have the continual benefit of the lamentations of the women. When a person is ill and the tohunga sees that the cause of his illness is located where he is residing, he tells him to go away to another place, and there live for a year or two: the trouble will not assail him there. This treatment, which is termed whakahehe, is suitable for illness due to atua or makutu (i.e., demons or sorcery).

Sickness made a person tapu because of the atua or demon, ngarara or lizard, kikokiko or ancestral ghost, entering into the body of the afflicted. The sick were removed from their own houses, and had huts built for them in the bush, at a considerable distance from the pa or village, where they lived apart; if any remained in their houses and died there the buildings became tapu, were painted with red ochre, and could not again be used, which put the tribe to a great inconvenience, as some houses were the common abode of perhaps thirty or forty different people. In some cases, when the tohunga has divined that the disease is the result of an infringement of the tapu, and the patient is being punished by the gods for his wickedness, he banishes the victim, who takes up his abode perhaps in some miserable hut that cannot protect him from the evening breeze, much less keep out the dew and rain. Here he lies unattended, no person being permitted to hold further communication with him or to supply him with food. In some cases the sick person is compelled to he out-of-doors on the ground, either without any covering or within a roughly prepared hut. At the present time a tent is often used, and some person remains in attendance on the invalid, but the attendance is of the poorest kind. Among the Tuhoe natives it is seldom, says Mr. Best, that one can detect any sign of affection for or loving care of a sick person, except sometimes in the case of children. No attempt is made to provide the sick with comforts of any kind. “I have often,” he adds, “prepared food for sick people here, but find it necessary to take the food myself and watch the invalid eat it, otherwise he would see but little of it.” Dieffenbach observed, however, that the Maoris with whom he came in contact provided the sick with better and more easily digestible food than usual—with cockles, fresh fishes, fish - broth, and game. The root or rhizome of the edible fern (Pteris esculenta), which is rich in starch and farinaceous matter, was also given to the sick.

The beliefs of the Maori relative to the origin of diseases had a powerful tendency to stifle every feeling of sympathy and compassion, and to restrain all from the exercise of those acts of kindness that are so grateful to the afflicted, and afford such alleviation to their sufferings. The attention of the relatives and friends was directed to the offended

tremely limited, and which is one of the fundamental beliefs on which the whole fabric of the Maori social system was built up—namely, the mysterious primal curse of woman or of the female nature. The ancient Maori held most interesting and unique ideas regarding the sexes, some of which are referred to here. “Tane said to Rangi, ‘Where is the uha?’ Rangi (the Sky Parent) replied, ‘Kei raro te uha, te whare o aitua; e hamama i runga, ko te whare tena o te ora.’ Now, this remark has two applications. The whare o aitua means the female procreative organs (tara, tore, &c.), and is also applied to Mother Earth, because her children (man) die and are taken back to her bosom—i.e., buried; also because of the mysterious primal curse of sex—female—which is ancient beyond compare, and appears in the most ancient myths of the ancient tribes of New Zealand. All troubles, misfortune, sickness, come from the whare o aitua (whence man enters the world)—i.e., from the female sex. On the other hand, the children of the primal pair who remained on high (the sun, moon, stars, &c.) perish not, but live for ever. They represent eternal life, hence the term whare o te ora applies to them. The ure tane (penis), the sacerdotal term for which is tawhito (‘the ancient one’), is another whare o te ora, or representative of life. The tawhito is the salvation of man: it gives mana^* to his karakia and saves him from sickness and death. A man clasped his penis while repeating karakia to ward off magic spells. The tara wahine, or female genital organs, were, as we have just pointed out, the cause of death entering the world. Maui entered the womb of Hine-nui-te-po (goddess or personification of death) viâ the tara, in order to gain eternal life for man, but the puapua (sphincter vaginæ ?) of Hine closed upon Maui and killed him; hence death came to man. Thus the female genitals represent death, while the male organ signifies life. The first woman, in the Maori mythology, drags down her offspring to Po (night), meaning to death, and the first woman in the Greek mythology, Pandora, introduces all kinds of afflictions as an heritage for hers.” The key to so many Maori customs and superstitions is to be found in their cosmogonic myths, and that portion relating to the creation of woman, and her fall, resulting in the introduction of death and disease into the world, may be briefly summarised here.

Commencing with a primitive state of darkness, night, morn, heaven (Rangi), earth (Papa), the winds, were produced in succession, and later Tiki, the first man. Rangi and Papa had numerous children, one of whom was named Tane-nui-a-rangi. This Tane, desiring a wife, made an image in the

human form from red clay. She was named Hine-ahu-one; and after giving birth to an egg, from which sprang all the birds of the air, Tiki-kapakapa, a girl, was born—the Maori Eve. Tane took her to wife, and she bore a female child. One day Tiki-kapakapa, who was now called Hine-a-tauira, said to Tane, “Who is my father?” On learning the truth the woman was sad, and fled away to Po, the lower regions of darkness. There she took the name of Hine-nui-te-po (Great woman of night). Her farewell words to Tane were, “Remain, O Tane, to pull up our offspring to day, while I go below to drag down our offspring to night.” Thus was man cursed for ever and doomed to death. We have already related how the demi-god Maui visited Hine-nui-te-po to wrest from her, as she slept, the secret of eternal life, but she awoke and strangled the brave Maui. Since then all men have been subject to disease and death.

The whare o aitua, the passage by which man enters the world to be assailed by disease, by death, is seen in woman. As Rangi said to Tane, “The whare o aitua yawns below, the abode of life is above”; or, in the words of the ancient Maori priest, “That which destroys man is the mana of the female organ: it turns upon man and destroys him.”

