O'Gaygun, who had accompanied me, said that if there had only been a fiddler present, to play _The Coina_ or _Savournah Deelish_, the resemblance to a wake in "ould Oireland" would have been complete; for "lashins of whiskey was goin', annyhow!"
In this manner several days and nights were spent. I am afraid to say how many sheep and pigs were killed, how many tons of potato and kumera, and sacks of flour, were devoured; but the total, I know, was something prodigious. The stores at Ohaeawae and Waitangi did a roaring trade in supplying tea, sugar, tobacco, liquor, and the other requirements of the feasters.
There was a very singular custom prevalent among the Maori called the moru. If a misfortune of any kind happened to a man, all his neighbours, headed by his nearest and dearest friends, instantly came down upon him and pillaged him of everything he possessed.
In 1827, Mr. Earle, who resided some time in New Zealand, and afterwards published a narrative of his experiences, relates that the houses or huts belonging to himself and his companions on Kororareka Beach accidentally caught fire. The fire took place at a rather critical moment, just when a number of Maori had arrived to do battle with the Kororareka natives, who were Earle's allies. Directly the fire broke out, both parties suspended preparations for hostilities and rushed upon the devoted little settlement, which they pillaged of everything that could be carried off. Earle and his party could do nothing to prevent them, and they were thus stripped of the greater part of their possessions, according to the custom of the moru.
A peculiarity of the Maori race is the singular power that imagination has over them. It seems, indeed, to take practical effect, and the suddenness with which the will can operate is not less startling than the action so induced.
A Maori can throw himself into a transport of rage, grief, joy, or fear, at a moment's notice. This is not acting either, it is grim reality, as many an instance proves. For example, there is Hau-hau. The principal manifestation in that singular new religion is the ecstasy and excitement into which whole congregations appear to throw themselves. There is something akin to the mesmeric phenomena in the extraordinary gusts of feeling that sweep over a Hau-hau conventicle. The leader works himself up first, and then the rest follow. They shout, they scream, they roll on the ground, they weep, they groan, and, while in this state, appear insensible to every external influence but the strange excitement that possesses them.