There was nothing for it but to comply. So, whilst our clothes were burning, Puketawa and I stood before him naked and unashamed.
Down to the creek, to the pool beneath the waterfall, the old priest drove us. The stream was full of snow-water from the mountains, and bitterly cold.
“Enter,” he ordered.
“Needs must when the devil drives,” and with a gulp we plunged in and stood shivering up to our necks, while for ten interminable minutes the old fellow chanted prayers and wove his “karakia” (spells) on the bank.
THE AUTHOR’S STORE ON THE BANKS OF THE MANGAPAI RIVER.
From a Photograph.
At last it was over. We climbed out, and the “tohunga” sprinkled each of us, separately and solemnly, with a fern frond dipped in the water of the pool.
“It is enough,” he said. “The ‘tapu’ is lifted,” and walked away.
The humour of the situation appealed to me, and, cold and dripping though I was, I shouted with laughter. And you will admit the thing was fairly humorous. Imagine us, if you can, standing there, stripped of our worldly goods, naked and shivering—Puketawa, a prize convert from a mission station, and I, a Christian—brought to such a pass by miserable heathen wizardry that we had been glad to submit ourselves to the sorceries of the arch-wizard himself to escape the consequences of the spells that had been cast over us!
All the same, the effect of the hanky-panky on Puketawa was truly wonderful. Moribund before the arrival of the “tohunga,” he was a new man after the performance. He laughed with me, his dull eyes again became clear and bright, and he got quite chirpy; while, laugh as you will, even I, who had submitted to go through it only on Puketawa’s account and for the sake of trade, must confess to a sense of spiritual well-being to which I had been a stranger for some days.