As affording a good illustration of the strange channels in which the thoughts of the Maori run, and as an interesting relic of an ancient system of phallic worship, the following remarks made to Mr. Elsdon Best by an old Maori may be here recorded: “Friend,” said the old man, “it seems to me that the ora [health, vigour, vitality] of the white men, and their exemption from disease and sickness and premature death, is caused by their never forgetting the koutu mimi at night-time; it is ever in the room to protect them. For that urine represents the tawhito, and will avert any evil consequences of any act of witchcraft levelled against them. For that organ was the life and salvation of my ancestors, and saved them from trouble and death”

“According to Maori belief,” says Best, “there were two most important things by means of which physical health and general well-being were retained. The first of these was the mauri, and the second tapu. To maintain inviolate the mauri, tribal, family, or individual; to refrain from transgressing the laws of tapu, and to retain his prestige and powers, natural and supernatural, was to command health, physical and mental

“The tribal mauri is a sort of sacred talisman that holds and protects the health and prosperity of the tribe. The mauri of the Matatua tribes was located at Whakatane. It is termed the pouahu, or the makaka, by the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the Bay of Plenty. This was the

supreme source of the welfare of the old-time people of the district, and through its power the sick were restored to health, or the cause of their death ascertained, and impending danger warded off from the living. The mauri of the later migration of Maoris from Hawaiki is known as ‘the manuka at Whakatane,’ a tree which is said to have grown from a branch brought from the fatherland. In the case of a sick person this mauri was appealed to by invocations repeated by the priest. The mauri ora at Whakatane was the salvation of man, says my aged informant; it was life and health itself; it represented the vitality and spiritual well-being of the people. The manuka at Whakatane was the essence and semblance, or personality, of health, of life, of spiritual and intellectual prestige.

“There was also a custom of instituting a mauri to represent the health and well-being of individuals, or of a family group, the latter being the real unit of Maori social life. In these cases some material token was placed at the tuahu or sacred place of the village, and this token or talisman was imbued with the semblance of health, vitality, &c., of the person or persons, and also that of the tribal lands. By means of this singular rite the welfare of man and lands was protected, and neither would then be in danger of suffering from the arts of the wizard. For, bear in mind, we are now speaking of sickness and troubles of divers kinds as being caused by magic arts.

“There were innumerable invocations used and rites performed in order to preserve the physical, intellectual, and spiritual vitality of man. These ceremonies began early in the life of the individual, when the tua and tohi rites were performed over the new-born child, and the kawa-ora and other invocations were repeated by the priest.

“When the kumara, or sweet-potato, was first obtained by the old-time people of Whakatane they were advised by the islanders from whom they obtained it to slay one Taukata and sprinkle or besmear his blood on the door-frame of the store-house in which the kumara was placed. This rite was for the purpose of preventing the mauri or life-principle of the tuber from returning to Hawaiki. Should it do so, then it would be useless attempting to cultivate or propagate the seed-tubers: they would not bear, the life-principle being departed.

“Now, the natives say that, in like manner, the ora (life, vitality, health) of the Maori people has returned to Hawaiki, on account of the mauri or kawa ora having become noa, or polluted. This sacred life-principle of man has become polluted through contact with Europeans—i.e., the tapu of the race is destroyed. When Christianity was embraced by the natives they proceeded to whakanoa, or make them-

“To trespass on a tuahu, or sacred place where rites are performed, or any place where a sacred fire has been kindled, even though it were long years ago, will also bring down the anger of the gods. At no great distance from camp Heipipi, at Rua-tahuna, is an old settlement named Kiha, which has been deserted for nearly forty years. A few weeks ago, two native women in camp were discussing the probability of obtaining some flax from that place. An old woman said, ‘Be careful how you approach that place. Do not go straight up through the clearing, but keep round the edge of the bush until you get opposite the flax, and then strike straight across.’ ‘And why should we not go straight up?’ inquired one. ‘He ahi kai kona’ (There is a fire there), replied the aged one. No more was said; the women understood at once that, in past generations, a fire had been kindled at that spot in order to perform some religious rite. They would carefully avoid the place.

“Another frequent cause of illness is the kai ra mua, a term applied to the act of eating food which has been set aside for the gods, or food prepared for a tapu person. It is also applied to the infringement of a rahui (a private tapu-mark set up to prohibit persons from robbing or trespassing). There are many other acts of a similar nature the performance of which will cause a person to be seriously afflicted by the gods.

“Tapohe is a term applied to the polluting of persons, &c., by placing tapu objects in common places. The placing of the food, or remains of food, of a tapu person in a common place—i.e., a place not tapu—would be a tapohe. If it happens to be the maanga (remains of a meal) of a sick person, the invalid will have a relapse, and the person who committed the dread act of tapohe will also be taken ill. If a sacred oven is tapoheria it spells death for the offender, unless he takes time by the forelock and hies him to the priest or a matamua, who may shrive him of his sin.”

Affections of the throat were thought to be caused by the eating of sacred food, such as that prepared for the tapu persons who were engaged in buiying the dead, or in exhuming the bones thereof. The disease inflicted by the gods for committing these breaches of the tapu are always considered very serious; by some they are believed to be incurable—the patient must die. And when death comes the body is burned, in order to protect other persons affected by the same disease

Another method of slaying persons who have been guilty of koi ra mua, adopted by the gods, is to destroy them by means of a lightning - stroke. This is brought about by Tupai, one of the personifications of thunder. The form of

thunder represented by Tupai is accompanied by little or no rain.

The infringement of tapu as a cause of illness and death is still implicitly believed in by the Maori, and quite recently, at Gisborne, a tohunga named Paneri Tawera diagnosed the disease of his patient, Kapu, to be due to such a cause. He treated him accordingly; but, unfortunately, the patient died, and the medicine-man was charged with murder. Paneri stated the cause of Kapu's sickness in these terms: “The root of the sickness of Kapu is at Mangatu, at the site of the old whare. There is a pit there; Kapu has gone on to that place, and that is the reason of his sickness.” He said that that was a sacred (tapu) place, and Kapu's sickness had resulted from trespassing on it. The tohunga conducted the relatives of the sick man to the scene of the trespass, and at the root of a poplar-tree found a stone, which, with some grass that was growing near, he carefully wrapped up in his handkerchief. He said, “This is the cause of Kapu's illness. A man in former times, coming from Ti Kete, on the sea-coast, arrived at this place, and they did not offer him any food. On that account he put a tapu on that particular place.” The stone appears to have been the symbol of the tapu. After the tohunga had done talking the party returned to Koutara, where Paneri took the grass that was in the handkerchief and gave it to the people professing the same religion as himself, and told them to repeat certain incantations or charms. When they had finished their karakia he gave a bundle of grass to them. He directed that it should be placed secretly under the sleeping-mat where Kapu was lying. The only other treatment received by the patient in this case was an occasional drenching with cold water, the common remedy for fevers among primitive peoples. Poor Kapu died in great agony, and the mana of Paneri was shattered.

