borigines. But
the most graphic and harrowing description of Maori maltreatment of
women is given by the Rev. E. Taylor:

"The _ancient and most general way_ of obtaining a wife
was for the gentleman to summon his friends and make a
regular _taua_, or fight, to carry off the lady by
force, and oftentimes with great violence.... If the
girl had eloped with someone on whom she had placed her
affection, then her father and brother would refuse
their consent," and fight to get her back. "The
unfortunate female, thus placed between two contending
parties, would soon be divested of every rag of
clothing, and would then be seized by her head, hair,
or limbs," her "cries and shrieks would be unheeded by
her savage friends. In this way the poor creature was
often nearly torn to pieces. These savage contests
sometimes ended in the strongest party bearing off in
triumph the naked person of the bride. In some cases,
after a long season of suffering, she recovered, to be
given to a person for whom she had no affection, in
others to die within a few hours or days from the
injuries which she had received. But it was not
uncommon for the weaker party, when they found they
could not prevail, for one of them to put an end to the
contest by suddenly plunging his spear into the woman's
bosom to hinder her from becoming the property of
another."

After giving this account on page 163 of the Maori's "ancient and
_most general_ way" of obtaining a wife--which puts him below the most
ferocious brutes, since those at least spare their females--the same
writer informs us on page 338 that "there are few races who treat
their women with more deference than the Maori!" If that is so, it can
only be due to the influence of the whites, since all the testimony
indicates that the unadulterated Maori--with whom alone we are here
concerned--did not treat them "with great respect," nor pay any
deference to them whatever. The cruel method of capture described
above was so general that, as Taylor himself tells us, the native term
for courtship was _he aru aru_, literally, a following or pursuing
after; and there was also a special expression for this struggling of
two suitors for a girl--_he puna rua_. As for their "great respect"
for women, they do not allow them to eat with the men. A chief, says
Angas (II., 110), "will sometimes p