268 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



what she saw. It is no more wonderful than the mango 

 trick of India, and I would suggest the explanation is the 

 same. To my mind it illustrates a phase of hypnotism with 

 which we European people are not yet acquainted — in point 

 of fact, that the operator has the power of hypnotizing large 

 numbers of people at the same time. 



The priesthood was divided into classes, of which I believe 

 there were five, but I have never been able to ascertain 

 definitely what were the particular functions of each. The 

 ariki or first-born son of some exalted line of descent was a 

 priest, besides being the hereditary chief of his clan. He had 

 peculiar powers and duties which none other could perform. 

 It is true that the ariki might not be a man of wisdom or an 

 able leader, but, nevertheless, he did not thereby lose his high 

 position in the tribe, and at certain functions his presence and 

 actual participation in the rites was essential. None other 

 could perform them. It was the same with the first-born 

 daughter of a long line of chiefs, called a tapairu (sometimes a 

 marei-kura). She alone could perform parts of certain cere- 

 monies, and hence was she a priestess. 



In all work connected with constructions in wood, such as 

 houses and canoes, &c., a priest directed the undertaking, from 

 the first felling of the tree, which must be accompanied by 

 karakias to remove the tapu, for trees were the offspring of 

 Tane-mahuta, the god of forests, birds, insects, &c., down to 

 the last part of the decoration. If it were a house, he must 

 by means of his karakias again remove the tapu before the 

 building could be occupied, by use of the kaiva-tvhare, a 

 karakia of which we have many examples, some of them very 

 fine (in the original). I am inclined to think it was a special 

 class of priesthood that undertook the duties connected with 

 woodwork, and this agrees with the customs of Samoa and 

 Tonga, where our word " tohunga" has more the meaning of 

 "artificer" than "priest." 



Tattooing, again, in former days was undertaken by the 

 priest, and, needless to say, was accompanied by many 

 karakias, and also songs. Several specimens of these have 

 also been preserved. When the time came for the tapairu, or 

 eldest daughter of a high chief, to be tattooed, a human victim, 

 chosen from amongst the slaves, was sacrificed. This is one 

 of the few occasions on which such sacrifices took place. The 

 others that I know of were in the launching of a new canoe, 

 in building a new pa or new house, when a slave was buried 

 at the foot of the main palisades, or the pon-toko-manaiva, or 

 main pillar of the house. At the celebrated pa of Tawhiti-nui, 

 near Opotiki, a skeleton was discovered at the base of each 

 main post of the palisades not many years ago, when the pa 

 was demolished. 