The karakia used by the Ngatiawa tohungas to cure those afflicted by disease as a punishment for trespass on a sacred place (tuahu), or a place where a sacred fire has at some time been kindled, or a cave containing the bones of the dead, is as follows. After the usual sprinkling process by the sacred pool or stream, the priest recites this incantation:—

Heuea ki runga, heuea ki raro
Heuea ki te po uriuri
Heuea ki te po tangotango
Tuhia mai te tuhi e atua nui
Ana ra e patu nei
Haere, whakataha ra Tutara kauika
Ana ra e patu nei
Haere i te po uriuri
Haere i te po tangotango

the stars are persons to us. The small stars are the common people.” The heavenly bodies give signs to the people of the earth concerning the seasons, the crops, &c, and one star at least influences the bodily condition of human beings. When a person feels listless and weak (iwingohe) in summer-time it is said to be caused by Rehua—or, rather, by his summer wife, Whakaongekai. Rehua (Betelgeux, sometimes Antares) is also known and spoken of as “Rehua kai tangata” (Rehua, destroyer of mankind). Rehua is a chief among stars, a whetu rangatira (lordly star). Thus we have here the beginnings, the germs of astrological theories and beliefs such as those on which the whole fabric of medical practice was founded in mediæval times.

The Greeks had many gods to whom they appealed in times of disease, as, for instance, Apollo, Æsculapius, Diana, Hermes, Cheiron; several of these, notably Apollo and Diana, were also the senders of plagues and epidemics, disease, and death amongst men. We find that the Maoris also held similar views as to the existence of disease-producing and disease-healing gods. These divinities were anthropomorphic, or, in some instances, zoomorphic deities. They were not the fetishes of wood and stone which the zealous missionaries invariably and erroneously designated idols, for idols and idolatry were never existent, according to the best authorities, in Polynesia and New Zealand. The gods above referred to as playing an important part in producing disease were the national deities of the Maori race, and many of them were generally recognised throughout Polynesia. They were the great gods, mythical ancestors of the human race, the offspring of the primal pair Rangi and Papa, and denizens of the higher heavenly planes. They keep a jealous eye upon the people, the wicked inhabitants of mother earth, and were ever ready to punish them for infringements of the tapu laws of the national religion. It must be borne in mind that although in some instances the gods inflicted disease and death owing to the inherent maliciousness of their nature, yet generally pain and sickness were sent as punishment for sin. There are Christians who still regard disease in this light.

The Chaldæans, amongst others, believed that the different parts and organs of the human body were afflicted with disease by special gods or demons. Thus, one of their old manuscripts says, “The execrable Idpa acts upon the head of man; the malevolent Namtar upon the life of man; the malevolent Utug upon the forehead of man; the malevolent Alae upon the chest of man; the malevolent Gigim upon the bowels of man.”

Similarly with the Maoris: various portions of the body were supposed to be presided over by different gods, to whom

were attributed the diseases occurring in those regions. Thus Tonga was the god of the head, and he produced headache and nausea; his abode was the forehead. Mokotiti, a lizard deity presiding over the chest and lungs, was the cause of consumption and pulmonary diseases. Tutangatakino, son of Tutewanawana, the father of reptiles, and half-brother of Tuatara, was the god of the human stomach. Titihai occasioned pains in the ankles and feet. Korokioewe produced the disorders of childbirth, and Taiepa, one of the inferior deities, assisted him in his wicked attacks on parturient females. Hineteiwaiwa, on the other hand, was the beneficent “goddess of parturition,” who was always approached in times of painful or delayed labour, and one of the most ancient of Maori karakia (incantation) is that which they used when seeking her aid. She was also called Hina, Hinauri, Hinateotaota by the Maori, and is the most prominent of all Polynesian deities Rongomai, who assumed the form of a whale, and on another occasion appeared in the heavens as a ineteor or comet, with Tuparitapu or Tuparimaewa, the god of the liver, are responsible for consumption, and wasting away of the arms and legs. Paralysis and wasting sicknesses were attributed to the devouring influence of Hanake, sometimes called Niho-oa. Among the Tuhoe people, when a person has infringed the tapu by eating food in a sacred house, or by resting on a sacred pillow, revenge is taken by the god Te Hukita, who enters his victim's body and causes disease. Such a patient is taken to the nearest stream and sprinkled by the tohunga, who recites the takutaku:—

Ara to ara
Mehemea he urunga to take
Ko Te Hukita koe
Haere i tua, haere i waho
Haere i a moana nui
Haere i a moana roa
Haere i a moana te takiritia
Ki te whai ao
Ki te ao marama
Ka uru te ora ki roto
Ka uru te mate ki waho
Uru toro hei
He urunga koe e patu nei
Haere!
Te Hukita koe e patu nei
Haere ki o take
Ko rou ora
Ki te whai ao
Ki te ao marama.

In another similar takutaku, repeated over a person who had polluted the garments of a tapu individual by bringing cooked food near them, the words “He kakahu koe e patu

ing monsters such as Myndie, an enormous snake many miles long, who travelled over the tree-tops, and set up epidemics of small-pox and dysentery in the tribes, and caused ulcers and blindness.

Maori demons were for the most part aquatic monsters, like the Australian man-eating Bunyip and Wangul, which frequented water-holes. Thus we have the taniwha, a demon of huge proportions and terrible mien, inhabiting the lakes and rivers, devouring any human being whom he could capture. Of the sea demons, most dreaded was Mokoroa, the immense sea-serpent, many fathoms long. This mythical creature is one of the very few demons to which the Maori attributed diseases. Another was Ruamano, also an ocean monster, which, according to the Urewera tribes, caused the mate pokapoka, or diseases which eat into the flesh, such as various kinds of ulceration, ringworm, and a terrible disease of the face called hura, or hore.

