4 Transact i (j us. — Miscellaneous. 



have the continual benefit of the lamentations of the women. 

 When a person is ill and the tohunga sees that the cause of 

 his illness is iocated where he is residing, he tells him to go- 

 away to another place, and there live for a year or two : the 

 trouble will not assail him there. This treatment, which is 

 termed whakahehe, is suitable for illness due to atua or ma- 

 kutu (i.e., demons or sorcery). 



Sickness made a person tapu because of the atua or 

 demon, nijarara or lizard, kikokiko or ancestral ghost, enter- 

 ing into the body of the afflicted. The sick were removed 

 from their own houses, and had huts built for them in the 

 bush, at a considerable distance from the pa or village, where 

 they lived apart ; if any remained in their houses and died 

 there the buildings became tapu, were painted with red 

 ochre, ami could not again be used, which put the tribe to 

 a great inconvenience, as some houses were the common 

 abode of perhaps thirty or forty different people. In some 

 cases, when the tohunga has divined that the disease is the 

 result of an infringement of the tapu, and the patient is 

 being punished by the gods for his wickedness, he banishes 

 the victim, who takes up his abode perhaps in some miserable 

 hut that cannot protect him from the evening breeze, much 

 less keep out the dew and rain. Here lie lies unattended, no 

 person being permitted to hold further communication with 

 him or to supply him with food. In some cases the sick 

 person is compelled to lie out-of-doors on the ground, either 

 without any covering or within a roughly prepared hut. At 

 the present time a tent is often used, and some person re- 

 mains in attendance on the invalid, but the attendance is of 

 the poorest kind. Among the Tuhoe natives it is seldom, 

 says Mr. Best, that one can detect any sign of affection for 

 or loving care of a sick person, except sometimes in the case 

 of children. No attempt is made to provide the sick with 

 comforts of any kind. " I have often," he adds, " prepared 

 food for sick people here, but find it necessary to take the 

 food myself and watch the invalid eat it, otherwise he would 

 see but little of it.'' Dieffenbach observed, however, that 

 the Maoris with whom he came in contact provided the sick 

 with better and more easily digestible food than usual — with 

 cockles, fresh fishes, fish-broth, and game. The root or 

 rhizome oi the edible fern (Pteris esculenta), which is ricn 

 in starch and farinaceous matter, w 7 as also given to the sick. 



The beliefs of the Maori relative to the origin of diseases 

 had a powerful tendency to stifle even feeling of sympathy 

 and compassion, and bo restrain all from the exercise of those 

 acts oi kindness that are so grateful to the afflicted, and 

 afford such alleviation to their sufferings. The attention of 

 the relatives and friends was directed to the offended 



