Goldie. — Maori Medical Lore. 23 



eaten, then the ghost of the same would inflict sickness and 

 death on the eaters of his body. It is safe to eat the body of 

 a person belonging to another tribe, because, as I have already 

 pointed out, the ghost or atua of such a person cannot inflict 

 disease on those not related to him. It is interesting to note 

 that the atua are not supposed to inflict disease always on the 

 person who breaks the tapu, but, as Shortland says, more 

 generally on the sacred person himself whose duty it was to 

 guard himself from such an indignity. This refers especially 

 to the tapu law, which prevents a common person eating food 

 which has touched the person or clothes of a priest or chief. 



A person knows when a ghost has entered his body by the 

 creeping sensation felt in the flesh of the arms or other parts 

 of the body at the moment the atua enters. This symptom is 

 termed papiakikokiko . 



Diseases attributed to kehua have applied to them the 

 generic term mate kikokiko, and the ancestral ghosts who 

 cause such diseases are called kehua, xoairua, atua kahukahu, 

 kikokiko, or atua kikokiko, and as a class are designated atua 

 poke, or malignant spirits. Of these, the most utterly poke 

 were the kahukahu, a term applied to ancestral ghosts, but 

 perhaps more commonly restricted to menstrual germs which 

 have become malignant spirits, and to the ghosts of pre- 

 maturely- and still-born children, the most dreaded of all 

 disease-germs. 



Atua poke were liable to visit their victims at midnight,, 

 and set up painful bowel complaints, fever, insanity, and 

 numerous other painful and fatal diseases, often of a lingering 

 character, and resulting in great wasting of the body. As 

 already pointed out, a near relative was often the subject of 

 their wrath. The ancestral ghosts of Australian blacks gave 

 disease by such simple means as the thrusting of twigs and 

 small pieces of wood into the eye or the ear ; or, creeping up 

 to the victim, would extract his kidney-fat ; or would kill him 

 by inflicting blows on the back of the neck with an invisible 

 club. " It was by no means an unusual thing for Morioris tO' 

 affirm that they had been visited by the kikokiko, in which 

 case, at the slightest approach of sickness, they would resign 

 themselves to death, and that would be the invariable result." 



The question next arises, why did ancestral ghosts wan- 

 der about as malignant spirits? Had the Maoris no means of 

 "laying" the ghosts? It is well known that the ancient 

 Greeks resorted to all manner of religious rites and festivals 

 of the dead to prevent the " destructive ones " from returning 

 to earth and causing illness and death. The Melanesians 

 make offerings of food to the duka ; the Samoans offer 

 libations of kava to keep the ghosts friendly, and in times of 

 war kinswomen of the dead visited the theatre of death carry- 