In the good old days, before the advent of the pakeha, two very celebrated taniwhas resided near the bar of the Hokianga River. Their names were Tauneri and Arai-teuru; and their very names were sufficient to strike terror into the hearts of the Maoris in that district. Tauneri was lord of all; Arai-te-uru was his subject, but by no means an obedient one, for he often on his own account entered the river, upset the canoes, and ate the eyes out of those whom he chose to drown—for this, be it known, was the taniwha's mark. Tauneri, being a rangatira, was not malicious: he only killed those who infringed his tapu or disregarded his mana. The tohungas alone had power to avert the evil consequences attending a visit to the home of these monsters, for they alone could repeat the karakias which must precede the visit. On one occasion four young men went fishing near the Hokianga Heads, against the wish of a powerful tohunga, whom they insulted, and jeeringly suggested that he might report them to his taniwhas. The deeply offended tohunga invoked Tauneri, and begged him to take revenge on those who scorned his power. Tauneri and his comrade capsized the canoe and devoured the wretched fishermen, and thus punished them for their temerity.

The lizards, spiders, birds, dogs, &c., which were credited with being harbingers of disease should not be classed with the demons, for almost without exception these creatures were regarded as the incarnations of ancestral souls, or of the lesser gods.

Throughout Polynesia one may say that disease was not frequently attributed to demoniac possession, but to ghostly possession and magic. Disease demons, such as those described in Assyrian, Accadian, and Hebrew mythology,

Ah! this animal Mokoroa has
Thrust his teeth into my flesh, and
Grasped my body with his numerous
Teeth, and thus I am being eaten up.
The pain that wracks my body is like
An army passing on, each wounding
As he passes.
Aye, there's little
Hope of my recovery; I'm hastening to the dust
To appease the gods, who haunt my spirit hence.

If a traveller should see a lizard in the path before him, he would know the creature did not come there of its own accord, but had been sent by an enemy as an aitua (evil omen) for him to cause his death. He therefore at once kills the reptile, and gets a woman to step over it as it lies in the path. By this means the evil omen is averted And he will also probably try to find out who sent this dread object to bring sickness or death to him. Then he will say, “May so-and-so eat you” Thus he will transfer the aitua to that person so named.

Ripia, the grandmother of the grand old chief Patuone, who died at Auckland in 1872, had a child stillborn, to whom was given the name Te Tuhi. He frequently troubled his tribe, appearing to them in the form of a lizard. His visitations caused great dismay, and many members of the tribe fell victims to his supernatural power Tapua, the priest offered prayers, and various incantations and divinations were resorted to in the hope of laying the troublesome spirit. It is stated that Patuone was urged repeatedly by the lizard spirit to become the medium of communication between the beings of the two worlds, but no amount of persuasion could induce Patuone to become the medium of the atua, and in process of time Te Tuhi's ghost discontinued to trouble his earthly friends.^*

The Urewera natives thus account for their dread of lizards: Punga, the parent of all lizards, spiders, insects, &c., was also the origin of the kumukumu (gurnard), which elected to take up its abode in the ocean. As it went to the ocean the lizard sons of Punga said, “Soon we shall hear of you being roasted at a common fire.” Said the kumukumu, “Ere long I shall hear of you being roasted in a fern fire.” “Not so,” replied the lizards, “for all will fear our ugly appearance.” Hence, for all time, men have feared to look upon the lizard.

The aria, or form of incarnation of Tamarau, the Tuhoe chief, is a lizard known as the kueo, which resides in a ti tree at Rua-toki. It is the size of a tuatara, and bears whitish marks. Should any one approach its resting-place a loud

were said to have returned to this world in the form of butterflies. In Samoa they are said to return in the form of moths. The Maori ghost, like the Australian, often revisits the spot where his bones are deposited. “Sometimes,” said Beviuk, a New South Wales black, “the murup comes back to this world and looks down into his grave, and may say, ‘Hallo, there is my old' possum rug; there are my old bones.’ “If a Maori trespassed on a burial-ground the ghosts of those interred there would punish him with disease, and perhaps death. Their presence is said to be made known generally by a whistling sound. A breath of warm air felt while travelling at night is a sign of the near presence of a kehua. Irirangi is the term applied to a spirit-voice heard singing without, when at night the people are within their houses: it is an omen of evil import. Shortland says the voice of ancestral ghosts is not like that of mortals, but a kind of sound—half whistle, half whisper. He had a conference with the ghosts of two chiefs who had been several years dead, and was assured that such was always the peculiar voice of atua when they talk with man. Other Europeans have had similar intercourse with Maori ghosts, and one need hardly explain that the mysterious voice was in every case the ventriloquistic utterance of the spirit's medium. I have already pointed out that the kehua become hungry like ordinary mortals, and Taylor states that they were thought to feed on flies and filth; but they also had the spirit of the kumara and taro (?).

When a Maori dies his wairua (soul) leaves the body, and either remains near the corpse or goes away to the lower world. In either case it can return, and, re-entering the corpse, bring it to life again. If the kehua goes to the nether regions it may be sent back to this world by its relatives, for the purpose of caring for its children who have been left without a guardian owing to the parents' death, but no soul can return to earth if in Hades it eats of the food of the denizens of that region.

The tohungas have elaborate ceremonies by means of which they restore the soul to a person just dead, but the feat is rarely performed, because the necessary astrological juxtapositions are rare favourable. The ancient Greeks offered the ghost fresh blood, that it might for a time be called back into life and answer questions—a conception which gave birth to the practice of raising the dead and asking oracles of them. By performing the hirihiri divination rite over a corpse the Maoris were enabled to consult the kehua or wairua of the dead person, and gain information as to the cause of its death. I have already referred to the hosts of ancestral ghosts sometimes seen by the matakite or

clairvoyant seer: these companies of spirits were called apa hau by the Tuhoe people, and they were represented in the living world by some living relative, who was the medium (kauwaka or kaupapa) through which such spirits communicated with, and acted as guardians of, their living relatives. A single person may be the medium of the kehua of many deceased relatives. Such kehua or wairua do not abide with the medium, but visit him when they have anything to communicate. The medium may be quite a common person, of no standing in the tribe until he becomes a medium.

Ancient Greek philosophic thought ran to some extent in grooves parallel with that of the Maori. Thus the Greeks believed that the soul left the body and assumed animal form. In particular the snake was imagined to embody a soul; but the forms of bats, birds, and butterflies were also assigned to the spirits of the departed. The Greek ghosts, like the Maori kehua, kept the human form, and to them were ascribed all the attributes of living persons. Food was offered to them; ceremonies and rites were performed to appease their wrath; their influence was exerted only in the neighbourhood of their abode; they revealed future events, or the proper remedies for sickness; they avenged neglect by sending sickness or death, and were therefore called kereo (cf. Maori kehua)—in short, the Greek conception of the ancestral spirit resembled almost in every particular that of the untutored Maori.

