20 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



were said to have returned to this world in the form of butter- 

 flies. In Samoa they are said to return in the form of moths. 

 The Maori ghost, like the Australian, often revisits the spot 

 where his bones are deposited. " Sometimes," said Beviuk, 

 a New South Wales black, " the murup comes back to this 

 world and looks down into his grave, and may say, ' Hallo, 

 there is my old 'possum rug ; there are my old bones.' If 

 a Maori trespassed on a burial-ground the ghosts of those 

 interred there would punish him with disease, and perhaps 

 death. Their presence is said to be made known generally 

 by a whistling sound. A breath of warm air felt while travel- 

 ling at night is a sign of the near presence of a kehua. Iri- 

 rangi is the term applied to a spirit-voice heard singing 

 without, when at night the people are within their houses : 

 it is an omen of evil import. Shortland says the voice of 

 ancestral ghosts is not like that of mortals, but a kind of 

 sound — half whistle, half whisper. He had a conference with 

 the ghosts of two chiefs who had been several years dead. 

 and was assured that such was always the peculiar voice 

 of atua when they talk with man. Other Europeans have 

 had similar intercourse with Maori ghosts, and one need 

 hardly explain that the mysterious voice was in every case 

 the ventriloquistic utterance of the spirit's medium. I have 

 already pointed out that the kehua become hungry like ordi- 

 nary mortals, and Taylor states that they were thought to 

 feed on flies and filth ; but they also had the spirit of the 

 Jcumara and taro (?) . 



When a Maori dies his wairua (soul) leaves the body, and 

 either remains near the corpse or goes away to the lower 

 world. In either case it can return, and, re-entering the 

 corpse, bring it to life again. If the kehua goes to the nether 

 regions it may be sent back to this world by its relatives, for 

 the purpose of caring for its children who have been left with- 

 out a guardian owing to the parents' death, but no soul can 

 return to earth if in Hades it eats of the food of the denizens 

 of that region. 



The tohungas have elaborate ceremonies by means of 

 which they restore the soul to a person just dead, but the 

 feat is rarely performed, because the necessary astrological 

 juxtapositions are rare favourable. The ancient Greeks 

 offered the ghost fresh blood, that it might for a time be 

 called back into life and answer questions — a conception 

 which gave birth to the practice of raising the dead and 

 asking oracles of them. By performing the hirihiri divination 

 rite over a corpse the Maoris were enabled to consult the 

 kehua or wairua of the dead person, and gain information 

 as to the cause of its death. I have alreadv referred to the 

 hosts of ancestral ghosts sometimes seen by the matakite or 



