Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/295

“Another good thing about the Maoris as I knew them was that they were very particular about their women. Infidelity on the part of either husband or wife was punishable with death; and among unmarried people the relationships were as decent, to say the least of it, as you would find in communities of Europeans. The women had to work, but only at what were looked on as their proper tasks. But it was considered the right thing for a chief to have several wives. I am bound to admit that because it’s a fact. Jacky White had four or five, and most of them had two or three: they were supposed to have as many as they could keep, or they were allowed to, which comes to about the same thing. These wives, however, no matter how many there were, were always properly treated, and not regarded as concubines, nor could they be put away at the will of their chief. Perhaps you don’t know it, but it’s quite true that the Maoris in those days had slaves. Each chief had some. I never could quite make out how they got these slaves, nor what their position was, but we always concluded that they had been prisoners taken in war. They did all the dirty work, and might be bought or sold, and it was no offence if a master killed one of them. I don’t know anything about cannibalism among them. I never saw any, and they never would confess to having been given to that ungodly practice. Still I know that a slave’s life was at his master’s mercy, and goodness only knows whether, in the olden days, they always buried one that they knocked on the head. I once knew one of these slaves very well. Hughes, who was here before me, owned one. He was a big fellow, that we used to call Rogers. The Maoris were going to kill him, so the yarn went, and Hughes took pity on him and tried to save his life. The Maoris wouldn’t listen to what he had to say, so Hughes thought he would buy the man; and