I have dwelt at length on the nature, modes of manifestation, and special characteristics of the kehua, or ancestral ghosts, because they are in many ways the counterpart in primitive medical systems of the pathogenic bacteria, or disease-germs, of modern medicine. The Maoris, and, in fact, man in all stages of evolution, from crude savagery to hypercivilisation, regard ancestral souls as playing a most important part in the causation of disease. At the present day the followers of Blavatsky and Besant attribute disease, like the Maori, to the kehua or ghost of the dead. Such was also the belief of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans; and this theory still holds a prominent place in the medical lore of the Polynesians, Melanesians, Australian aboriginals, the Amazulu, Peruvians, and European peasants, especially in Russia, Germany, Austria, and Sweden. In India, China, and Japan we find similar ideas. It was not until the reign of George II. that the statute of James I. of England enacting that all persons invoking any evil spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, employing, feeding, or rewarding any evil spirit, should be guilty of felony, and suffer death.(?)

According to Maori belief the ancestral ghosts confined

their attentions to the tribe to which they belonged, inflicting or curing disease in their living relatives, or in other ways exerting their powers for good or evil among them. The kehua of a dead person is known by the name of such a person. The most malignant of the kehua were the souls of still-born children and the paheke spirits, which form a special class of evil beings called kahukahu. Ancestral ghosts are the tribal and family atua or gods, as distinguished from the national gods, such as Rangi, Tu, Tangaroa, &c. The question then arises, why do the tribal atua or ancestral ghosts inflict disease on their living relatives? And the answer briefly is, because of neglect on the part of the living to pay proper respect to their dead. In other words, the atua inflict disease because the living relative has broken a religious commandment, or tapu, and thus insulted some ancestral spirit. Then, again, Maori sorcerers often had certain kehua or atua at their command, and by suitable incantations, such as the mata-tawhito, they could collect these good genii round them to keep off evil spirits; but, on the other hand, they were able, by means of other karakia, to send these ghosts on disease-inflicting errands among other members of the tribe. Evilly disposed persons would sometimes invoke an ancestral ghost (kehua, or atua) to slay people of the world of life without just cause. In one case of this kind the ghost was armed with a taiaha by the invoker and instigator, and was seen bearing the taiaha (weapon of war) and searching for some one to slay. One valiant person challenged it, axe in hand; the ghost fled to the burial-ground and disappeared into a grave.

In some cases the wairua of the dead were invoked by means of karakia, in order that they might avenge a murdered person. For this purpose the body of the murdered person is laid on the sacred place (tuahu) of the tribe, and the priests invoke the aid of the kehua of the deceased, who, having given some sign of his presence, receives instructions as to whose death is desired. Then the body is buried, and ere long his murderers take sick and die.

Should a person desecrate a sacred place of the tribe, such as the tuahu or ahi taitai, he will certainly be afflicted by the ancestral ghosts (atua) in a most grievous manner. Of if he desecrate a tree which has been tapued by the tohunga, and thus set apart for some special purpose, such as bird-snaring, he will be assailed by the familiar spirits of the priest, and, although he may not die at once, yet he will gradually succumb. It is not an uncommon practice to make a person offend against some law of tapu without his being aware of it, with the express object of causing the anger of the atua to fall on him. This practice is a class of witchcraft (makutu). If the body of a relative, or any person of the same tribe, is

eaten, then the ghost of the same would inflict sickness and death on the eaters of his body. It is safe to eat the body of a person belonging to another tribe, because, as I have already pointed out, the ghost or atua of such a person cannot inflict disease on those not related to him. It is interesting to note that the atua are not supposed to inflict disease always on the person who breaks the tapu, but, as Shortland says, more generally on the sacred person himself whose duty it was to guard himself from such an indignity. This refers especially to the tapu law, which prevents a common person eating food which has touched the person or clothes of a priest or chief.

A person knows when a ghost has entered his body by the creeping sensation felt in the flesh of the arms or other parts of the body at the moment the atua enters. This symptom is termed papakikokiko.

Diseases attributed to kehua have applied to them the generic term mate kikokiko, and the ancestral ghosts who cause such diseases are called kehua, wairua, atua kahukahu, kikokiko, or atua kikokiko, and as a class are designated atua poke, or malignant spirits. Of these, the most utterly poke were the kahukahu, a term applied to ancestral ghosts, but perhaps more commonly restricted to menstrual germs which have become malignant spirits, and to the ghosts of prematurely- and still-born children, the most dreaded of all disease-germs.

Atua poke were liable to visit their victims at midnight, and set up painful bowel complaints, fever, insanity, and numerous other painful and fatal diseases, often of a lingering character, and resulting in great wasting of the body. As already pointed out, a near relative was often the subject of their wrath. The ancestral ghosts of Australian blacks gave disease by such simple means as the thrusting of twigs and small pieces of wood into the eye or the ear; or, creeping up to the victim, would extract his kidney-fat; or would kill him by inflicting blows on the back of the neck with an invisible club. “It was by no means an unusual thing for Morioris to affirm that they had been visited by the kikokiko, in which case, at the slightest approach of sickness, they would resign themselves to death, and that would be the invariable result.”

