this influence to the chief
whom they may marry” (II:40), while it is only their slaves who “have to perform the greater part
of the work of the field, and are the property of their master, who can do with them as he pleases”
(II:113). However, it is the old women in particular who endear themselves to Dieffenbach, as
they are “the best-natured and kindest creatures imaginable, and the traveller is sure to receive a
smile and a welcome from them, if no one else shows any intention of befriending him” (II:12).
This is also shown in the fact that it is the old women who generally are the most affected at the
loss of loved ones, as in these instances “their bodies are entirely covered with deep scars, from
the incisions which they make with their broken shells, and their eyes become inflamed from an
excess of crying” (II:66). 88
The treatment of Maori children, on the other hand, combines the Romantic with the
barbaric, in which the parenting skills of the Maori are generally not inferior to that of Europeans:
86 However, these gender roles are not so strict that the males cannot see the advantage of doing traditional female
work when it brings its own rewards, as even preparing flax was “resorted to by the men in times of war, for the
purpose of procuring muskets, powder, and shot” (I:7).
87 We find this same theme of equality in Earles’ account, although it is mixed to a degree by the stereotypical view
of Maori wives as “mere slaves”, who “sink gradually into domestic drudges to those who have the power of life and
death over them” due to their being just as susceptible at receiving a fatal blow from their husbands in a fit of passion
as their miserable slaves (Earle, Nine Months’ Residence, 81), before he makes the point that on many occasions, in
contrast to most savage tribes, the wife is, nevertheless, “treated as an equal and companion” (ibid., 85).
88 Cf. I:102.
85