as a common habit we must turn to Fiji, in the Melanesian area. It is fairly clear that the Maori did not bring this shocking custom in any excessive form with him to New Zealand. Did he borrow it from Maruiwi? Tradition shows that the aborigines were of a lower plane of culture than that on which the Maori stood. The Maori immigrants took large numbers of Maruiwi women, first as gifts, afterwards by force: such a wholesale system of intermarriage must have had some effect on the culture and customs of the intruding people. Knowing as we do the effect of such a crossing of peoples, does it not appear probable that some of the Maruiwi customs were followed by the mixed folk that succeeded them? Was cannibalism as a common custom so acquired by the Maori? The dreadful Maori custom—or, at least, occasional habit—of kai pirau was also a Fijian custom—the exhuming and eating of buried human bodies.