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are allowed to pass from one party to the other, the combatants politely ceasing to fire during the
time” (II:126), in contrast to the mass slaughter of men from the enemy ‘pa’ and the placing of
their women and children into slavery if peaceful relations are not met and concluded with a
friendly feast (II:127). 102 Even the reported act of local women licking their enemies’ blood off
the rocks below Mayor’s Island (Tuhua) in the Bay of Plenty after an ill-fated attack resulted in
many deaths (II:130) is followed by the Forster-like moralising of supposed European supremacy:
The savage, passionate and furious with feelings of revenge, slaughtering and devouring his
enemy and drinking his blood, is no longer the same being as when cultivating his fields in peace;
and it would be as unjust to estimate his general character by his actions in these moments of
unrestrained passion, as to judge of Europeans by the excesses of an excited soldiery or an
infuriated mob. If we were to be judged by the conduct of our countrymen in the South Seas, who,
unprovoked, have not only frequently murdered the innocent by tens and twenties, but, what is
still worse, have fostered the passions of the natives against each other in every possible manner,
what a picture would be given of our civilization! The history of the discovery of the islands of the
South Seas is one continued series of bloodshed and aggression; and in our intercourse with the
New Zealanders it might easily be proved that, in nine out of ten cases in which there has been a
conflict between them and Europeans, the fault was on the side of the latter […]. If one were to
reckon up the crimes and gratuitous cruelties (not including, of course, the unhappy but
involuntary consequences of our intercourse) which civilized men have committed against the
savage, the balance of humanity, and of other virtues too, would probably be found on the side of
the latter. (II:130f.)
Thus, he believes that as long as a Maori “lives by himself, he possesses more virtues than vices,
at least as regards his own tribe” (II:105). If anything, it has been their interaction with Europeans
which has taught them more vices, as they are no worse than Europeans when it comes to ferocity
in battle.
While images of “bush-natives” 103 still surface from time to time, the Maori in fact have a
fixed locale, although they do not always dwell in the same place, as when they are not at their
house attending their plantations during the planting season, they are either off visiting distant
relatives or European coastal settlements, “either for the purpose of trading or to see what the
increased to replace the early unreliable guns which had less range and were slow to hit their targets (Angela Ballara,
Taua: ‘Musket Wars’, ‘Land Wars’ or Tikanga?: Warfare in Maori Society in the Early Nineteenth Century.
Auckland: Penguin Books, 2003, esp. 400-11).
102 See Vayda, Maori Warfare, 8-125.
103 Even though he is told of one instance where some slaves had run away into the bush despite their settled life
(I:261), he is convinced that “the formidable pictures of bush-natives which have been drawn are purely the result of
imagination. The natives in general are much too civilised and social, and know their own interests too well, to live in
a gloomy and inhospitable forest. It is true, indeed, that excursions for surprising and robbing neighbouring tribes are,
or rather were, frequent; and in that manner the natives become acquainted with the most secret recesses of the
country: but on such occasions they always return to their settlements” (I:86f.).
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