“They are much feared, and have little connection with the neighboring tribes, who avoid them, if possible. If they come to the coast, the natives there scarcely venture to refuse them anything, for fear of incurring their displeasure. They are said to use the saliva of the people whom they intend to bewitch, and visitors carefully conceal it, to give them no opportunity of working them evil. Like our witches and sorcerers of old, they appear to be a very harmless people, and but little mixed up with the quarrels of their neighbors.
“It is a curious fact that many of the old settlers in the country have become complete converts to the belief in these supernatural powers. Witchcraft has been the cause of many murders: a few days before I arrived at Aotea, on the western coast, three had been committed, in consequence of people declaring on their deathbeds that they had been bewitched....
“It is another curious fact, which has been noticed in Tahiti, Hawaii, and the islands inhabited by the great Polynesian race, that their first intercourse with Europeans produces civil wars and social degradation, but that a change of ideas is quickly introduced, and that the most ancient and deeply-rooted prejudices soon become a subject of ridicule to the natives, and are abolished at once. The grey priest, or tohunga, deeply versed in all the mysteries of witchcraft and native medical treatment, gives way in his attendance on the sick to every European who pretends to a knowledge of the science of surgery or medicine, and derides the former credulity of his patient.
“If a chief or his wife fall sick, the most influential tohunga, or a woman who has the odor of sanctity, attends, and continues day and night with the patient, sometimes repeating incantations over him, and sometimes sitting before the house and praying. The following is an incantation which is said by the priest as a cure for headache. He pulls out two stalks of the Pteris esculenta, from which the fibres of the root must be removed, and, beating them together over the head of the patient, says this chant.”—The chant in question is as unintelligible as those which have already been mentioned. Its title is “A prayer for the dead (i. e. the sick man) when his head aches: to Atua this prayer is prayed, that he, the sick man, may become well.”
When a chief is ill, his relations assemble near the house and all weep bitterly, the patient taking his part in the general sorrowing; and when all the weeping and mourning has been got out of one village, the patient is often carried to another, where the whole business is gone over again. Should the sick person be of an inferior class, he goes off to the bush, and remains there until he is well again, choosing the neighborhood of a hot spring if he can find one, or, if no such spring is at hand, infusing certain herbs in boiling water and inhaling the steam.
As may be imagined from the practice which they have in cutting up the dead for their cannibal feasts, the Maories are good practical anatomists, and know well the position of all the principal organs and vessels of the body. Consequently, they can operate in cases of danger, using sharp-edged shells if they have no knives. They can also set broken limbs well, bringing the broken surfaces together, binding the limb with splints, laying it on a soft pillow, and surrounding it with a wickerwork contrivance in order to guard it against injury.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
NEW ZEALAND—Continued.
THE TAPU.
THE TAPU, OR LAW OF PROHIBITION — TAPU A SUBSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT — PROTECTION TO PROPERTY AND MORALS — ABUSE OF THE TAPU — THE CHIEF AND THE SAILOR — THE CHIEF AND HIS MAT — A VALUABLE SPLINTER — THE HEAD OF THE CHIEF — AN UNLUCKY MISTAKE — HOW TAONUI GOT HIS ARMOR — HAIR CUTTING — TROUBLES OF AN ARTIST — THE CARVED HEAD — TE-WHERO-WHERO AND HIS PORTRAIT — THE TAPU MOUNTAIN — BANEFUL EFFECTS OF THE TAPU ON NATIVE ART — DESTRUCTION OF THE PAHS AND HOUSES — THE TERMINABLE TAPU — THE BATTLE-TAPU — TAKING OFF THE TAPU — DUTY OF THE TOHUNGA — THE TAPU THE STRENGTH OF THE CHIEFS.
We now come naturally to the custom of Tapu or Taboo, that extraordinary system which extends throughout the whole of Polynesia, modified slightly according to the locality in which it exists.
The general bearings of the law of tapu may be inferred from the sense of the word, which signifies prohibition. The system of tapu is therefore a law of prohibition, and, when stripped of the extravagances into which it often deteriorates, it is seen to be a very excellent system, and one that answers the purpose of a more elaborate code of laws. In countries where an organized government is employed the tapu is needless, and we find that even in those parts of the earth where it was once the only restrictive law it has fallen into disuse since regular government has been introduced.