Best. — -Maori Eschatology. 167 



the chieftain class, the corpse is decorated in various ways, and 

 his Aveapons are suspended near his body, or laid by the side 

 thereof. It is, in fact, a lying in state. 



To describe this lying in state a Native will say, " Such 

 a person is lying on the atamira" or " The corpse is lying on the 

 atamira." the Maori dictionaries give this word as meaning 

 " a low stage on which a dead person is laid out, one end being 

 elevated for the head." HoAvever, it is now merely a figurative 

 expression, no stage being used, but only mats. In former times 

 the bodies of members of the rangatira or chieftain class were 

 covered with fine ornamented cloaks. The hair was dressed 

 carefully, and prized plumes were placed therein. The gar- 

 ments, &c, actually lying on the body, or in which it was 

 wrapped, were buried with it. Those cloaks or weapons hung 

 near the corpse were not so buried. 



At the present time a corpse is either laid out straight, or is 

 propped up by and leans against a supporting structure. 



If at death it was noticed, in former times, that one or 

 more fingers of the dead person were extended, that was taken 

 ■as a sign that a like number of his relatives would die ere long. 



The mats on which a person lies at death are burned. If he 

 dies in a hut it must be burned, or deserted as tapu. These pre- 

 cautions are taken in order to prevent the spirit of the dead 

 from returning to trouble the living. 



In addition to his weapons, fine garments, &c, exhibited on 

 a person's bier as a sign of his chieftainship, it was also a custom 

 of yore to so display any prized heirloom or treasure of the tribe 

 Avith a similar Adew. But the defunct one must have been a 

 person of importance in the tribe to allow of such a procedure, 

 for many of such ancestral treasures Avere looked upon as being 

 sacred. Any person so depositing a prized family heirloom on 

 the bier for the period of the lying in state paid a great token 

 of respect to the dead. 



When a person was lying in death in former times, should 

 he fancy that he had been bewitched, and so done to death, one 

 Avould take a fernstalk in his hand and strike the body with, it, 

 saying at the same time, " Ami to rakau ; anei to rakau hai 

 ranaki [rangaki] i to ■mate''' ("Here is your AA r eapon ; here is 

 your weapon AA'herewith to avenge your death"). This act Avas 

 to incite the wairua (spirit) of the dead person to turn upon the 

 bewitchers and destroy them. (E ivhakatara ana tena i te 

 wairua o te tupapaku kia haututu, kia tahuri ki nga tangata nana 

 i raiveke.) 



In Major Heaphy's account of the Natives of Port Nicholson 

 as noted in 1839 he speaks of the fight near Wai-kanae knoAvn as 

 "Te Kuititanga." "We entered the pa [fort] about three hours 