The question next arises, why did ancestral ghosts wander about as malignant spirits? Had the Maoris no means of “laying” the ghosts? It is well known that the ancient Greeks resorted to all manner of religious rites and festivals of the dead to prevent the “destructive ones” from returning to earth and causing illness and death. The Melanesians make offerings of food to the duka; the Samoans offer libations of kava to keep the ghosts friendly, and in times of war kinswomen of the dead visited the theatre of death carrying

mats. The place of death was earnestly sought out; the mat was spread upon the ground, and the women sat about and watched it. If any living thing alighted it was twice brushed away; upon the third coming it was known to be the spirit of the dead, was folded in, carried home and buried beside the body, and the ghost rested. But for this the spirit would wander about and be unable to gain an entrance to the proper country of the dead. Australian natives resort to many ingenious practices to prevent the ghost from leaving the grave after burial. They sometimes remove the finger-nails of the deceased so that the spirit may be unable to scrape a hole in the earth and thus escape; or, to gain the same end, they tie the fingers tightly together with cords, or the finger-tips are burned. In Thibet they pierce the soles of the feet and also the heart of the deceased, thinking that, being nailed into their tomb, the spirit cannot possibly leave it. Hunt, writing of the Moriori, says, “The everlasting kikokiko was a terrible bugbear to old and young; they had a firm belief that a person visited by an ancestral ghost, and touched on the head, would die very soon after such visitation. To prevent the dead from troubling them they had a very curious custom.” When a person died they would all assemble at midnight in some solitary, secluded spot and proceed to “lay” the ghost. “First, kindling a large fire, they would sit round in a circle, each person holding a long rod in his hand; to the end of each rod a tuft of spear-grass was tied; they would then sway their bodies to and fro, waving the rods over the fire in every direction, jabbering away strange and unintelligible incantations.”

The methods adopted by the Maoris to “lay” the ghosts of the dead varied in different tribes, according to the local theories regarding the soul's destiny after death. Maori philosophers were divided in their beliefs as to the destiny of the soul after death. Some held that the soul remains on earth; others that it descended to Hades (Te Po); while a third school believed that the human spirit finally ascended to the blissful heavens of Rangi.^* Thus many of the Taranaki natives had no faith either in the ascending or descending of spirits: they thought that the dead always remained near their bodies; that the wahi tapu, which are generally small groves adjoining their pas, in which they were interred, were also filled with their spirits; but if a person died a violent death, he wandered about until the priest, by his incantations, brought his spirit within the sacred enclosure. An old philosopher of the Tuhoe tribes, one of the Hades school of thought, thus addressed Mr. Elsdon Best: “Son, our ancestors

never taught us that Rangi, our parent, issued a command or law that his descendants [man] should ascend to him at death. The word of Rangi to Papa [the Earth Mother] was this: ‘Our grandchildren, foster them; conceal them, let them be hidden in the deep darkness in the bowels of the earth.’” In other tribes, however, it was held that the souls of chiefs and tohungas, at least, ascended to heaven (Rangi). And at death karakia^* were addressed to Tawhaki “so that the spirit of the deceased might ascend to heaven, Tawhaki's abode.”^† The officiating priest, while repeating his “ghost-laying” invocations, held a staff, the end of which he placed on the heart of the deceased.

The prophylactic measures adopted by the Taranaki natives naturally consisted in burial rites and ceremonies for the purpose of inducing the spirits of the dead to enter the sacred grove, and, being safely deposited there, to prevent their escape. Thus, when a chief was killed in battle and eaten, his spirit was supposed to enter the stones of the oven, which retained their heat so long as it remained in them. His friends repeated their most potent incantations to draw out his spirit from the stones and induce it to enter the sacred grove (wahi tapu). So, also, when any were slain in battle, the friends endeavoured to procure some of their blood, or fragments of their garments if the body could not be, obtained, over which they uttered karakia, and thus brought the wandering soul within this spiritual fold. These places were looked upon with much fear, as the atua are thought occasionally to wander from them, and cause all the sickness their relatives suffer. In them the tuahu, or native altar, the toko and the pataka, or stage of offerings to the atua, were placed: it was thought to be extremely dangerous for the living to enter them or the tapu houses where the dead were buried. Thus we-have here a cult of the grove, or cult of the grave, and a care of the dead as a protective measure against sickness and death.

Those who believed that the soul went at death to the dark underworld, to Te Po, Te Reinga, Paerau, or Hades, did not neglect the necessary ceremonies to induce or to enable the wairua of the dead to gain admission to that abode of the dead. These rites and incantations were called tuitupapau, and by observing them the ghost was effectually “laid,” but if neglected it became an atua kikokiko and a source of danger to the surviving relatives. The god Tiki, creator of man, guards the portals of Hades; he sits at the threshold of his long reed house in Te Po, and forbids the ghosts of the

others declare that the hau and wairua of a child are implanted during coition, by the father, the mother being merely a receptacle (whare moenga). When this soul, whatever, its origin may be, is prematurely liberated from its whare moenga it becomes a kahukahu.

The idea of woman being the repository of potential atua poke, and the menstruating female as a liberator of malignant kahukahu, led to the imposition of certain restrictions on women, and to their segregation during the menstrual period.(?) Thus, “a Maori woman may not step over a male child, or it will be stunted in growth; nor may she step over a man, should he be lying in the way, though in the latter case it would be merely looked upon as an act of impertinence.” Then, again, should a person inadvertently seat himself on a place used by women as a seat or sleeping place, he will lose his acuteness of vision as a seer of the supernatural. Should a warrior or seer lie down in the women's portion of a house he will become kahupotia, or afflicted by tu-matarehurehu; his sight will become dim, his pluck decrease; he will not be able to distinguish an enemy or see the atua. To avert this calamity he must perform the whakaepa rite, that the mind and the eyes may be clear.

During menstruation the woman is tapu and is avoided by others. She uses a diaper, or some special form of apron, called marototo, remu, korea, whakatahe, angiangi, or kahukahu,^* within which the infant sprite is supposed to remain, for a time at least, and which was usually placed, after use, amongst the reeds or rushes forming the wall of the whare. Here these atua dwelt, and were sometimes called atua noho-whare, or house-dwelling demons. In some localities it was customary to bury the menstruous diapers “in a proper manner and with appropriate ceremony, that the kahukahu may be laid or rendered powerless to assail those who dwell in the living world. This is done by the all-necessary tohunga, who, having cooked some food in a sacred umu (earth oven), proceeds to offer it to the gods, and then by means of karakia (incantations) he renders harmless the evil spirit or germ.” The spirit of a kahukahu, according to Tuhoe belief, “will sometimes enter a fish, or a moth, or a pig, according to where the whakatahe is thrown (the safest plan is to bury it deeply). If left on the surface of the ground it may be eaten by a pig, or a moth may fly over it, and then that pig or moth would be entered by the spirit of the kahu and so become a malignant demon, an atua ngau tangata, a demon to assail man. If thrown into water and found by a fish, that fish will become an atua, a demon possessing

grievous powers. In this (Tuhoe) district a fœtus was buried under the perch of a tame kaka bird, and the spirit or cacodemon of the same entered the bird, and worked much harm to man. And should a person dream that he saw the bird with its feathers ruffled, or upstanding (e whakakenakena ana), that was a good sign—the sick person would recover. But should the bird be seen (in a dream) to wriggle about (a, kia mohimohi ranei nga huruhuru), that was a bad omen for the invalid. Affections of the eye and other ills are said to have been caused by that bird.”

