Once convinced, however, of the utter inadequacy of their weapons, and of the powers of their adversaries, once convinced that the new comers avoided using those instruments which produced such terrific effects, they treated the navigators as friends, and conducted themselves towards them with surprising loyalty.
If the natives usually met with by the navigators had little idea of decency or modesty, the same was not true of the New Zealanders, and Cook gives a curious example of this fact. Although not so clean as the natives of Tahiti, whose climate is much warmer, and although they bathed less often, they took a pride in their persons, and showed a certain coquetry. For instance, they greased their hair with an oil or fat obtained from fishes or birds, which becoming rank after awhile, made them as disagreeable to a refined sense of smell as the Hottentots.
They were in the habit of tatooing themselves, and some of their tatoo designs demonstrated wonderful skill, and taste certainly not to be expected among this primitive race.
The English were greatly surprised to find that the women devoted less attention to their attire than the men. Their hair was cut short and without ornament, and they wore clothes similar to those of their husbands. Their sole attempt at coquetry consisted in fastening the most extraordinary things to their ears, stuffs, feathers, fish-bones, bits of wood, not to mention green talc needles, the nails and teeth of their deceased parents, and generally everything they could lay hands on, which they suspended by means of thread.
This recalls an adventure related by Cook, which happened to a Tahitan woman. This woman, envious of all she saw, wanted to have a padlock attached to her ear. She was allowed to take it, and then the key was thrown into the sea before her. After a certain time, either because the weight of this singular ornament worried her, or because she wished to replace it by another, she begged to have it removed. The request was refused, upon the ground that her demand was foolish, and that as she had wished for this singular ear-ring, it was fair that she should put up with its inconveniences.
The clothing of the New Zealanders consisted of one piece of stuff, something between reed or cloth, attached to the shoulders and falling to the knees, and of a second rolled round the waist, which reached to the ground. But the latter was not an invariable part of their dress. Thus, when they had on only the upper part of their costume, and they squatted, they presented the appearance of thatched roofs.