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important actions” (II:67). 95 Thus, ‘tapu’ in all its forms constitutes “law, custom, etiquette,
prejudice, and superstition” (II:105). How stringently the Maori enforce these rules, however, is
shown by their liaisons with European travellers, whereby “if treated with a little tact, they are not
very obstinate with a stranger in regard to these ordinances, and that, with the hand in the pocket,
he may, as in other more civilized communities, free himself from most of them” (II:102). In fact,
the only obstacle in the end which denies Dieffenbach permission to ascend Mount Tongariro
while the principal chief of the Taupo tribes, Mananui Te Heuheu Tukino, 96 is away on a war
expedition is that he does not possess four sovereigns to pay the tribal members, only trade goods
(II:103), 97 further illustrating the nature of indirect European influences.
When it comes to Maori war practices, however, Dieffenbach still embraces the
stereotypical view of the ‘haka’ (war dance) as a means of eliciting frenzied behaviour before
combat, “in which all manner of distortions of the body are employed to express defiance of the
enemy; the thighs are beaten, the tongue thrust out, and the eyes drawn up, till only the white is
visible” (II:125). In fact, it is not only the male warriors who perform this act and fight
traditionally in the nude, but also the old women who “dance in front of the party, stripped of
their clothes, bedaubed with red ochre, and distorting their faces even more frightfully than the
men” (II:125f.). Moreover, in battle the “love of life” is not one of their strongest feelings: “I
could record many instances in which they have ventured their lives to save those of Europeans,
with a coolness and courage that would have done honour to a man of any nation” (II:40). 98 As a
result, suicides are also fairly common, “in consequence of wounded pride, or of shame from
having been found guilty of theft, from fear of punishment, by a husband at the death of his wife,
by a wife at the death of her husband, or by both at the death of their children” (II:112f.). The
most notable example of Maori warfare is naturally the act of cannibalism. In spite of the cruel
and barbaric nature of this custom, however, he retains Forster’s basis of revenge as the main
reason, yet develops the idea further by introducing the religious dimensions and restrictions on
participation:
This frightful custom has not yet entirely ceased, although it undoubtedly will do so in a very short
time. The implacable desire of revenge which is characteristic of these people, and the belief that
95
See I:96.
96
See Elizabeth Hura, “Te Heuheu Tukino II, Mananui ? – 1846: Ngati Tuwharetoa leader”, in: DNZB 1, 447f.; John
Te H. Grace, Tuwharetoa: The History of the Maori People of the Taupo District. Wellington: Reed, 1959, 233-45.
97
Cf. I:346f.
98
In one instance, a male Maori preferred death to having his leg amputated, making him “certainly not inferior to a
European” in bearing pain (II:101).
89