Mere contact with paheke blood was sure to infect a person and to result in the victim becoming possessed by an atuakahu.(?) Breaking the tapu also provoked the atua of the family to anger, and led them to punish the offender by sending infant sprites to feed on a part of his body, more or less vital, according to the magnitude of his crime. Infant ghosts, it seems, are generally selected as the agents of the vengeance of the family atua (i.e., deified ancestral spirits), on account of their love of mischief, and because, not having lived long enough on earth to acquire attachments to their living relatives, they are most likely to attack them without mercy. The atua or ancestral ghosts were the only sort of divinities supposed to take an interest in human affairs, and were very jealous of any neglect of the duties enjoined by their religion. Their instruments of punishment, the kahukahu, were greatly dreaded, in proof of which the following lines may be cited:—

Ko te kahukahu piri-tara-whare.
Kei te whakaheke au i aku toto,
Wai tuhi-rae no nga tohunga.
Nana ka ngau kino, ka mate rawa.

which may be translated thus:—

It is the kahukahu sticking fast in the wall of the house.
I am making my blood run down,
Instead of water, to smear the brow of the sorcerer.
Should he (the atuakahu) gnaw spitefully, it will be certain death.

In the event of a person being afflicted by a kahukahu, he may be cured by the first-born (ariki) of the family, who accomplishes this by biting the part affected. Or, by means of the hirihri rite, the priest may ascertain that a certain woman is the cause of the trouble. He then questions her: “Is there nothing that you know of?” She will reply, “I had a clot of blood, and threw it into the water.” Enough! The priestly seer goes off to search for the plant or moss termed keketuwai, to be used as an ara atua (a path for the god) by which to expel the demon. He places the weed on the afflicted one, and recites this karakia:—

Tenei to ara
Haere ki ou tupuna
Haere ki ou matua
Haere ki ou koroua
Haere ki nga mana o ou tupuna.

Water-weeds, such as the above, were often used as ara atua, by which route the afflicting demon would be forced to depart. The weed or leaf used would then be deposited in the sacred place of the village.

The following is another form of takutaku:—

Hurahia ko te tutu
Hurahia ko nga atua
Ma wai e huaki?
Maku e huaki
Ka matika, ka haere
Tau tika, tau tonu
Te roua atu, kapea mai
Roua ki whiti, roua ki tonga
Hamama tu te waha o nga atua
I titaha te taha o te rangi
E oho nga atua whiu
E oho nga atua ta
E oho i te rawa i pakina at koe.

This calls upon the gods or spirits afflicting the person to give some sign of their presence when the particular cause of the attack is pronounced. The tohunga then goes on to mention various tapu, objects, and when the patient sneezes, or yawns, or gasps, the object then being spoken of was the cause of his illness. The medicine-man, having thus diagnosed the nature of the complaint, then proceeds—

Haere i te pu
Haere i te more
Haere i te weu
Haere koutou e patu nei
Haere i tua, haere i waho

Or, if it is an atua kahu, then he inserts,—

Atua kahukahu
Haere i a moana nui, &c.

The tohunga will also proceed to the place where the fœtus was buried and there kindle a fire, over which he will repeat an incantation in order to lay the evil spirit and to render it harmless. He will also cook some food, usually a kumara, or sweet-potato, at that fire. This he proceeds to eat, and thus the evil spirit is tamaoatia, or polluted, rendered harmless. This rite is nowadays termed whakawhetai by the Tuhoe people—a modern, introduced expression.

The above rite was often performed over the fœtus as soon as it was buried, in order that the evil spirit might be rendered impotent, otherwise it might turn on the relatives of the woman and afflict them sorely.

on a man's dream-spirit or soul and bound it to a tree. The priest takes a fish or pig to the sacred place and offers it, saying, “This is for you to eat in place of that man; don't kill him”; and he is then able to loose and take back the sick man's soul so that he may recover. At Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, it was the custom formerly when a person was very ill to send for a medicine-man whose employment was “to restore souls to forsaken bodies.” The soul doctor and about twenty assistants would repair to the family burial-ground. The male assistants then played nasal flutes, while the women assisted by a low whistling supposed to be irresistibly attractive to truant souls. The soul was then conducted back to the village amidst great rejoicing, and was ordered in loud tones to re-enter the body of the sick man. So also among the tribes of the Lower Congo we find the same peculiar belief that in cases of chronic illness the spirit (moyo) of the sick man is supposed to have left his body and is wandering at large, and the aid of the charm-doctor is called in to capture the wandering spirit and bring it back to the body of the invalid. In Fiji a sick native has been seen lying on his back bawling for his soul (New Zealand, wairua) to come back; and in another case a native declared that his soul had left him, and he was therefore a dead man. After chatting with his relations, and having a hearty meal, this man who believed himself to be soulless was carefully buried. Thus the conception of disease being due to the absence of the wairua, or dream-ghost, or soul, from the body is commonly held by Polynesians, Melanesians, &c., but it is not often met with in New Zealand. The Maori sorcerer endeavours to take or operate on the hau in order to destroy the wairua or astral body. It is true that in the rua torino and rua-iti ceremonies the wairua is destroyed, and with it, of course, the earthly body wherever it may be. And the high priests of old frequently used an incantation called haruru in order to destroy the wairua, and thus set up a fatal illness in the material body. Generally speaking, however, the Maori did not attribute disease to the absence of the wairua, and the machinations of the sorcerer were directed against the hau, not the wairua.

The wairua is supposed to be able to see and hear, and leaves the material body during sleep, but apparently not when the person is awake, as in Polynesia it wanders forth as a spy to find out if any sorcerer is trying to bewitch its owner, and returns to warn its physical basis, and hau or life-essence, if the magician is afoot. The wairua is an active defensive astral body; the hau is a passive element which pervades the material body, and when acted on by those who practise makutu causes-illness or death of the victim. Much of Maori magic (makutu)

is based on their conception of the human hau. The hau is a vital essence which cannot, like the wairua, leave its physical basis, the body. Parts, however, may become detached when one walks or sits down, and on this fact is based certain sorceries belonging to the category of sympathetic magic.

