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Description |
This illustration is bound within Chapter X, "Of the Canoes and Navigation of the Inhabitants of New Zealand; their Tillage, Weapons, and Music: Government, Religion, and Language: With some Reasons against the Existence of a Southern Continent.." In which, the author writes of these artifacts: "Of weapons they have no great variety, but such as they have are well fitted for destruction; they have spears, darts, battle-axes, and the Patoo-patoo. The spear is fourteen or fifteen feet long, pointed at both ends, and sometines headed with bone: these are grasped by the middle, so that the part behind balancing that before, makes a push more difficult to be parried, than that of a weapon which is held by the end. The dart and other weapons have been suffienctly desribed already...Their battles, whether in boats or on shore, are generally hand to hand, and the slaughter must consequently be great, as a second blow with any of their weapons is unnecessary, if the first takes place: their trust, however, seems to be principally placed in the Patoo-Patoo, which is fastened to their wrists by a strong strap, lest it should be wrenched from them, and which the principal people generally wear sticking in their girdles, considering it as a military ornament, and part of their dress, like the poinard of the Asiatic, and the sword of the European."
The image title is drawn from "A Description of the Cuts" page xxxvi in volume one, the full text of the description reads: "Bludgeons, used as weapons by the New Zealanders, and called patoo-patoos, as seen on the side, the edge, and the end. They are from fourteen to eighteen inches long, and broad and thick in proportion."
29 x 22 cm. |
