that in the breast of each
there grew up a secret passion for the other;" and again, "he felt his
heart grow wild with emotion, when he saw so much loveliness before
him," are quite certainly a product of Grey's fancy, for Polynesians,
as we have seen, do not speak of the "heart" in that sense, and such a
word as "emotions" is entirely beyond their powers of abstraction and
conception. Grey tells us that he collected different portions of his
legends from different natives, in very distant parts of the country,
at long intervals, and afterward rearranged and rewrote them. In this
way he succeeded in giving us some interesting legends, but a
phonographic record of the _fragments_ related to him, without any
embroidering of "heart-affairs," "wild emotions," and other adornments
of modern novels, would have rendered them infinitely more valuable to
students of the evolution of emotions. It is a great pity that so few
of the recorders of aboriginal tales followed this principle; and it
is strange that such neatly polished, arranged, and modernized tales
as these should have been accepted so long as illustrations of
primitive love.[194]

MAORI LOVE-POEMS

Besides their stories of love, the Maoris of New Zealand also have
poems, some accompanied with (often obscene) pantomimes, others
without accompaniment. Shortland (146-55), Taylor (310), and others
have collected and translated some of these poems, of which the
following are the best. Taylor cites this one:

The tears gush from my eyes,
My eyelashes are wet with tears;
But stay, my tears, within,
Lest you should be called mine.

Alas! I am betrothed (literally, my hands are bound);
It is for Te Maunee
That my love devours me.
But I may weep indeed,
Beloved one, for thee,
Like Tiniran's lament
For his favorite pet Tutunui
Which was slain by Ngae.
Alas!

Shortland gives these specimens of the songs that are frequently
accompanied by immodest gestures of the body. Some of them are "not
sufficiently decent to bear translating." The one marked (4) is
interesting as an attempt at hyperbole.

(1)

Your body is at Waitemata,
But your spirit came hither
And aroused me from my sleep.

(4)

Tawera is the bright star
Of the morning.
Not less beautiful is the
Jewel of my heart.

(5)

The sun is setting in his cave,
Touching as he descends (the