Goldie. — Maori Medical Lore. 19 



report is heard, and the atua is seen to dart away like a shoot- 

 ing-star, leaving the miserable spectator paralysed with fear. 



Ngarara is the name of a lizard god, and is also the name 

 of the disease supposed to be produced by this demon. 



In New Caledonia, when a child tries to kill a lizard, the 

 men warn him to " beware of killing his own ancestor." 



Kikokiko (Ghost Souls). 



There are two supernatural forces to which the Maori 

 -attributes most cases of sickness, especially internal or ob- 

 scure cases, and these influences are — first, the presence of 

 an ancestral ghost or kehua, and, second, the occult powers 

 of the sorcerer or tohunga. The wandering spirits of the 

 ■dead cause most diseases. 



When a Maori dies, the ivairua, or dream-ghost, or soul, 

 which during life could leave the body and wander at large 

 when its owner slept, becomes a kehua. " Kehua," says 

 Best, " are the spirits of the dead which revisit their former 

 haunts of this world and make things unpleasant for the 

 living. Kehua appear to return to earth generally during the 

 night-time — they dread sunlight and the light of fires. Some 

 say the ivairua, or ghost of a dead person, remains here as a 

 kehua or atua whakahaehae until the body is buried ; it then 

 descends to Hades." 



Kehua are said by some to be invisible, and capable of 

 acting benevolently or in a hostile manner upon men. Thev 

 can communicate with mortals ; they eat and drink, wander 

 about the village ; they can see and hear what is going on 

 about them. In fact, these disembodied spirits retain many 

 of the characteristics of their living fellow-men. 



Ghosts of the dead are invisible except to people who 

 are asleep, or to priests in a state of trance. Tohungas, who 

 possess clairvoyant powers {matakite or mat Uuhi), sometimes 

 saw a whole host of ghosts of the dead (kehua) traversing 

 space. Such a company was termed a tira maka or kahui 

 atua, and the object of their visiting this world was to 

 acquaint living persons with the fact that some disaster or 

 death was imminent. Tohungas would drive them away to 

 avert the evil. It was a common thing for spirits of the 

 dead to appear to their living relatives in order to warn them 

 of evil. Should a person dream that he is chased by the 

 ghost of a dead person, and the kehua from the Po (Hades) 

 catches him, that is an evil omen ; he may soon take ill and 

 die. When a kehua appears to the ivairua (dream-ghost) of a 

 living person it is anthropomorphic, but when it appears at 

 the request of its medium — say, at a spiritualistic seance — it 

 assumes the form of a spider or lizard, &c. It can also make 

 its appearance as a shadow of a sun-ray. Ghosts of the dead 



