262 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



pupils was supposed to be so powerful that one lesson is 

 said to have sufficed on each subject. I have repeatedly been 

 told that a long karakia would be learnt after once repeating, 

 and learnt perfectly too. Here comes into play the wonderful 

 memories of all savage races. It was considered as a matter 

 of vital importance that the words of the karakia should 

 be I'epeated without the slightest mistake ; the dropping of a 

 word, or the introduction of one not originally there, was fatal 

 to the efficacy of the prayer. The belief of the old-time 

 Maori was that such a mistake, or lieiva, reacted on the reciter 

 himself, and I have been told that in some of the very 

 sacred ones such a mistake would cause the priest's death. 

 Even a deviation in the pattern of the carvings made acci- 

 dentally is said to have caused death. It will be seen from 

 this that many of the karakias must be of immense age, and 

 that it is probable we have at this day many that were in use 

 before the Polynesians entered the Pacific. 



On the conclusion of the teaching a special kind of karakia 

 was repeated by the teacher, called a karakia-pou, the object 

 of which was to indelibly fix in the memory of the pupil the 

 various things he had been taught. There were ordeals also 

 that the pupil had to undergo to prove his proficiency, but 

 of these my informants were chary of telling me. The final 

 one, called wliakangau-paepae was of a nature I can scarcely 

 allude to here. 



But of some of the ordeals connected, I believe, with the 

 education of the young priests a little is known. In men- 

 tioning them they will be given as told to me ; not that I 

 give full credence to the accounts received, but adduce them 

 rather as illustrating the firm belief the Maoris had in them. 

 These ordeals appear to have varied from tribe to tribe, which 

 seems only natural when we come to know that the Maoris 

 did not all migrate to New Zealand at the same time, nor did 

 they come from the same place. With the Arawa Tribe, after 

 the pupil had been duly poua, or had the lessons firmly fixed 

 in his mind, he was taken by the priest to the tuaMi, or altar, 

 generally situated near the village, where a stone was set 

 upright in the ground, though more generally the tuahu was 

 represented by a rough enclosure of poles. Here the pupil, 

 after providing himself with a small flat stone about 1 in. in 

 diameter, was directed to cast it at the tuahu. If the stone 

 broke the teaching was considered not to have been successful, 

 and the pupil was put back until another session. If the 

 stone did not break, then a further trial was made, as follows : 

 The pupil, or tauira (which is the proper Maori name for one 

 under instruction), took a stone in his hand — a hard, smooth, 

 sound stone — and then by the use of a karakia called a hoa 

 he would shiver the stone into fi'agments without injuring his 



