Best. — Maori Forest Lore. 439 



as used by T. R.). Suppose an adept teaches a person certain rites and 

 charms, those pertaining to black magic and to implanting the mauri, and 

 other Native rites, until his pupil becomes proficient. Then the priestly 

 adept will say to his pupil, ' Now test your power.' That is, he would tell 

 him to shatter a stone, or kill a person, or what not, merely by means of a 

 magic charm. Now, if he succeeded in shattering the stone or in killing the 

 person by such means, then he would be able to give effect to all the teach- 

 ings of the priest, all the charms would have their proper effect. But were 

 he unable to so shatter the stone or kill the person, then the charms would 

 never be efficient, but they would turn against him and do him serious 

 harm. In some cases, when the tutor was an old person, near his latter 

 end, he would cause his pupil to test liis newly acquired powers on him — 

 on the priest tutor. If the latter was slain by these spells of magic, then 

 the pupil's powers were tested and proved. Thus the pupil would be a 

 proved wizard and adept, able at any time, should he so desire, to implant 

 a mauri in a forest, or by a stream, or at the pou reinga of an eel-weir. 



" It would not be well for a pupil to keep liis acquired knowledge to 

 himself and not test it. He must prove himself — prove that he has 

 acquired the desired powers — by shattering a stone with a magic charm : 

 then all will be well. Such testing, or disclosing, is meant by the term 

 whal-angawha. 



" Now about the mauri becoming polluted. (T. R. is still speaking.) I 

 said the birds would be taken home and cooked. This would not be for 

 fear the mauri might be polluted were the birds cooked within the forest — 

 not at all. For fowlers would, while taking birds in the forest, cook some 

 as food for themselves. The birds are taken to the village home because 

 the numerous appliances for cooking and preserving them are there. 



" I will now speak of the hau, and the ceremony of ivhangai Jiau. That 

 hau is not the hau (wind) that blows — not at all. I will carefully explain 

 to you. Suppose that you possess a certain article, and you give that 

 article to me, without price. We make no bargain over it. Now, I give 

 that article to a third person, who, after some time has elapsed, decides 

 to make some return for it, and so he makes me a present of some article. 

 Now, that article that he gives to me is the hau of the article I first received 

 from you and then gave to him. The goods that I received for that item 

 I must hand over to you. It would not be right for me to keep such goods 

 for myself, whether they be desirable items or otherwise. I must hand 

 them over to you, because they are a hau of the article you gave me. Were 

 I to keep such equivalent for myself, then some serious evil would befall 

 me, even death. Such is the hau, the hau of personal property, or the forest 

 hau. Enough on these points. 



" I will explain something to you about the forest hau. The mauri 

 was placed or implanted in the forest by the tohunga. It is the mauri 

 that causes birds to be abundant in the forest, that they may be slain and 

 taken by man. These birds are the property of, or belong to, the mauri, 

 the tohunga, and the forest : that is to say, they are an equivalent for that 

 important item, the mauri. Hence it is said that offerings should be made 

 to the hau of the forest. The tohunga (priests, adepts) eat the offering 

 because the mauri is theirs : it was they who located it in the forest, who 

 caused it to be. That is why some of the birds cooked at the sacred fire 

 are set apart to be eaten by the priests only, in order that the hau of the 

 forest-products, and of the mauri, may return again to the forest — that is, 

 to the mauri. Enough of these matters. 



