shells or flints, till the blood streamed down." Some time after, when
Duaterra[N] and Shungie[O] went on shore at the Bay of Islands, they met
with a similar reception from the females of their tribes. Mr. Savage
asserts that this cutting of their faces by the women always takes place
on the meeting of friends who have been long separated; but that the
ceremony consists only of embracing and crying, when the separation of
the parties has been short. It may be remarked that the custom of
receiving strangers with tears, by way of doing them honour, has
prevailed with other savages. Among the native tribes of Brazil,
according to Lafitau, it used to be the custom for the women, on the
approach of any one to whom they wished to show especial fidelity, to
crouch down on their heels, and, spreading their hands over their faces,
to remain for a considerable time in that posture, howling in a sort of
cadence, and shedding tears. Among the Sioux, again, it was the duty of
the men to perform this ceremony of lamentation on such occasions, which
they did standing, and laying their hands on the heads of their
visitors.

In some cases, the wounds which the New Zealand women inflict on
themselves are intended to express their grief for friends who have
perished in war; and probably this may have been a reason for the strong
exhibition of feeling in the instance just noticed by Rutherford, as the
chiefs had then returned from an expedition. Such a mode of mourning has
been often observed in New Zealand. During the time that Cruise was at
the Bay of Islands, they found one day, upon going on shore, that a body
of the natives had just returned from a war expedition, in which they
had taken considerable numbers of prisoners, consisting of men, women,
and children, some of the latter of whom were not two years old; and
among the women was one, distinguished by her superior beauty, who sat
apart from the rest upon the beach, and, though silent, seemed buried in