aroundworldortra00peebiala-1

NEW ZEALAND. 93
affirm that their ancestors lived to be very aged, and then
died by slowly wasting away, as a lamp goes out for lack of
oil.
THEIR HOME IMATTERS.
These Maoris, as relics demonstrate, were certainly, in the
past, more than semi-civilized. Those yet living are the
degenerate specimens of a nobler ancestry. In social life
they were industrious, good-natured, temperate,* and cleanly.
They dwelt together in large fenced villages. Rising early,
the men went to their land-cultivations or sea-fishing, and
the women to cooking or basket-making. Their housebuilding,
and architecUiral conceptions generally, were infinitely
superior to those of the Australian aborigines. They
excelled in some few manufactures, especially in weaving
mats and garments from phormium^ — New-Zealand flax.
This plant, growing spontaneous, reminds one of the
wide
green flag-leaves seen in American marshes. The fiber is
wonderfully tough ; and the mats and rude dresses, made
from it by the natives, were both useful and ornamental.
This flax is now being utilized for the English market.
Iron was unknown to the New-Zealanders when Capt.
Cook landed upon the island. Their stone axes of various
sizes, used for felling trees, were made of green jade, basalt,
or hard gray stone. For water-vessels, they used the ripened
rinds of gourds. Oil they kept in calabashes similar to those
we saw in the Sandwich Islands. Their musical instruments,
such as the flute, were made from human bones, or
the hollow stems of wood. They did not buy and sell, but
dealt in exchanges and gifts. Priests generally named the
children. They practiced polygamy. As a religious animal,
man is polygamic and promiscuous ; as a spiritual being, he
is monogamic in marriage, and chaste in marital conduct ; and
as an angel he is a cehbate. The embryo angel is within.
Men may become angelic on earth. This is the resurrection
with God's " will done on earth as in heaven."