was ever used for the kumara. The very idea of such a thing would have been repulsive according to Maori ideas,* Cf. Colenso, loc. cit. the only fertiliser employed being the sand already mentioned. This was carried up from the pits or river-beds in closely woven flax baskets, one basketful being placed on each hill. Men, women, and children joined in this laborious business, the slave and the rangatira working together. Planting. The planting usually commenced about October and extended more or less up to Christmas, according to the variation of the season, the state of the weather, the locality, and the condition of the soil. Various natural signs and portents assisted in determining the proper time for the work. Thus, when the kumarahou (Pomaderris elliptica), a small shrub with a sage-like leaf and yellow tufted blossom, which had been in bud all the winter, suddenly shot out into flower it was known that the season was approaching; and when a “mackerel sky”† Ranqi kotingotingo, literally “spotted sky.” showed an exact picture of a kumara-plot extending across the heavens the Maoris knew that the atua were busy at their planting above, and that they themselves ought to be doing the same below. As a matter of fact, the celestial phenomenon, portending as it does, according to the English farmer's proverb, a state of weather which is “neither wet nor dry,” indicates an atmospheric condition exactly suited for starting the young plants. Up to the time when the planting commenced everything was noa, or “common,” but once the seed began to be handled until the crop was harvested the whole thing became tapu, or consecrated, including the ground, the plants, and even the workers so long as they were engaged in the cultivation. The tapu was invoked by the tohunga (priest) or the kaumatua (head chief), the two offices being often combined in the one person, by the performance of a karakia or religious service consisting of certain symbolical actions, accompanied by the chanting of an address to the atua (ancestral deity), its object being to ward off evil influences in the shape of injurious weather, insect pests, decay, &c., to protect the cultivation from intrusion, and generally to secure the blessing of heaven on the growing crop. Any breach of the tapu was a crime against the atua, and was punishable with death; and until it was removed by a second karakia by the tohunga it was unlawful for any “common” person to enter the plantation or even approach too closely to it under any circumstance what-ever.