32 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



on a man's dream-spirit or soul and bound it to a tree. The 

 priest takes a fish or pig to the sacred place and offers it, saying, 

 " This is for you to eat in place of that man; don't kill him " ; 

 and he is then able to loose and take back the sick man's soul so 

 that he may recover. At Uea, one of the Loyalty Islands, it 

 was the custom formerly when a person was very ill to send for 

 a medicine-man whose employment was " to restore souls to 

 forsaken bodies." The soul doctor and about twenty assistants 

 would repair to the family burial-ground. The male assistants 

 then played nasal flutes, while the women assisted by a low 

 whistling supposed to be irresistibly attractive to truant souls. 

 The soul was then conducted back to the village amidst great 

 rejoicing, and was ordered in loud tones to re-enter the body of 

 the sick man. So also among the tribes of the Low y er Congo we 

 find the same peculiar belief that in cases of chronic illness the 

 spirit (moyo) of the sick man is supposed to have left his body 

 and is wandering at large, and the aid of the charm-doctor is 

 called in to capture the wandering spirit and bring it back to 

 the body of the invalid. In Fiji a sick native has been seen 

 lying on his back bawling for his soul (New Zealand, wairua) to 

 come back ; and in another case a native declared that his soul 

 had left him, and he was therefore a dead man. After chatting 

 with his relations, and having a hearty meal, this man who 

 believed himself to be soulless was carefully buried. Thus the 

 conception of disease being due to the absence of the wairua, or 

 dream-ghost, or soul, from the body is commonly held by Poly- 

 nesians, Melanesians, &c, but it is not often met with in New 

 Zealand. The Maori sorcerer endeavours to take or operate on 

 the hau in order to destroy the wairua or astral body. It is true 

 that in the rua torino and rua-iti ceremonies the wairua is de- 

 stroyed, and with it, of course, the earthly body wherever it 

 may be. And the high priests of old frequently used an incan- 

 tation called harura in order to destroy the wairua, and thus set 

 up a fatal illness in the material body. Generally speaking, 

 however, the Maori did not attribute disease to the absence of 

 the wairua, and the machinations of the sorcerer were directed 

 against the hau, not the wairua. 



The wairua is supposed to be able to see and hear, and leaves- 

 the material body during sleep, but apparently not when the 

 person is awake, as in Polynesia it wanders forth as a spy to 

 find out if any sorcerer is trying to bewitch its owner, and re- 

 turns to warn its physical basis, and hau or life-essence, if the 

 magician is afoot. The wairua is an active defensive astral 

 body ; the hau is a passive element which pervades the material 

 body, and when acted on by those who practise makutu causes 

 illness or death of the victim. Much of Maori magic (makutu) 



