Goldie. — Maori Medical Lore. 31 



Maori legend abounds with fabulous stores of the magical 

 powers possessed by ancient tohungus ; how Kiki, a celebrated 

 sorcerer of Waikato, was so endued with mana that his shadow 

 withered the grass and shrubs when he travelled abroad ; how 

 Tautohito and Purata, two celebrated wizards, possessed a 

 magical wooden head, and slew hundreds of persons by the 

 power of its enchantments. 



Diseases attributed to Makutu (Sorcery). 



Like all other primitive peoples, the Maori believes implicitly 

 in the potency of the dread incantations and mysterious rites of 

 the sorcerer. By appropriate karakia the ghosts of the dead 

 (kehua) are sent by the tohunga to enter his victim's body and 

 afflict him with disease. Or, without the intervention of any 

 disease demon, by mere repetition of charms and performance 

 of symbolic rites, the occult power, or mana, of the wizard may 

 accomplish the same end. In the latter case the victim is often 

 warned that he is bewitched, and such magical arts prove effec- 

 tive through the patient's own imagination ; when he knows he 

 has been subjected to makutu he will often fall ill, and will 

 actually die unless he can be persuaded that he has been cured. 

 Disease and death by magic may be effected in still another 

 way — by destroying the victim's wairua or dream-ghost ; the 

 ahua or semblance, or its aria or form of incarnation, being 

 acted on by the tohunga in a manner elsewhere described. The 

 hau, or intellectual spirit, also may be destroyed by means of a 

 bait, or ohonga, which, in the form of some hair, spittle, or article 

 of clothing of the intended victim, is supposed to contain the 

 ahua or semblance of that essence, called hau, which pervades 

 and vivifies the body. 



The idea that the sorcerer can capture the wairua (dream - 

 ghost) of an enemy, and by killing it can thus kill his victim, 

 though commonly met with throughout Polynesia, is not often 

 met with in New Zealand.* Thus, in the Sandwich Islands, 

 there was a special class of tohungas called soul-catchers (po'i 

 uhane), and they were not only able to see the souls of living 

 beings, as were the tohunga kilokilo uhane, but could catch them 

 with the hand, and squeeze them to death, or imprison them in 

 a water-calabash. The sorcerer then had the owner of the soul 

 in his power, and could levy blackmail on him as he pleased, for 

 if he killed his kakaola he would go into a decline and soon die. 

 In the Solomon Islands if a child starts in its sleep it is believed 

 that some ghost is snatching away its soul. In New Britain 

 disease is sometimes attributed to a certain atua having seized 



* It was an universal belief among the Maori. — E. B. 