This sympathetic magic, which is so commonly practised by the tohunga makutu of New Zealand, worked on the supposed vital connection between the object (ohonga) and the subject (human hau). The victim is supposed to be in sympathy with the bait (ohonga), and sickens and dies as it burns, melts, or rots. The first essential, then, in practising this form of makutu is the ohonga or bait, which is the ahua or representation of the hau. The bait, as already stated, must be some object which has touched the person to be bewitched, such as a drop of spittle, some hair, paring of finger-nail, shred of clothing, remnant of food, some earth on which the victim has sat or walked, or even a drop of blood, as in the classic case of Maui. Having obtained the material medium, it is converted into an ohonga, when the appropriate incantation is repeated over it. When this ohonga is obtained the sorcerer ties it to a piece of the karamuramu (shrub used in mystic rites). He then carries it to the sacred grove or village altar and invokes his own or the tribal atua. The cryptic karakia repeated over the bait makes the victim sicken and die. When taking the bait from the person a karakia suited to the occasion must be repeated. The bait, says Best, is the passive agent; the incantation which destroys the hau, and through it the physical body, is the active agent. In Melanesia and some parts of Polynesia, however, it would seem that the bait is an active agent, for as the bait melts or rots or burns so does the victim become feverish or ill. When no incantation is employed, as in some instances in certain Australian tribes, then the bait becomes the active agent of sympathetic destruction.

Sympathetic magic was practised by the great Maori gods For instance, Hine-nui-te-po destroyed Maui by this kind of sorcery. The bait used was a drop of Maui's blood. Hine sent in succession the butterfly (kahukura), the mosquito (waeroa), the midge (tuiau), and the sandfly (namu) to secure for her the necessary ohonga, and the last succeeded in obtaining it after the others had failed.

A favourite bait was saliva, because there was not generally much difficulty in obtaining it. The Urewera, famed all over New Zealand for their skill in makutu practices, often used spittle as a bait. For this reason, people are careful not to spit when in company with members of this tribe. So great was the dread of sorcery in the Sandwich Islands that the kings used always to have near them spittoon-bearers, and these people

carefully disposed of the spittle, either by secretly burying it or throwing it into the sea. Remnants of a repast were also used as a bait, and after having spells pronounced over it was buried. Food could also be bewitched during a meal by merely quietly repeating a charm as the victim ate. Or the food could be bewitched beforehand by means of karakia. He who ate such food which had been rendered tapu would be punished by atua with sickness. Such cases are not, however, instances of sympathetic magic. A man's clothing is permeated with his hau and makes an excellent bait; so also, but to a lesser extent, is the earth which bears a foot-print, and a seat on which one has been sitting. If suspicious of the hau being abstracted for purposes of makutu he will, as he rises, touch the seat with his left hand and scoop up the invisible portion of hau. In the good old days, persons travelling through a hostile country would walk as much as possible in water, so as to avoid the danger of having their manea (hau of the human foot or foot-print) taken. Should a sorcerer chance to come upon your trail and extract your manea from your footsteps, and take that manea to his abode and suspend it on the whata puaroa (place used as an altar), and then when the sacred mara tautane (ground in which is grown kumara for the gods) is being cultivated he bury the manea in that place, together with some of the seed kumara, then you will surely die.

Makutu was resorted to often for the purpose of avenging some insult, or to punish a thief or other evildoer. “A respectable tohunga, or priest,” says Gudgeon, “of any standing in this profession would as a rule disdain to use his powers against a common man who might affront him, unless indeed the insult were very glaring, in which case discipline had to be maintained. “But,” he adds, “there were tohungas and tohungas: all of them were not respectable.” If a person offended another he could secure a sorcerer to bewitch his enemy to death on making a suitable payment. In a case of theft it was not always necessary to consult a tohunga. The person who was robbed might take a twig of a tree, and, going to a pool of water, invoke his special atua until the wairua of the thief appears. If the wairua appeared the thief would surely die. Or the person robbed might take to the tohunga the hau of the place from which the article had been taken. His hau would probably be a portion of earth on which the article had been laid. As the person approached the tohunga, the latter would see the ghost of the thief advancing by the side of the bearer of the hau. He would then call upon the spirit of the thief to confess. If he did so he was allowed to live. But should he deny the theft, then his wairua would be slain by the awful arts of the priest.

Riki Tatahunga, better known as “King Dick,” died recently at Tauranga. Riki had been ailing for some time, and his illness was ascribed to witchcraft, brought on because he appeared as advocate against his own tribe in a Land Court case. As soon as the tohunga had diagnosed the case as being caused by makutu or sorcery no hopes were held out for his recovery, and death soon ensued.

By means of makutu a person could be made to offend against some law of tapu without his being aware of it, and in such case illness or death was sent by atua who had been insulted. And it has often happened that an innocent person has been sacrificed to the rage of the relatives of a sick man, under the belief that he had caused the disease by unlawful means. For instance, a few months ago a Maori named Hirawa Moananui became ill, and a relative named Tera te Teira accused Haora Tareranui of bewitching him so as to cause his death. It is alleged that he threatened that if Moananui died he would shoot Haora. Had Tareranui not been protected by the police he very likely would have lost his life.

This makutu business was the dangerous part of a tohunga's profession, for it was by no means an uncommon thing for a man who believed himself bewitched to load his gun and anticipate matters by shooting the wizard. “I have known one or two cases of this kind,” says Gudgeon, “and one in which an old man, having threatened to bewitch his daughter-in-law because she refused to allow him to take charge of his grandson, was deliberately, and with the consent of the tribe, doomed to death and shot by his own son. Makutu is a two-edged sword.” In the year 1844 a slave and his wife were killed at Hokianga for the supposed crime of witchcraft. “Even in these days,” writes a colonist in 1861, “the lives of nearest relatives are sometimes sacrificed to the still strong belief in these Satanic rites, and for the supposed crime of witchcraft murder is still perpetrated.” In modern days the gun is the favourite means of protection against sorcery. In olden times if a Maori was guilty of the crime of killing, or attempting to kill, by means of makutu<