unts of New Zealand. The reports of the
missionaries, in particular, abound with notices of individuals put to
death by the chiefs for alleged acts of theft; but in every case of this
kind which is mentioned, the person punished is, we believe, a slave. We
have observed no instance, noted, in which the crime in question was
punished, either with death or in any other way, when committed by one
"cookee" on the property of another; and it is abundantly evident, from
many things which are stated, that the natives themselves really do not
consider the act as implying, in ordinary cases, that moral turpitude
which we generally impute to it.

In one case which Marsden mentions, the brother of a chief, named
Ahoudee Ogunna,[BA] conceiving himself to have been improperly treated
by one of the missionaries, stole two earthen pots from another of them;
but the explanation which the chief gave of the matter was that his
brother had not stolen the pots, but had only taken them away with an
intention to bring on an explanation respecting the conduct which had
given him offence. The man's expectation here evidently was that his
theft (if it was to be so called) would merely have the effect of making
the missionaries as angry as he himself was, and so of rendering both
parties equally anxious for a full discussion of their differences. He
had himself, as he conceived, been affronted in a manner not to be
passed over; and his stealing of the pots he meant merely as a spirited
act of retaliation, which would in some degree throw back the insult he
had received upon those who had inflicted it, and make them in their
turn feel mortified and on fire for satisfaction.

He certainly did not imagine for a moment that he was at all degrading
himself by the method he adopted for attaining this end. The
degradation, in his conception of the matter, would be all with the
party robbed. He had, however, in his anger, forgotten one thing, which,
according even to the notions of the New Zealanders, it was most
material that he should have remembered, as his more considerate brother
felt as soon as he heard of the transaction, and as even he himself was
afterwards brought to acknowledge. The chief, besides having experienced
much kindness from the missionaries, was the very person from whom they
had purchased the ground on which their settlement was established, and
on whose friendship, at least, they had therefore a fair right to count,
if they were