as decorated with the smoke-dried heads of slain enemies by a host
whose dress might include a necklace of human teeth,[1] the owner of
which he had helped to eat. Though a cannibal feast was a rare orgie,
putrid food was a common dainty. Without the cringing manner of the
Oriental, the Maori had his full share of deceitfulness. Elaborate
treachery is constantly met with in the accounts of their wars. If
adultery was rare, chastity among the single women was rarer still.
The affection of parents for young children was requited by no
kindness on the part of youth for old age. Carving never rose higher
than grotesque decoration. The attempts at portraying the human face
or form resulted only in the monstrous and the obscene.

[Footnote 1: At any rate among the Ngatiporou tribe.]

[Illustration: A MAORI MAIDEN

Photo by ILES, Thames]

The Maori men are as a rule tall and bulky, long-bodied and
short-legged, and with fairly large pyramidal skulls, showing
well-developed perceptive faculties. Their colour varies from maize to
dusky olive, and their features from classic to negroid; but usually
the nose, though not flat, is wide, and the mouth, though not
blubber-lipped, is heavy and sensual. Shorter and more coarsely built
than the males, the women, even when young, are less attractive to the
European eye, despite their bright glances and black, abundant hair.
It might well be thought that this muscular, bulky race, with ample
room to spread about a fertile and exceptionally healthy country,
would have increased and multiplied till it had filled both islands.
It did not, however. It is doubtful whether it ever numbered more than
a hundred and fifty thousand. Except on the shores of Cook's Straits,
it only planted a few scattered outposts in the South Island. Yet that
is the larger island of the two. It is also the colder, and therein
lies at least one secret of the check to the Maori increase. They were
a tropical race transplanted into a temperate climate. They showed
much the same tendency to cling to the North Island as the negroes in
North America to herd in the Gulf States. Their dress, their food and
their ways were those of dwellers on shores out of reach of frost and
snow. Though of stout and robust figure, they are almost always weak
in the chest and throat. Should the Maoris die out, the medical
verdict might be summed up in the one word tuberculosis.

The first European observers noted that they suffered from